39 | How to Write a Resume That Gets You Hired: Career Development + Time Management Strategies for Working Moms

Feeling stuck in your career despite all your hard work?

👉 Wondering how to position yourself for leadership roles without feeling overwhelmed?

👉 Does updating your resume feel exhausting… like there’s never enough time to get it right?

👉 Are you craving clarity on what actually makes a resume stand out today?

In this powerful episode, I sit down with Amy Adler, award-winning resume writer, executive career coach, and author of Courageous Career Change, to give you career advice that goes beyond templates.

🔥 What You’ll Learn:
✔️ Why your resume isn’t just a list of tasks – it’s a leadership story
✔️ How to use LinkedIn strategically to reduce overwhelm in your job search
✔️ The biggest myths about resumes that keep working moms stuck
✔️ How to reframe volunteer work, family life, and career breaks as strengths
✔️ Time management strategies for updating your career materials efficiently

“No resume includes salary. Whether you were paid or not, your experiences have value.” – Amy Adler

💬 Your Career Clarity Action Step:
✅ Rewrite one bullet on your resume today to showcase how well you did something – not just what you did.

Example: Instead of “Managed team schedules,” write, “Streamlined team scheduling process, improving efficiency by 20% while reducing burnout.”

🎯 If you’re ready for:
✨ Less overwhelm
✨ Strengths-based leadership in your career
✨ Guidance to create a schedule and strategy that feel aligned with who you are

👉 Listen now.

🔗 Connect with Amy Adler

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Kat and Tanner by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Artist: http://www.twinmusicom.org/

Transcript

Shannon Fox:

Are you still trying to cram your entire career into one page because someone told you that's just how resumes work? Imagine if you could actually position yourself for the role you want, not just the one you think you're qualified for.

In today's episode, I sit down with Amy Adler, award-winning resume writer and executive career strategist, to uncover why your resume isn't just a list of tasks, how LinkedIn can position you before you even apply, and the powerful mindset shift to own your story with confidence.

If you're ready to finally stand out on paper and online, don't miss this conversation. Hit play and let's dive in.

Intro:

Hey mama, welcome to Career Growth for Working Moms. If you're stuck in a job that doesn't fit or burning out trying to do it all, you're in the right place.

I'm Shannon, a career coach and fellow working mom. Here you'll get simple career strategies and strength-based leadership tips to help you grow with clarity and confidence. So grab your coffee or reheat it for the third time and let's do this.

Shannon:

Hello and welcome. I'm so excited to have Amy Adler with me today. Amy is president of Five Strengths Career Transition Experts, where she specializes in resume writing and career positioning for executives and their teams.

Amy has been an award-winning resume writer for over 15 years, holds multiple industry certifications, and is the author of Courageous Career Change: Fearlessly Earn the Executive Role You Deserve. She's also the host of the Job Search podcast and Amy Adler's How I Hire podcast.

Amy is here today to help us understand how to stand out on paper and online, position ourselves confidently for that next opportunity, and avoid common mistakes that keep talented professionals stuck.

Amy, welcome. I'm so excited to have you here today.

Amy Adler:

It is such an honor to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Shannon:

So your journey into resume writing started after a career in publishing and earning your MBA. What drew you into helping people tell their career stories so powerfully?

Amy:

I appreciate the question and it's not the first time I've been asked, because most people don't, when they're asked when they're a little kid, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" – resume writer usually is not on the list.

But to be fair, I spent the first part of my career in editorial management, mostly for books, academic publishing. And that was truly my heart. When someone asked me what I wanted to do when I was little, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a book editor. I never actually envisioned myself as a writer.

But as it happened, after my MBA and after having kids, I needed to find something that was going to work for my life. And this is the truth. I’ve told the story multiple times. I had small kids and I needed to do something constructive for myself because I needed that for me. And of course, I wanted to get back into the workforce and start earning some money.

So I had small kids, the youngest of whom had just entered kindergarten. I was casting about for what I could do in the now three hours a day that I had to myself. And I'm sure listeners will resonate on some level.

Shannon:

Totally can relate.

Amy:

Yes. And I thought that this was an enormous expanse of time every day that I could do whatever I wanted. So I was looking around for what I could do in that amount of time.

And so of course, the business aspect of my educational background and the career building stuff that I had done before I had children – there was this great intersection that I didn't even know was going to be an intersection until I worked with a friend of mine.

This was before I was doing this professionally. She was a great salesperson. She said, "You're a writer, you know how to do these things. Could you just help me because I need this job. I need to get this interview."

And great. I didn't know what I was doing. It was the first time and I was just relying on sort of personal experience. Anyway, we got together, I wrote her resume, she got the interview, she got the job offer. It was amazing. And I thought, oh, well, there's a thing here.

So I then entered into the business, and I was working for other people for a while. And the hardest decision, professionally, that I had to make regarding resume writing at that stage was to tell the person I'd been working for for close to two years that I was ready to strike out on my own. And it was really, really hard and amazing and scary. And I'm so glad I did it because that set me on the path to where I am right now speaking to you.

Shannon:

Yes. Well, I love that because I feel like a lot of the listeners right now are in a career pivot, they're trying to get that raise, that promotion. So what are some big resume mistakes they may make that could hold them back in getting what they really want?

Amy:

I think the biggest mistake anybody can make, especially somebody who might be spending a little bit of their day or more than a little bit of their day working with their own children and sort of setting aside their own personal aspirations, is to forget that they have these skills and assets – all the things they bring to the table every single day, whether they're currently working or they were working or they're thinking about maybe their first job for whatever reason.

Taking care of kids is no joke. And balancing that with a professional career makes it doubly hard. Managing a family and a household – remembering to get whatever it was from the grocery store – all of these things have professional spins on them that can help somebody push what they think is just daily stuff into something that is really magical on paper.

Shannon:

Right. I love that. So what happens if there's a job… I know I've heard men will go after a job if they're like 40% qualified and women usually unless they feel 100% qualified don't typically go after it. Is there something they could do in their resume even if they don't feel that 100% qualified for it, but still want to take a chance?

Amy:

For sure. I've heard the same kinds of statistics. I don't know if it's 100% true. But there's a couple of things that anybody, especially people who maybe are coming out of a different kind of career situation or have had a career break, can do to help them look like the person the company wants to hire.

Thing number one is pay very close attention to what the job posting is asking. To me, that's the end game. What are they looking for? I would like to believe that all of their must-haves and would-like-to-haves are listed in that document.

So knowing where you're pointing your resume is the first step. Looking at all of the qualifications and deciding, is there enough substance to what they're asking for versus what I know I can do? Can I make that connection and have a credible presence, and make the hiring entity understand why I am speaking to them, why I'm trying to get in front of them – and start that conversation with that document way before the interview even starts.

Another thing that is super valuable is figuring out who you know who knows somebody who might know somebody who works there, or barring that, making a cold call, especially when you're exploring what that next thing might look like.

Connecting with five or six or seven people at a company because you think it's a really great place, connecting with them on LinkedIn helps the recruiter who is now seeing your connections understand that you're already invested. Each of these touch points adds up to a bigger commitment that the recruiter needs to see.

Shannon:

So it can happen, to answer your question, on paper, online, and in person.

Well, you just mentioned LinkedIn. What kind of role does that play for resumes? I feel like that might be an underused tool for these career moms listening right now.

Amy:

I think it's a hard mental shift to make. You know, "I have my resume, why would I need anything else?" The simplest answer is make sure your LinkedIn profile is not empty. Using the AI tools that LinkedIn provides are not as good as what a human can do.

Even somebody who's not a professional resume writer but just owns their career knows more about what they bring to the table than AI ever will. So making sure there's something substantive in that LinkedIn profile is key.

It could be as easy – maybe not 100% advised – but as easy as copying and pasting your resume with some modifications. Obviously, don't put out personal private company information. But some version of your resume is at least a good place to start. At least it's not nothing.

As a job seeker starts to feel more comfortable, they can shape that story to the thing they want next. If it's a straight line, that's easy. If it's a shift, it takes nuance, but it's definitely possible to do.

Shannon:

I love that. So what about women who feel like they're just listing tasks, but don't feel like they've had much impact. Is there a mindset shift to showcase their achievements and position them for the next level?

Amy:

I love that you call it a mind shift. Because I could talk about challenge, action, results statements and bullets. But I think something that comes before that is the change in yourself.

To understand that the way you do what you do is not something everyone else would do. Each person who has a role, even if it's unpaid or volunteer, the way they do it is unique. Starting from that point of confidence and getting away from the fear of "this is just what anybody would expect" is the number one thing.

From there, everything cascades forward. If I'm really good at something and can solve big problems, this is how I talk about it to somebody else to prove I can do it really well.

Shannon:

I love that. That's awesome.

So what about the moms that are listening that are getting back into a new career or wanting to – like they took a break because they became a mom, and now they're coming back into the workforce. How do they position their resume to allow for that career break or sabbatical in some way? How do they present that on paper?

Amy:

That's an incredibly loaded question because there's a million ways to do this well.

Everything from literally owning it – “I haven't been working in five years, and this is just my life. I've been raising two incredibly needy humans and this is what's happened.”

But take it a step further and say, “I've been raising two incredibly needy humans,” and then explore all the things you do as a child care provider of your own children: volunteering in school, volunteering in a religious institution, going to the food bank and filling boxes. Whatever the thing is, those can become elements to fill the gap between your last paid job and now.

Other things can fill that space too. For example, if you're on an app learning a foreign language every day, put it in there. It's interesting and a conversation starter.

Or if you've decided to learn everything about the Hubble Space Telescope – okay, talk about your newfound passion for astronomy. If you've done courses on LinkedIn Learning, Udemy, or other platforms, show that you’re interesting and engaged and doing more than others might be able to showcase.

Shannon:

I love that because I think about when I had my kids, I started volunteering for MOPS, then I was the coordinator, and I was a mentor in Bible study. I did things, but it wouldn't be considered a job. But it was still leadership.

Amy:

If I could amplify what you just said – no resume that I've ever seen has salary on it. Whether you earned money or didn't earn money doing it doesn't show up on your resume. You don't even have to talk about whether it was volunteer if you're showcasing it as something you’re doing on a regular basis over time.

Eventually, you might want to have a volunteer section, but you could treat those volunteer roles as what you've been doing of late, and it plays very nicely.

Shannon:

Right. I love that.

So what is the biggest myth about resumes or LinkedIn that goes with resumes that you wish people would stop believing?

Amy:

That you only need one page.

Plenty of resumes can be one page. I once wrote a resume for someone who'd had the same sales-type role for 25 years – he got one page and it worked out great.

But I've written resumes for senior executives up to three pages because they have long careers and do a lot of stuff. The sweet spot tends to be two pages, but anywhere in the middle is okay.

Don't feel like you have to squeeze everything onto one page with 9.5 typeface. Make it readable, use white space judiciously. If you have enough good stuff to say and it fills more than one page, it’s okay to go onto two.

Shannon:

I love that because back in the day it used to be “just one page, that's it.” That’s one of my beliefs I’ve thought for a long time, so that’s a great myth to debunk. Thank you for that.

So where can our listeners connect with you? What’s the best place?

Amy:

Everyone can find me on LinkedIn. My handle is Amy L. Adler – A-M-Y L A-D-L-E-R.

My website is 5strengths.com – F-I-V-E-S-T-R-E-N-G-T-H-S dot com.

Shannon:

Thank you. Okay, before we wrap up, I love to leave my listeners with a powerful takeaway or action they can implement today.

What is an impactful change that one of these working moms can make on her resume or LinkedIn today to become more confident in her next step?

Amy:

I think the biggest change someone can make, certainly on their resume and which will translate into their LinkedIn, is to remember – not just what you do but how well you do it.

Being able to describe the extent to which you did something amazing will change the nature of those bullets on your resume so your audience can say, “She did something really important here. I understand the business case behind what happened. And you know what? I think she can do it for us too.”

Shannon:

Oh, I love that. I love that. Well, thank you so much for being here with us today. I appreciate it.

Amy:

The honor, again, is completely mine.

Outro:

Hey, Working Mama, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If so, would you take 30 seconds to share it with a friend who's stuck in her career but doesn't want to sacrifice her family to grow?

Also, please leave a quick review on Apple Podcasts. It seriously lights me up to know the show is helping you navigate burnout, find clarity, and lead with confidence.

All right, time to shut down my laptop and pretend I'm not hiding from folding that laundry. I'll meet you back here soon for another episode of Career Growth for Working Moms. You've got this.