Welcome to the job interview experience. If you are ready to ditch your traditional job search and Launch a winning career marketing campaign. Please stay tuned because after working for more than 25 years in sales. Business operations and human resources. Thomas Powner switched careers 13 years ago and founded career thinker. Career thinker has become a boutique company with a recruitment and career services side where they help people just like you prepare for their next career move. The career thinker team offers solutions for creating resumes that bypass hiring ATS technology, which is one of the biggest roadblocks in all of job seeking and also appeal to the human hiring teams leading to interviews. And job offers. Thomas, thanks for being here.
tom-powner_1_04-26-2024_110745Thanks for having me. I'm excited to have this conversation with you and your audience.
matthew_1_04-26-2024_100804when I was wanting to bring you on the show, I saw your background in sales and in my mind. Aspects of sales are so important for a successful job search. connecting your skills and selling them to the company as a solution to their problem. Instead of just pitching what you want out of the whole thing, pitching how you help them. And I was excited to bring that experience you have and how you've brought that into the career world. So can you give us a brief overview of that career? And you worked in a couple different verticals and how that led you to where you are today.
tom-powner_1_04-26-2024_110745The sales part of Who I am, my DNA right now, but my professional DNA started when I was a kid, watching my father in business when I went and worked with him during the summer. And that established a lot of my foundation. So every job I've had, it's been sales, business operations, retail, import, export, wholesale. Sales has always been part of my domain. It's what I'm in charge of. And then the business operations, but when it really came down to it, it was the people I always led large teams anywhere from 30 to 500 people and plus so the people leadership became my 2nd DNA strand that really helped me be successful. I got to a certain point to pass company works for me. I love the company. I'm there for 11 and a half years, making really great money. They love me. I love my clients. I love the teams. I led just a job with literally killing me the pressure, the hours. So it's a yin yang there. And I decided after having some Kidney stone problems. A little personal here. 72 stones in four years and my doctor kept saying it's stress. I never believed them. Finally when I decided to shift my career, do something different and resign from corporate America and go into my own business, I haven't had a stone in 14, almost 14 years. So go figure. Yeah, that was one of the major reasons and then my mom had passed away in that last year in corporate America and that made me reevaluate my life. So sometimes when we make those career decisions it's a lot of different factors behind that sometimes.
matthew_1_04-26-2024_100804You took the leap and it paid off and the doctor was right all
tom-powner_1_04-26-2024_110745Yes yeah, I did take the leap and did something totally different. I always had the idea of career think in my head, and I figured I would do that when I retire as like a side gig. I put that plan into, fast forward 20 years ahead of time.
matthew_1_04-26-2024_100804propose a career marketing campaign. I love that. Can you elaborate on that concepts and provide some actionable tips for job seekers implement that approach,
tom-powner_1_04-26-2024_110745And it is a career marketing campaign. And one of the reasons for that is recruiters don't need to wafer resumes anymore. They could go out and find people. And where they find them is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is nothing like LinkedIn out there. I know companies try to duplicate it, no one has yet. So even our recruiting, we recruit for four companies, two companies don't even post jobs. I haven't posted a job in five years. Find a talent for LinkedIn. So when you put all that into a bubble, it's a career marketing campaign. Because you want to get found. You want people to network on your behalf. You want people to share your documents, your LinkedIn profile. And then you also want to apply for jobs as standard methods haven't gone away. But there's other ways to connect the job. So when you look at that, It's a career marketing campaign. And one of the reasons I really say that now, because when I started doing recruiting and reading resumes and hiring, I've hired my whole career, but I noticed that most resumes are not selling anything. They're not selling the person behind the resume. When I read a resume, especially when I read the bullet points in the career experience, I want to know your accomplishments, your contributions, what did you do that produces results? And we all have value companies. When you don't see your value and you don't brag about it, no one's going to do that for you. So I really learned early in career thinking that creating a career marketing campaign and selling your value. over selling your function is a huge difference. And that speaks very well to the human reader. And even during job interviews if I have to spend a lot of time in discovery mode, what I mean by that in job interviews, I have to discover your solutions, your successes, your KPIs. I shouldn't waste any time during a job interview. When I see that on a resume, my question is a lot more intelligent. How long did it take you to do that? What was some of the pushback when you implemented this? Who did you get on your team to help you do that? Those are better questions and you know the answer to those questions. So when you construct your resume in LinkedIn, like a career marketing campaign, it even helps land more job interviews, better job interview questions, and hopefully leading to better salaries.
matthew_1_04-26-2024_100804So the typical job seeker will put together a good resume and apply for jobs, submit that resume. That's not a career marketing campaign. What would be some differentiators and action steps to someone that's actively launching a career marketing campaign?
tom-powner_1_04-26-2024_110745One of the first things you Have to come up with your professional, personal brand. Sometimes they overlap. And that branding message is. Starting out the resume it's in the branded headlining LinkedIn profile, so it's hard to create that two to three line value proposition message or branding message, but that's what starts off the conversation. It's like your elevated pitch condensed into two lines. So even on a resume, typically we have a professional summary and some people seem to forget about it. They feel, oh, Nobody wants to read the professional summary. Recruiter is not the only person looking at your resume. The hiring manager, talent acquisition manager, next boss, and sometimes the C suite. So everyone reads the resume differently. So the professional summary, I still do that on resumes, but part of the first part of the summary, I call the resume handshake. And that's where you establish your branding message. You value proposition message. The name of the job. You're applying for and top five to eight subject matter experts, keywords that describe that, and that will get read in the first three to five seconds. So that's where the. Marketing comes. Market your value first in your branding statement.
matthew_1_04-26-2024_100804In your opinion on those resumes, What are some common resume mistakes that job seekers make and that they should avoid?
tom-powner_1_04-26-2024_110745There's quite a few of them, but the biggest one, put everything else aside. When I look at your career history I'm typically going to look at the job title, the date, and I'm going to dive into the bullet points. Now, typically there's a paragraph explaining the role. That's valuable information, but that won't get read first. We're going to dive into the bullet points. We're not going to read one bullet point and read all ten down straight. But when we read a bullet point. If it sounds like a job function. And that's what it is. If it's not sharing value, that's what it should be doing. So how we write resume bullet points, we want to tell quick cause stories. CAR, it's just super simple, but it works extremely well. What was the challenge you're facing in the position, which can mean main responsibility to a new project, a new client what action, skill and action you put in place to solve that challenge and what were the results? Whether the result is quantitative or not, but what were the results, the outcome, the contribution. And then when you write that bullet point on the resume, you put the car in reverse. Every single bullet point. The first three to five words speaks about an outcome, followed by a skill in action. So every time you read every single bullet point, Aha, this is what they did, look what they did, look what they did, instead of look what they were supposed to do. Big difference. And that's probably the biggest challenge we have with the resumes.
matthew_1_04-26-2024_100804I love that. And then your action and the result. if you could sum up what a resume should look like, that's it. Results, outcomes, not day to day, not, you know, manage team of 30, okay, that tells me nothing. Were you a good manager? Were you a bad manager? team perform? Was it the worst performing team in the company? they see that the job they're applying for, if they're even tailoring their resume, experience managing 10 plus people. So they put managed team of 30. Great. I got it. That's perfect. That's telling them that I'm overqualified. That tells me nothing. my assumption can be that that was as much bad team management as good. And so you put the result, what was the challenge of the team? What actions did you take to elevate the team's performance? What was the result? Department wide, even better company wide. How did you impact the bottom line? How did you do this or that? I really like that car. Thank you for sharing that.
tom-powner_1_04-26-2024_110745Yeah, and when you write the car on a resume, you put the car in reverse, You start at results, then the action and you just leave off the challenge because it's perceived by the results. And you can make nice short one line, sometimes two line bullet points that are really hard hidden. And as you've done recruiting and hiring, so you know you have limited time. You have, a couple hundred resumes in the database if you need to go back to it.
matthew_1_04-26-2024_100804Yeah. Thank you for clarifying, reversing the car too. And that makes sense. show the best part first, right? Which is the results. Because challenges are important, but if there's no result for the challenge, it doesn't really matter. It just means you were, Challenge like we all were. So start, with the spicy stuff, right? the numbers, the data, the outcome.
tom-powner_1_04-26-2024_110745And if you have a lot of bullet points, depending on what type of role you have, one section called operational enhancements, one by people in leadership, and then another section of bullet points called the bottom line or the numbers. And you have these subheadings and you break up the continuity of me just seeing a bullet point, my eye would go to a heading I'm attracted to.
matthew_1_04-26-2024_100804So we now have the format for a really powerful resume and we have the right information, but we still have the roadblock of the ATS system. what's happening with those and what do people commonly do on their resume that gets everything screwed up?
tom-powner_1_04-26-2024_110745The format does matter. And it's no rocket scientist. It's just very straightforward as far as section headings. So the ATS system could read the resume. A lot of resume scoring comes across the keywords on a resume. But these ATS systems today with dictionary, they're all cloud based. Most of them updated instantly. You get a lot of keyword association credit for. So that gets into the resume. Okay. Relevancy score. I call it a relevancy score because you can sort out resumes based on different things in the ATS system. But I think people just think keyword stuffing is all you need to do. So they just take all the keywords and just stuff them in their resume. I've even been, I've been I guess it's three or four times a month where someone takes a job posting, they copy it, the whole job posting, and they go down to the bottom of the resume, font size one, and they put it in white, and the whole job posting is in two lines of the resume. Yeah, we see that most recruiters will. So just follow the simple instructions for the format, making sure you have a job description, make sure you do have the key skills, and think about what the system does. The typical job post has about 39 key words between the hard skills, soft skills, and technical skills. So if they're looking for 39 combined and you only have 10. Why would they really want to interview you? They don't know you yet. They don't know you have these other skills that you didn't put on a resume that would be relevant. So if the skills aren't there, the ATS system and a human being is going to assume you don't have them. Now as human beings, we can connect to the, type of company you work for. We might know people that worked at your past company. ATS system has no emotion when it comes to that. So none of the emotional harming happens So just make sure you match your job. And again, if you don't match your job, then maybe networking is going to be another way you can get your resume in front of the right hiring people.
matthew_1_04-26-2024_100804Speaking of networking, what are some strategies job seekers can use to optimize their LinkedIn? profile and attract recruiters or potential employers.
tom-powner_1_04-26-2024_110745Good question. I guess I probably spent five hours talking about that. I actually teach a national course on LinkedIn for the resume writing industry called the NCULP course. So we do a deep dive into how to do this. We have to send your LinkedIn profile, should you be your resume and steroids? Cause you have a lot more opportunity to share a lot more about you, the person and your career. All together, 17 different sections of the profile. When it comes down to LinkedIn, there's nothing but a huge database. When the right data which are keywords on your resume, that's when you get found more often in LinkedIn Recruiter. That's when LinkedIn knows what jobs to suggest to you. So a lot goes into that, so making sure you have the right stories and the right data. The career experience in my book, and that's what I practiced for the past 14 years, should be a close mirror to your resume, because that's your career history. So many people make the mistake, the career history is blank. You're not a job title. That doesn't define you. It's what you've done in that job title in that company that defines who you are professionally. So leaving your career history blank, all that key data, those keywords, keyword density and keyword diversity matters usually in LinkedIn. All that doesn't help you get found. LinkedIn just upped the key skills section from 50 skills to 100 skills because they realized a lot of new skills are out there that they needed to do that. And it's been 50 for the, ever since LinkedIn. And there's a lot of different sections. You got to get your brand into your profile. You have an about page where you should speak about yourself. It used to be called the summary section. They changed it to the about section because they want people to speak about themselves. So how do you lead teams to winning solutions? Why do customers like working for you? So whatever you do is for a living. Pick your top areas of. competencies you need to have and tell me how you have them. So if you're in sales, how do you drive top line sales? How do you improve client retention? How do you train people on the product knowledge? I want to know more about what you do and that's what really resonates in the about section. The branded headline underneath your headshot, that's your brand message. You want to get your job title target in there, and you want to get some keywords. Because the keywords in the headline, the keywords in your job title line, and keywords in the skills section, all get indexed first by LinkedIn's algorithms in search, and then the rest of the content is indexed secondary. So take advantage of that knowledge, just make sure everything's screaming who you are, and I'm seeing a person in your career. So a lot of people just leave a lot off in the LinkedIn.
matthew_1_04-26-2024_100804I like how you differentiated between about in summary because my observation is job seekers are really bad at The summary, because they just rewrite the resume or rewrite what, what you will see below on the LinkedIn profile, just using the word about which shifts your mind from, okay, how do I say I have 10 years and marketing at this company? Just like you'll see below, right?
tom-powner_1_04-26-2024_110745Exactly.
matthew_1_04-26-2024_100804tell us about that, right? Very open ended. But using that, I think, will help people write something more intriguing when you shift your mindset that way.
tom-powner_1_04-26-2024_110745Yeah, definitely. And especially if you're hiring someone who needs to have leadership. Tell me how you lead your teams. We have our clients take a disk leadership assessment. Sometimes we incorporate that into the about section. It's all about you, what you bring to the table.
matthew_1_04-26-2024_100804You had to bring up the disc. I love the disc. we, unfortunately, don't have five hours to talk today, but I'm disc certified.
tom-powner_1_04-26-2024_110745Me too.
matthew_1_04-26-2024_100804think my audience is probably tired of hearing me say that, how do you think artificial intelligence is changing the recruiting landscape?
tom-powner_1_04-26-2024_110745I love AI. I gender of AI, because when you talk about artificial intelligence, that's been around for five decades. Gender of AI with the large language model is, it's what's new and hot right now. I think it's pretty amazing. I think we should use it to assist us, not to replace us. Even in their own work, because I've just a quick thing. I, at the end of the year, last year, I wanted to write a quick blog post on some of the top artists that have passed on in the past year. So I asked chat, TPT gave me 10 top artists that passed away in 2023. So it gave me this list and it's Oh, cool. I have all this information. Three of the people were still alive. So they were included in some type of blog post about, someone else who died. And again, it just gave me wrong information. Of course, Amy Winehouse knew, but there were some other artists on there that were still alive. It's if I wrote that, how embarrassing. So you always have to check AI. But it's a smart assistant. In creating a resume I've used it. I've only now I want to use it to get stuck out of a creative moment I need because a lot of information we're getting back was not really correct. So we allow AI are helping people write their resume just take it as a lead. Don't just copy and paste it because I'm seeing that now. I've interviewed five people last month that I was reading the bullet points and they were called bullet points, but they didn't make sense. And. All five people, when I asked if they have AI helping them write the resume, four of them said yes. And then I dig a little bit deeper and a lot of information just didn't make sense. It wasn't incorrect. It was just, it was wrong information. So you gotta be careful with it. In the hiring, in the ATS systems, AI has been around for a while, but Genevieve AI is just starting to come into the applicant track and software systems where we could get a little more better understanding of the Of a full profile. So it could take your resume, could take your LinkedIn. It may even take some other social media platforms and come up with a profile of how well you fit into the company. So I think that part of AI would be interesting. Hopefully it's not going to lead to more discrimination, but human discrimination, sometimes it's just subconscious. So that's a whole different argument or conversation. But I do think AI would be able to be more predictive. Tom Powner would have 80 percent predictive rate of being successful in this role. So it's going to understand that those type of factors where sometimes as recruited hiring managers, we don't do that deep thinking into that. So I think that part of AI, when that starts rolling out into the hiring process, would be pretty pretty interesting to see.
matthew_1_04-26-2024_100804Let's jump back to the human part. You've interviewed thousands of candidates and I'm curious what red flags you've noticed and patterns you've noticed in interviews and what pitfalls job seekers should avoid.
tom-powner_1_04-26-2024_110745Interviewing, oh, it's very different. So many different stories. Number one is just making sure the setting, the way you dress, you're ready for the interview. If you're doing a video interview, what's behind you? Don't risk taking a video interview from Arby's parking lot on lunch break. It just doesn't work. Give the interview the respect it needs. So I think a lot of people start off. And the wrong place. I had a woman the other day, she was sitting in a rock and recliner and she was going back and forth like this. It's just, that's your first impression. It's like walking into a room and not doing a handshake. So that's number one. Number two I think a great interview is broken down to several components. Understanding your resume. So you can speak intelligently about any of those stories. When they ask you a question about something, Oh, I don't remember doing that, but it's on your resume. just doesn't work. Behavioral questions. We ask behavioral questions because we want to see how you behave in certain situations. So always be prepared for a handful of behavioral questions. Questions about The company, if you don't know the company interviewing with, when I'm hiring for other companies I'm a third party recruiter, but I didn't want someone a paycheck. I want someone chasing a company, a place where they can spend 40, 50 hours a week. If you don't get that good vibe during a conversation and you don't know anything about the company, I'm not just saying what the company makes and how long they've been in business, really understand what the company does. And a lot of information about companies connected to the mission and vision statement. I need to understand you believe in it. And the next one is about the interview. Today, if I'm interviewing you, check me out on LinkedIn, ask me questions about my career. If I'm working for the company, what made you join this company, has been your experience over the past five years. Have those one on one conversations because an interview is conversations. So many people think, and then so many recruiters too, it's like the firing off questions just to, check them off the list. And if that's what's happening, try to make it a conversation. As an interviewee, which a lot of people just forget to do. I threw a lot at you. I'm sorry. I didn't break it down.
matthew_1_04-26-2024_100804That's a great list. Many listeners are currently considering a career change. Do you have any advice for someone looking to switch careers midstream?
tom-powner_1_04-26-2024_110745Yes. Be prepared because it's gonna be a little more difficult. It's always easier to stay in the same track, less resistance and just easier flow on. I'm proof of that. I left a great paying job. I was making really good money and the first year in business, I went from making X amount of dollars. And you have to be prepared for that sometimes even shifts in careers. I know you still get a paycheck, but one career math is a step lower, and you might have a different paycheck. So understand be prepared for that watch time because even for me making that career shift. I probably should have done a several years ago. It's like someone who's in a very bad relationship. They knew, 10 years into the 15 years marriage. They should have got out and just time happens very quickly. So keep your eye on time. Everything we do in life, because as I reach 60, I realize time is something you can't get back. So if you have this inkling and you want to do something different, you want to try out something the longer you wait, sometimes the harder it gets. So keep track of time and just make, work out a plan, right? A plan of where you see yourself working, what do you want to be doing, what type of people you're going to surround yourself with, and just make sure that's the direction you see yourself fitting into. Different, but lots of times it's about meeting people in that industry or in that company and make that toggle list and then just put your plan into action. But if you have this deep desire to do something, don't have regrets in life. We can make choices and they don't work out. That's fine. But you made a choice. So we don't make choices. Those regrets, they just live deep in yourself. So don't have regrets. Just do it. Like Nike says, just do it.
matthew_1_04-26-2024_100804I like that watch time too, because nothing, when it comes to career change, it's unlikely that anything will happen for you. And everything good that's going to happen is going to be something that you take action steps on and is probably uphill, right? Not the fun stuff. You're not going to fall into a promotion with a completely different job title or industry.
tom-powner_1_04-26-2024_110745And if it didn't work out life still goes on. You always go back if you want to, but then you shift to a different direction. I like watching American Idol, and when you see a twenty eight year old forklift driver who had this talent and just waited eight years before he started singing, do it. Just do it. Life's too short not to do things.
matthew_1_04-26-2024_100804Let's talk about salary negotiation. It's nerve wracking and people feel like it's a lose, lose situation. What are some tips you can offer listeners to ensure they, Navigate the process professionally, but also get a competitive offer.
tom-powner_1_04-26-2024_110745It depends what the market's like right now. The companies have seemed to have the power going back three years ago. Then the job seekers had the power. But salaries have been going up readily over the past three to four years. In today's market, depending where you are, I know in New York City, New Jersey and stuff, the salaries by law in certain cities have to be listed. The salary range has to be listed. Now, sadly, some companies have, I looked at a job post the other day, salary range is 120 to 380. What the hell? Come on. Let's be transparent about it. But you could do enough research to get a range of what the job should be paying. And as companies get more comfortable sharing their transparency with salaries, that challenge is going to be, less difficult to come over. But you have to know your worth. Some people just don't see themselves as worthy of a certain salary. And sometimes that could be something that's embedded Because of gender or something or where we live or the zip code we live in. So we have to understand what we're worth in each market. And you have to do some research for that. There's some good pay scale. There's some good websites out there that their businesses have come up with salary bands. They pay corporate America for data, and that data is paid for, and other companies buy that data. So companies want to be in a certain salary band, nobody wants to pay way over, and nobody wants to be way under in corporate America, because you'll lose people, or, you're overpaying. Companies do have salary bands. They will pay more. Most companies will aim for the mid range of the band, so if the salary says 120 to 160, They're going to probably aim for 140, but they will go up to 150, 160 for the right candidate. So know your worth. And when you write a resume that's more of a marketing campaign, your worth is screaming off the page. So they'll see the interview would translate into better conversations about those success stories. And when we're successful, The best way to show companies will be successful for them is by showing your success from your past. So a lot of that negotiation sometimes is not needed, but don't settle on a bad salary. And my husband was part of that. he worked for TI Crest for 24 years and then his first job afterwards, we negotiate extra 25, 000. He was afraid to, but I coached him through it and that set him off on the next salary band. Everyone has different needs as far as how do you negotiate. Everyone's challenge can be a little bit different. But once you start with understanding your worth is showcased on your Redman LinkedIn, that's where the salary offer starts from.
matthew_1_04-26-2024_100804For listeners that have heard you speak about car or LinkedIn profiles or just improving their interview, creating a career marketing campaign. How can they learn more about you, connect with you and move forward to fast track these things and get a little bit deeper understanding and get deeper into the process with you and career thinker.
tom-powner_1_04-26-2024_110745The best place to contact me or find me is on LinkedIn. That's where I live. That's where my business lives. That's where my clients live. That's where recruiting lives. That's where people network. So there's so much going on the LinkedIn and Tom Powner, there's only one other Tom Powner on LinkedIn, so it's not hard to find me. Just searching my last name connect with me. I'm always willing to do a free review of your resume on LinkedIn. And we could talk about, where you're, you could take your, where you are now and make it more marketable. That's the easiest way to find me.
matthew_1_04-26-2024_100804And I've said this before, but for job seekers listening, tuning in, Whether you're an accountant or in sales or a software developer. Thomas and I know that that's your skill set and it's your skill set probably isn't a career marketing campaign or writing a sentence into a resume really well. So I'd encourage you get in contact with Thomas and his team and let a professional guide you through this. it does make a big difference. So we'll link to your. LinkedIn profile and then we'll get some more links in that as well so people can get in contact with you and learn more about you and your resources. Before we close here, do you have any final words of motivation or wisdom for listeners as they're taking in everything that you shared with them and moving forward in their job search?
tom-powner_1_04-26-2024_110745First of all, there's Almost endless opportunities out there. There's 5. 8 million jobs in the U. S. right now on LinkedIn and that's just on LinkedIn. So understand there's just so many opportunities you can go after so don't be closed in if you didn't get that one job you have to stay positive. You have to be consistent. You have to keep working at it And then when you do find that dream job Never take your foot off your marketing campaign because that dream job might be your dream for two years and then it becomes a nightmare. So always be prepared to accept new opportunities, be open opportunities. And when you need to go find a new opportunity, you're ready to hit the ground running. So many people, when I started career thinking during the last recession, 95 percent of my clients came to me. No resume, no LinkedIn profile. They would just not be prepared. And life happens and we seem to have not a long memory when it comes to, calamities that happen in our careers. So always be prepared and then don't do it alone. I know you mentioned, teaming up with a professional, making that investment in time and money to team up with someone who's going to, Get rid of all that negativity in your head and get you the right track is worth it. And again, if you get extra 10 percent of your starting salary, you get a salary you didn't think you deserved. It pays for itself 10 times over.