Interviews are a pivotal part of any career journey, but how do you present yourself in a way that’s both compelling and memorable? Do you know the essentials of talking about yourself in an interview? How do you balance confidence and authenticity?
In this episode of the #Career101Podcast, host Porschia and guest Matthew Sorensen, host of The Job Interview Experience Podcast, delve into the art of showcasing your achievements in interviews. Together, they explore how to create an impactful narrative that resonates with decision-makers.
Matthew shares actionable strategies like using the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to structure your responses and incorporating measurable results to make your accomplishments stand out. The conversation also highlights common mistakes to avoid and tips for conveying confidence without sounding rehearsed.
Matthew Sorensen is a seasoned executive recruiter, director of talent acquisition, and search firm owner with extensive experience helping professionals shine in interviews. His insights provide listeners with practical tools to elevate their storytelling and leave a lasting impression.
Tune in for expert advice and proven techniques to take your interview skills to the next level!
What you’ll learn:
- How to use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to structure compelling responses during interviews.
- The importance of highlighting measurable accomplishments to stand out as a strong candidate when talking about yourself in an interview.
- Strategies for blending confidence with authenticity to connect with decision-makers.
- Common mistakes professionals make during interviews and how to avoid them.
- How to craft a professional narrative that aligns with your unique strengths and achievements.
- Practical tips for improving your interview preparation process to ensure success in your next role.
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As a thank you for listening to this episode of the Career 101 Podcast, we are sharing our FREE master class – Career 911: Solving the Top 5 Challenges Executives and Professionals Have! It’s a training based on solving the common problems our clients have experienced to reach their goals. You can get access to the master class here!
Resources:
- Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Today, we’re diving into a crucial skill for executives and professionals alike, how to talk about yourself in interviews in a way that’s both compelling and impactful. Let’s face it. Interviews are your moment to shine, but they can also feel like you’re walking a tightrope. You want to highlight your past accomplishments without coming off as if you’re bragging or overly rehearsed.
How do you strike the right balance? [00:01:00] How do you tell your story in a way that connects with decision makers and leaves them saying, Wow, we need this person on our team in today’s episode, I’m excited to share an amazing conversation I had not too long ago with Matthew Sorenson, host of the job interview experience podcast, he was kind enough to feature me on his show.
So you get to hear me in the hot seat. We’re going to break down the art of crafting a narrative that showcases your expertise and experience while demonstrating how you’ll bring value to an organization. I’ll share actionable tips to help you 1. Identify your standout achievements and turn them into compelling success stories.
- Two, use the STAR method, situation, task, action, and result to structure your responses. And [00:02:00] three, convey confidence and authenticity, ensuring you make a lasting impression. Whether you’re gearing up for your next executive role, preparing for an internal promotion, or simply looking to refine your storytelling skills, this episode is packed with practical advice to help you own the room.
Matthew has experience as an executive recruiter, a search firm owner, and a director of talent acquisition. I’m sure you’ll enjoy hearing his perspective and learning from him too. So grab your notebook, settle in, and get ready to elevate your interview game. Let’s dive in.
Matthew: One of the most important things you can do to successfully search for a job and receive an offer is to incorporate your accomplishments into your interview. Your resume is a document [00:03:00] containing information. It’s incredibly important, but it’s not everything. You have to make that information come alive and work in your favor, display your best traits Without bragging today, Portia Parker Griffin is going to share the best way to do that and stand out as a person that this company, your company, the one that you’re interviewing with, or you’re hoping to speak with.
As a person that they have to hire, Portia is founder and CEO of Fly High Coaching, where she has helped thousands of clients over 10 years. She is a professional coach, a Myers Briggs type indicator, master practitioner, and energy leadership index master practitioner. She also has experience as a director and business consultant in the financial industry, helping companies unlock millions of dollars of potential hiding in their organizations.
She’s also earned her master’s degree in industrial and organizational psychology from Eastern [00:04:00] Kentucky university and has a BS in psychology from the university of Georgia. She has served as an associate training coach for the Institute of Professional Excellence in Coaching and has been recognized as a career expert by LinkedIn.
Our favorite site. We talked about it all the time on this show. She served as a career contributor for Biospace and has been featured on Flex Jobs, Levo, iOffice, and the Rochester Business Journal. She now hosts the Career 101 podcast, which I highly recommend you check out, especially to learn more from Portia and her take on this whole thing and how she’s helped so many people find the success that I know you’re looking to.
Portia. Welcome to the job interview experience. Thank you so much for having me, Matthew. I’m excited to be here. Let’s start with you. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your passions outside of work? If anyone couldn’t tell from [00:05:00] the bio, I’m a bit of a nerd. I like reading. That’s one of the things that I don’t get as much time to do anymore.
Porschia: I like learning new things. I like researching. I like finding out new information. One of the things that my parents have always said about me, and I think it’s still true to this day, is I’m a problem solver. So I like to find things out and tinker with things to Solve problems. And I really think that in essence, that’s what I do today as a coach and in a consulting capacity for clients as well.
Matthew: Can you give us a brief overview of your career and what led you to where you are today? Yeah. You mentioned I. Received my undergraduate degree in psychology, and I’m a millennial, so like a lot of millennials, getting that degree in the depths of the recession was an interesting time for us, and instead of going through and just getting a master’s degree at that time, because there were [00:06:00] professors on our campus that said, you know what, The job market is so bad, it’s easier to get into grad school than it is to get a job right now.
Porschia: And there were professors saying this. Now, I was fortunate to have scholarship and all of that. And so I didn’t have any student loan debt. And I said, you know what? I don’t want any. I’m just going to try to figure out this working world thing. And so I graduated and within three months I had moved to Los Angeles from the Atlanta, Georgia area.
For And I fell into the world of financial consulting around tax credits and incentives, which is painfully boring to most people, but I worked at a small consulting firm and just learned the ins and outs of consulting, also tax credits and incentives for business owners. And to fast forward, I have a lot of people’s corporate story.
Matthew, I was stressed out, overworked. I had a health scare. And my doctor said, you need to quit your job. And that was a shock for me. I had [00:07:00] felt like I had a lot of pressure. I wasn’t married at the time, just completely supporting myself in an expensive city like LA. And just had to get really serious about what I wanted to do.
And I had already heard about coaching, done some research on it, and just really committed to going full time into my coaching business. And so I did both for about a year and a half and then segwayed into working for myself full time. And that was, gosh, over 10 years ago. I really want to know why you think a job seeker shouldn’t just let their resume speak for itself.
There’s so many reasons why I think that a job seeker shouldn’t just let their resume speak for themselves. I think the first is your resume compelling, right? And a lot of people assume their resume is compelling, but most people, when I talk to them, they tell me that they’ve copied and [00:08:00] pasted their job descriptions into their resume.
And so their resume sounds like a generic list of job descriptions. And so it’s not really pointing to what makes them different, what makes them stand out. I like to call them points of distinction between you and other people. So that’s one reason why, and then I won’t even go down this path too far, Matthew, because I know that you know all about it as a recruiter, but also your resume can’t just speak for itself if it doesn’t have the right keywords and other indicators on it, because if it doesn’t, that matched the jobs that you’re applying for, then it’s not going to move through software technology screening platforms and even get you an interview.
One, foundationally, your resume has to be intact and what I like to call compelling. And we help clients with rewriting their resumes because it’s a very difficult thing to do, especially for yourself. So that’s it. Foundationally, one is the [00:09:00] resume there. And then even if, let’s say you’ve had your resume professionally redone, right?
Why can you just not rely on your resume to speak for itself? It’s because. Your average recruiter is not reading a resume word for word. The last research I saw on this, Matthew, and you might know more about this is that your average recruiter is only looking at a resume for about seven to eight seconds before they’re making that decision on if it’s going in the yes pile or the no pile.
So let’s say you’ve got this great resume. Maybe it’s been professionally redone. Maybe it fundamentally has the right keywords on it. Again, Most people aren’t reading it word for word, so you have to take it upon yourself to fill in those gaps and a great place to do that is in the interview or in the phone screening process when you are talking with the recruiter to make sure you’re touching on those points of distinction, what makes you different and what makes you a strong candidate for the role.[00:10:00]
Matthew: So you’re telling me that my resume that says led the team, accomplished the goals, did the work, that’s not enough. Oh, I’ve got problems. Oh, unfor. Not . We’re going to get back to resumes ’cause they play such a key part in this. But what I’m really excited to get into is your ways to incorporate accomplishments into the interview.
’cause like we said, the good or bad the resumes just, it’s a document, right? It’s ink on paper or words on a screen. And that’s usually, people don’t get, typically get hired without an interview. So how do you incorporate and go beyond the resume and dig into those accomplishments during the interview?
Porschia: That’s a great question, Matthew. And one other thing I want to touch on before I answer it is that is the number one concern that I have seen from hundreds of clients to this point. And I usually hear something like this, I went through an interview [00:11:00] and I answered all the questions that the recruiter asked me, but you know what, I just don’t feel like I knocked it out of the park.
I don’t feel like that recruiter is walking away thinking that they have to hire me for the job. So they were answering questions, maybe not feeling like they were coming across as memorable or compelling for the job. They might say the interview just went okay, right? Maybe the interviewer didn’t seem very interested in your answers.
Maybe they didn’t ask very many follow up questions about your responses or really seem enthusiastic about next steps and getting in touch with you again, right? Those are all clues to your question, Matthew, about why you really need to incorporate accomplishments and events. Into conversation with the recruiter, right?
So you’re not just passively answering interview questions, right? So that’s a little bit more there. And I really wanted to highlight that because it’s the number one concern that I see, right? Let’s say, that it’s [00:12:00] important, right? That we recommend that you mention. I encourage people to mention these accomplishments as answers to interview questions, because then you’re working it into the conversation naturally in a compelling way, and you probably are not going to come across as sounding cocky when you’re doing that.
So to do that, I think that people should just reflect, right? So think about some times in your career where you made a big impact on a challenge or a goal. And to your point, if your resume is professionally done, you should be able to easily identify some of those just by looking down the page, right?
Some major accomplishments or contributions should be on your resume. When you’re thinking about these accomplishments, I would say that it is best to make sure that you can incorporate some metrics or some numbers, right? Because you really want to quantify the results that [00:13:00] you were responsible for. So when I say that, let me give you an example.
Let’s say someone says, you know what, I helped my team come up with this new process that improved customer service. Hearing that is nice, right? But what if you say that you’ve led the internal co creation of a new client engagement process for the account managers that increased customer service scores by 23%, it’s way more descriptive.
I think it’s way more compelling. It lets the recruiter think about what you did and imagine you in their organization, getting those types of results. So I think that’s really the, a lot of the why that you should do that. And I can get into more of how I advise clients to do that. If you want.
Matthew: Please do.
Porschia: Yeah, I think it’s great to look at your resume and see those things or to think about them ahead [00:14:00] of time. I used to tell clients, think about it ahead of time and then you’ll be ready. But I realized that the clients that got the best results during their interview had actually written these things out.
So I encourage you to write them out. Or type them out, right? If you prefer, but write that out and reverse it, right? So how would you talk about just two to three accomplishments during an interview? And I don’t really recommend that you think about more than two to three, because then you’re in your head trying to memorize and you might be off of your game, right?
When it comes to answering the questions, but just stick with two to three accomplishments. And think about accomplishments that you could use in conversation as examples of multiple things, right? Because then you’re again, not trying to rehearse and deepen your head. I encourage that when you write this down, you can do it in paragraph style or in just bullet point style, whatever works for you.
And [00:15:00] I’m sure that you’ve covered the STAR method of interviewing before on the podcast, but I think that’s an easy way to write out some information about the accomplishments that you should remember. It helps to guide you with what to say. First, you could write about the situation, right? A sentence or two about what was the problem, what was going on with some context, then you can talk about the task or your responsibilities in relation to the challenge, the problem, or the project.
Then you talk about. The action, right? So what did you actually do to help fix the problem that made the project successful? You can mention any specific skills and qualities that you possess that made a significant difference, right? So why were your contributions important versus just the average Jane or the average Joe, okay.
And then finally, you want to talk about the results, right? So what was the outcome of the situation? How did [00:16:00] your particular contributions influence that outcome? What did you learn from that? And then finally, what were those achievements, accomplishments that were as a result of what you did?
Matthew: That’s helpful to have the verbiage too, because jobs are so different from each other as cheat sheet, I think typically using numbers is helpful for accomplishments. Cause you can say I increased revenue. Yep. Do you increase it by 10 a month? Do you increase it by 10, 000 or a hundred thousand dollars a month?
That’s a big difference. That might all be an increase. So showing proof of those things is important. And for listeners that, of course, I always try and keep in mind, you and I think about these things all the time. Listeners, their job’s doing something else. So like some kind of, some hints on what you can use.
Our percentage points increases, right? So increase by this much or decrease by this much, maybe decrease spend. Dollar amounts are good. Day, you can use days if it relates to your jobs. [00:17:00] Shortened this by this many days. Our team accomplished this two weeks ahead of schedule. Obviously dollar amounts are important.
There’s all kinds of different data you can use. Accuracy might be one. Some companies, they want to save money. Some companies want to bring in clients. So think about what you do and then how numbers can relate to that. And the sooner you can start doing this, especially if you’re currently in a role and you can access, whether it be your KPIs or reviews with your manager, anything like that, where you can actually collect that data, find it, copy and paste it, send it to yourself, whatever it is.
Cause it can be hard to remember that if you’re like me, it might be a year ago. And it’s like, how much faster was my team? Or how much did I increase billing for my corporation or my agency? So start thinking about that now, if you can start consuming and saving that data now, but those are a couple of different things you can use because some people don’t think in terms of numbers, maybe your job isn’t number base.
But when you look at the bigger picture, the organization, [00:18:00] it’s always about numbers and hopefully good numbers. And when you can bring that to your resume. Portia said, and then that’s your top, that’s really your speaking points for your interview makes it a lot easier than having to for each interview, write things down, put on your resume.
That’ll help you get the interview. Use it during your interview to seal the deal. Do you have any additional verbiage users can use to convey this message? For me, it’s an, and for you, it’s easy to bring this up, right? I think I can help guide your organization to do this because in my last role, we ran into this and.
Through this technique that I developed, we are able to save a dollar, whatever it is. That’s easy for me, but not for listeners. That’s just one situation, probably not even the best one. So what are some ways for people who don’t think in these terms that we do to actually in person or on the phone, bring this up?
Porschia: There are a few. And this, when you were [00:19:00] talking a few about thinking about this, one thing I wanted to mention is to consult performance reviews. Sometimes those things aren’t top of mind, or I find that for a lot of our clients, they take for granted their strengths and what they do. To your point, if you don’t have that information saved, go pull some past performance reviews and just look at those, right?
If you’re completely at a loss in terms of starting to think about these accomplishments and then figure out what to say. Also, performance reviews can be great to supply to your professional resume writer. That’s something that we ask clients for as well. If they’re like, I just don’t know what to say.
We say, okay, don’t worry about it. Just send us some performance reviews. We’ll dig through it and find it. So I just wanted to highlight that because I think that’s a great starting point. In terms of kind of more verbiage. I like to think about it in terms of prompts. So what are some things that I can put out there to maybe get your wheels turning, right?
Get you brainstorming. I [00:20:00] like to ask clients, how did you handle conflicts or challenges internally with other coworkers? A lot of times that leads to a story that might have an accomplishment or an achievement at the end of it, right? How did you handle problems or issues with external stakeholders, right?
Clients. Third party vendors, how did you get all of those people kind of rowing in the same direction, so to speak, to achieve a big goal? Usually when I start giving people some prompts and ideas, they start thinking about things right away. Another. thing I encourage people to think about is what have you done in the past to support community collaboration with your team or brainstorming again?
Did you read any of those conversations? Did you facilitate those things? Those can all be great. In terms of prompting you to remember what you’ve done in the past.
Matthew: What do you think makes a resume [00:21:00] average?
Porschia: I think it’s average if it’s generic. And by generic, it sounds like it could have been anyone.
It sounds like a job posting that you just copied and pasted from the internet. I think that’s average.
Matthew: I think some people. Rely on job title and they think, Oh, I’m a perfect fit because job title. And what [00:22:00] you have to realize is that most people that apply, or at least people whose resumes are looked at, which will be in the hundreds, if not thousands, they have the same job title as you, maybe a little better, maybe the same.
Around then of course, there’ll be people who are maybe a couple of steps behind the job title. That is your current job title and the job title of what you’re applying for. And they might not get noticed as much, but. When a organization has, let’s just say a hundred resumes, which is probably a small number, but we’ll just use that and everyone has the same, marketing manager job title.
What if your resume is just, I said, generic. How do you think you’re going to stand head to head with someone who puts data accomplishments and outcomes on their resume? It’s the job title will get your resume looked at. That is a good starting point. And it is incredibly important when you’re competing with other people and they might have done the exact same thing as you, even if they performed half as well as you, and, but they still have performance numbers that are [00:23:00] in the green.
That will stand out a thousand times over your resume. So if you’re selling yourself short, if you’re not including these things, I’ve taken the Myers Briggs many times, and maybe it’s because of my Myers Briggs number, but it’s always come out the same. How does a tool like the Myers Briggs impact a job seeker?
What benefit does it provide to them?
Porschia: Yes, I’m glad to hear that your MBTI result came out the same because that means you’re taking the assessment in the right way. A lot of times I hear people say, I took it, and then it was this, and then I took it again, and it was that, and I was thinking about it in my home life, and then I was thinking about it in my work life.
And that’s not how you want to take the assessment because it’s actually very reliable if you think about your essence and your kind of innate, what I like to call default preference when you see those things. I want to acknowledge you for that, I usually hear, but your MBTI personality type can be [00:24:00] so beneficial for a lot of reasons.
It gives you insight, not only into yourself, but how other people are viewing you so that you can make sure that. You’re coming across how you intend. So for example, I have a preference for introversion on the MBTI. A lot of people say, oh my goodness, I didn’t know you were an introvert. I see you doing these speaking events and this and that leading the conversation.
I can do that. But introversion and extroversion is really about how you are energized. Prepare a lot. When I get on a podcast to talk to people like you, Matthew, and I prepare a lot. If I was going into an interview or sales presentation. And I feel a little more comfortable in smaller groups. That doesn’t mean that I can’t do other things, but it just means how I prepare might be different.
And then it also means for me to be cognizant of how I’m coming across if I were in an interview. So you get all of that information about yourself. [00:25:00] To make sure that you’re being received in the way that you intend, and I think that’s very important and it becomes even more important as you move into leadership and executive roles, because a lot of executives have figured out that it’s not necessarily just what they say, but it’s what their team heard and what their team heard and did from what they said, right?
So it’s not just, Hey, I told him to do this. You still won’t be a successful executive if you just told him to do this and no one did it. Or people created their own thoughts, feelings, emotions around what you said. So that insight about your personality and making sure that you are communicating effectively so that your message is achieved, is received, I should say, correctly.
Matthew: Do you coach, do you have clients take the test and then you coach them based on the results?
Porschia: Some of them do. Yes, we give them the option. And for a lot of our clients at our program, we offer the MBTI and also the Hogan assessment, which is another [00:26:00] personality assessment and a discount if they’re a client.
And I think it’s just, A great source of information for so many reasons, whether it’s the interview, whether it’s thinking about communication, conflict style, leadership, there are just so many ways you can use that personality information.
Matthew: Hopefully I can get a little bit of free coaching from her here, which I, we have spoken offline several times as professionals, colleagues, and friends.
So this is my time to get some real help. I am an ENTJ, probably not a huge surprise to you. And I think we’re the worst of the bunch, Enneagram or Myers Briggs. I always get like the bad ENTJ. What issues would you foresee me having during an interview? Don’t say anything nice. Cause that’ll be bad for me, just things that I can improve on.
Porschia: All right. Our personnel and tips are similar. Only I am the introverted version of you. Personality type is good or bad. I know you were joking, but I just want to say that [00:27:00] because some people really think, oh, this is a bad type. Or if they’re working in a group, they see a team member of theirs with a personality type and label that person as bad.
All personality types have strengths and weaknesses. Or blind spots is another way to think of them instead of weaknesses. Areas for growth. When it comes to the ENTJ personality type. One name for that is, and it’s an older name, but it’s called the field marshal. So this person generally is going to direct, command, lead, expect things to be done in a very certain way.
And that being said. It could rub some people the wrong way, right? One interesting thing that I like to share with people, the T and the J, so that’s a preference for thinking and judging. When they have done research over time, they have found that people with a preference for thinking and judging, so TJ types, tend to make good managers.
Because [00:28:00] they logically think about processes, programs, people, and then want things organized in a way to where they’re not. They’re coming to closure, consensus, being results focused. So that’s one thing that based on your personality preference, we would lean towards, okay, Matthew’s probably a good manager, probably has a lot of leadership potential.
Now with the ENTJ type, like I said, one of the number one things is sometimes they can come across as bossy or commanding. Threatening, intimidating, those sorts of things. Now, of course, I didn’t get that from you because well, someone could say we have similar personality types. So maybe that’s why, but those are some things that people could say about you.
So in knowing those things, let’s say, Hey, you want to prepare for an interview, knowing that about yourself, then it comes to the self awareness piece, making sure that you’re letting the other person talk. Maybe making [00:29:00] sure that you’re not dominating the conversation. Sometimes people with a preference for ENTJ have a tendency to do that.
And that brings me to another point, and I’d love your thoughts on this, Matthew. I have read that the ideal length of time to answer a question in an interview is between 20 seconds and two minutes. When they researched it, according to this study, they said if you answer it in under 20 seconds, then sometimes the person is not sure that you know everything that they were looking for in terms of detail.
And then if it’s over two minutes, then it’s going on and on. They might be losing interest, not able to get to all of their questions. So not only would I like your thoughts on that, but if I were coaching you, I would say that you keeping your answers succinct in that 22nd to two minute timeframe would be really important in an interview.
Matthew: Yeah, you completely nailed [00:30:00] it. And that’s great. One of my greatest weaknesses, maybe it’s good for the podcast that I can speak and have things to say on this subject, but a situation like an interview or a meeting, I can get excited and talk more than I need to. To answer your question, best practice is actually setting a cadence of different links.
So you would want to do short answer, just to keep it really simple, short answer, what would be a long answer? It’s not long, but maybe two minutes. To maybe 30 seconds, two minutes, 30 seconds, 30 seconds, 30 seconds. So what those longer answers allow you to do is if you have 20 seconds, really, you can give some detail and overview.
What that doesn’t give you the chance to do is share your expertise. And that’s when you really start to solidify your candidacy, especially if you’re a little more if you’ve been in the same role for a while, you have more experience in your career, if you’re earlier in your career, then you don’t really need to do that as much because then you’re [00:31:00] sharing opinions and that’s not as helpful, but if you can take two minutes to say, Hey, Maybe you’re asked a question, maybe about a situation, maybe about an issue that this role would face saying, I’ve seen this before.
Here’s the outcomes I’ve typically seen and here, maybe here’s some research or whatever else. And then here’s how I would navigate that having learned the right way to do it. Really hard to do that in 20 seconds. Maybe if you’re better spoken than I am, you can, but you do want a couple opportunities during your interview to give some insight, to consult them, to give them, not tell them what to do, but tell them what you know is the best way to, so maybe it’s very technical, right?
Maybe the question is if you’re on the computer and everyone in the office gets this error and this, what do you do, right? Maybe that’s when you say, I, let’s back up to what causes this. And first let’s talk about how we can help this from happening. But then I want to dig into solving the actual problem because I know how to rectify both of those issues, right?
That’s going to take more than 20 seconds. [00:32:00] So in a perfect world, let’s say that you’re asked 10 questions during your interview, I would say two of those. So we’ll say 20%. Hit that, make sure you get that longer answer, two minutes, maybe three minutes. Give a chance to share a little bit more than just in 20 seconds, you might get a little more canned answers, which can be good because you keep the flow of the interview going.
So balance those two out. And as you can see, the perfect example here, I think I’ve probably gone over my two minutes to answer your question. So that’s, I’m learning to button it up a little bit faster, but I also want to share everything I know, or that I have on mind with listeners. So that’s a very important question.
If you just do 20 seconds or you just do two minutes, the cadence is going to be off. You want variation.
Porschia: I love it. I love it. I think that is so helpful for people to know Matthew. And I realized now that I forgot to ask you that question when you were on my podcast to get your insight on that. But I think that is so important for people [00:33:00] to know.
Matthew: Before we move on to a couple other things, really quickly, I need to ask you, where do you think cover letters go wrong? Whoa, cover letters go wrong in a lot of places. One, one of the most common questions I get is, do I still need a cover letter? Do people actually even use or read those things? And if you go on Google, you’re going to get Yeses and nos, right?
Porschia: So I am of the opinion that you should have a cover letter. Research has shown that when recruiters review candidates, they’re more likely to rate a resume higher when it was paired with a cover letter. So that’s one reason I definitely think you should use a cover letter. And then I think there’s a small subset of recruiters, Matthew, that I’ve heard from that say, if someone doesn’t submit a cover letter, I don’t even consider the person because that lets me know they’re not going to go above and beyond for this job.
And while I think that is the minority of [00:34:00] recruiters that I’ve talked to, that is definitely maybe about 20 percent of the recruiters I’ve talked to. So again, in case you’re running into one of those people, You want to have a cover letter. So I think they’re very important. I think where cover letters go wrong, to your point, is if someone just has a canned cover letter that they’re using for every single job, they are not customizing it at all.
They are not putting the job title that they are applying for in the cover letter. You can clearly tell it is just like a templated cover letter that they sent to everyone. And that’s one place where to go wrong. To that point, I think customization of the cover letter is really helpful in making you and helping you, I should say, to make a good impression and touch on things that are relevant from your background or your experience with the job that you’re targeting.
Matthew: Any best practices for our second resume, that is the LinkedIn profile.
Porschia: So you definitely want to have a LinkedIn profile [00:35:00] and. The first thing is, it should not just be a carbon copy of your resume. I think that’s one of the first things I hear people say, can I just copy and paste my resume into LinkedIn?
The tone of LinkedIn is very different than just your resume. So I don’t recommend that you do that. The tone should be more conversational as opposed to a resume, which is a bit more formal nature. So that’s one thing with LinkedIn, there are so many things, but I want to sum it up to say, you want to make sure that you have the right keywords and skills on your LinkedIn profile.
It’s so important for a lot of reasons. More recruiters will find you based on the jobs that you’re interested in. If you have the right keywords and skills on your profile. So these are recruiters proactively reaching out to you using LinkedIn’s recruiting platform, because they have identified LinkedIn’s algorithm, I should say, has identified that you’re a good fit for the [00:36:00] role.
Matthew: Can you share a success story from Fly High coaching and kind of the issue the person was having and then the outcome for that? There are a lot, when you said that, I’ll tell you the first one I thought of, I wasn’t sure if you wanted more of an interview or LinkedIn or resume, but I’ll just share the first one that came to mind.
Porschia: We had a gentleman who is an executive and he was an executive in the kind of operations field. And there were a few things with him. One, he was like, I’m sure some of your listeners. He didn’t have an undergraduate degree. So he was a little concerned about that in terms of looking for other jobs. So he had progressed really far.
One company wanted to move on, but said, you know what? This company didn’t care that I didn’t have a degree. I know when I go up against other executives, most of them are going to have undergraduate degrees and master’s degrees. We talked about that, but he worked with us in a program where we [00:37:00] helped with his cover letter, resume, LinkedIn makeover, and some career coaching.
And within 24 hours of him updating his LinkedIn profile with the information that we had given him. He had already had an executive recruiter from Google reach out to him. And he said, Orsha, I was actually hesitant about working with a coach, this whole coaching thing, but they just found me and sent me a message on LinkedIn.
So he was thrilled with that. But for him, it was. Having a LinkedIn presence, but also having the right keywords and indicators on his profile so that he showed up as a good fit and the recruiter wasn’t hesitant because he didn’t have an undergraduate degree. That’s amazing. Yeah. Sometimes it happens that quick.
Not everyone, but sometimes it happens that quick. Being able to identify blockers. [00:38:00] Sometimes you do that and it really does open the floodgates and that might be what you told me about interview length and answers. Or something simple like keywords on a LinkedIn. It makes a huge difference. So for listeners that want to connect with you and fly high coaching, what type of professionals do you typically work with?
Yeah. I like to say that we work with ambitious professionals and seasoned executives. So if you are serious about your career growth, those are generally our clients. You don’t have to have it all figured out and know exactly what you want to do, but just someone who is serious about their career is generally a good fit for us.
Matthew: And what’s the best way to get in contact with you? Yes. One, our website, and that’s fly high, H I G H, coaching. com. You can. Definitely reach out to us there, see a lot about us and then also LinkedIn, right? I’m on LinkedIn. You can go ahead, connect with me. Let [00:39:00] me know that you heard the podcast and Matthew and I’s a discussion and wanted to connect.
Before we sign off, do you have any final words of wisdom or motivation for our listeners? Yeah. I think the number one thing that is important. is to develop what I like to call a career support system. So this is not your family members, your friend, your neighbor, your coworker. Those people are in what I like to call your personal support system.
Porschia: While it’s great, you should definitely have a personal support system. Those people are biased because they see you in a certain way. They have their own thoughts, opinions for you and how far they think you should make it and what they think you should be doing. And generally they’re also not professionally experienced when it comes to career development, interviewing, resumes, those sorts of things.
So you want to make sure that you have a career [00:40:00] support system with coaches, advisors, possibly mentors who can really help you when it comes to achieving your career goals. I
Matthew: highly recommend you check out the career 101 podcasts and go to fly high coaching. com and I’ll link to that fly highcoaching.
com in this episode’s description, connect with Portia and learn from her and how you can fast track this, get more out of your career. Portia, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much
Porschia: for having me, Matthew. [00:41:00]
