Putting Your Education to Work on Your Resume

by Nathaniel Davis

You can use your education on your resume to put you ahead of the competition. It doesn’t matter if you have a college degree or a GED; it is possible to showcase your education. Placement of your education is important in how you want to utilize it.

Where to Place Education

Depending on what you are trying to emphasize should dictate your placement

When highlighting your education, a good place is to list it in the “Objective” section as a career summary as well as list your certificates, degrees, and relevant training in the “Education.”

·         Experience should be the first thing a hiring manager sees if you have at least five or more years of experience that fulfills your goal. Education in the form of experience and accomplishments on your job are more interesting to hiring managers than your education.

·         Education should be the first thing seen if you recently graduated or have work experience less than five years. Changing careers and continuing you education to support the change should be listed first. Fields that are academic and or scientific focused sometimes look for education before experience.
 

Highlight educational credentials in the “Objective” and “Education” sections if you feel the need.

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The GPA

• Current students or recent graduates should list their GPA only if it is not lower than a 3.0.
• If your program is very challenging and unique, a lower GPA is acceptable to list.
• For programs that do not utilize a 4.0 scale, it is important to list the scale as to avoid possible confusion.

The further you get in your career, the less important it becomes to list GPA and eventually removed.

Honors

• Include academic honors to show you excelled in your program.
• Give specific details such as type of program and what type of honor along with when achieved.

New Grads

Students and new grads with little related work experience should use the education section as the centerpiece of their resumes, showcasing academic achievements, extracurricular activities, special projects and related courses.

Degree Incomplete

• Try not to list incomplete educational or abandoned programs. This gives the impression that you start things and don’t finish them.
• If you feel the need to list incomplete or abandoned programs, then list the amount of credits completed or the study type began.

Experienced Job Seekers

If you are focusing more on experience than education, list the basic facts regarding your degree, including institution name, location, degree, major and date.

High School Information

High school or GED information is not necessary for inclusion if you have college credits and or a college degree or degrees.

Lack of Certain Educational Credentials

Just because you don’t have a degree or may be lacking certain education in reference to what HR is asking, then if you have participated in ongoing training, seminars, and courses creation of a “Professional Development” list in the Education section could satisfy the requirements.

Professional Development Highlights:

·         Global Marketplace Product Launch

·         E commerce Innovations

·         Selling the Vision of Change

·         Professional Management Program

Your Skills and Adding Them to Your Resume

by Nathaniel Davis

When compiling a resume, it is important to show your potential employer that you have the right skills for the job. The Skills section should showcase the skills that would be important to the position you are seeking. You should start by searching and reviewing postings that target the position that you are seeking. Record the frequently repeated skills and list them, as well as create a list of your skills that match for incorporation into your resume. Skills and acquisition of them are not limited to just employment, but can come from extracurricular activities and even self-study.

Three Types of Skills

·         Job-Related: These are relevant to a specific job.

·         Transferable: These are skills that are learned in one field and are transferable and applicable to different fields or jobs. Transferable skills can show how work with materials, data, and people. For example, you can show how you deal with actual things such as machine operation, or data such as research and dissemination of information, even how to manage and instruct people.

·         Adaptive: These skills are the hardest to substantiate as they include personality traits and characteristics that determine your style of work. Adaptive skills include reliability, ability to get along with colleagues, honesty and productivity.  

Adding Your Skills to Your Resume

For each skill, indicate your skill level and years of experience. It's important to describe your true skill level. Don’t consider yourself an expert unless you can substantiate your claim. At the same time don’t underplay your skill level which could be just as negative.

Here's a guideline for rating your skill level:

·         Beginner: A novice understanding of the skill. You have exposure to the skill and understand its basic concepts.
 

·         Intermediate:  You have experience with and can carry out the skill but don't understand its advanced concepts.
 

·         Expert: A highly developed skill level. You have solid experience and training with the skill and understand advanced concepts. You demonstrate proficiency and superior skill level.

Select 10 to 15 of your strongest, most desirable skills, because most employers scan for the most relevant and beneficial skills that can add to their organization. A short, targeted skills list will be more effective than one that's long and overwhelming.

Cutting Costs Without Cutting Labor

By Nathaniel Davis

When it comes to companies saving money, the first go to is labor. What organizations don’t understand that when cutting labor in the short term, it can cost you in long term. So instead of cutting your labor force, there are other methods that can benefit your organization. I have listed a few decisions that can keep your labor force intact while saving money.

1. Four-day Work Weeks
2. Voluntary or Enforced Furloughs
3. Unpaid Vacations
4. Removal of Bonuses
5. Wage Freezes
6. Pension Reductions
7. Flexible work schedules
8. Reduction of Travel
9. Reduced Office Supply Purchases
10. Reduced Equipment Purchases

These are just a few measures that can minimize your organization’s costs while retaining good and skilled labor. Why would you want to get rid of “good” people who are “skilled” and add “value” to your organization? A few changes can go a long way while keeping your organization fully staffed and effectively functioning.

Nathaniel Davis is the Owner and CEO of SWIPE Consulting.

How A Leader Deals With Moments OF Existential Crisis

HOW A LEADER DEALs WITH MOMENTS OF EXISTENTIAL CRISIS

BY ANDY MEEK

Jay Myers didn't start his video conference technology company Interactive Solutions, Inc. in 1996 thinking it would be easy. But he also didn't imagine getting to the point a few years ago when he’d be reeling from so many crises that he’d be scared to turn off the lights at night in his bedroom.

A gloomy pattern had emerged for Myers. Hit the lights. Crawl under the sheets for a few hours’ sleep. The shuteye meant it’s much closer to a new day, when fresh chunks of sky would fall, and more bad news would land atop the pile he thought had already stretched him to his limit.

All at once, a handful of sales and customer service representatives at the Memphis-based company he founded resigned, which simultaneously threatened to vaporize a big piece of the company’s income if Myers didn't do something about it.

“You feel almost traumatized,” Myers says. “I was feeling kind of lost at first and had to gather myself. Thinking about this leadership-wise, though, the one thing we didn't do is we didn't panic.”

Also around that time, a technician at ISI went into the hospital for a liver transplant--and never left. While changing shirts so he could attend the funeral of a close friend, Myers got a call from one of his managers warning him the technician had taken a turn for the worse. He’d soon be attending two back-to-back funerals.

If that wasn't enough, doctors diagnosed Myers’s wife Maureen with breast cancer around the same time. In addition, the Great Recession was gearing up to tear a big hole in the balance sheets of companies like his.

"When is all this bad stuff going to end?" Myers remembers thinking. "How much can one person take?"

LEADING DURING A CRISIS

Uncertainty is part of a start up founder or small-business owner's career path. That uncertainty includes crises; everything from typical ups and downs to dangers more existential. This is when one wrong move--such as a big customer departure, or just a run of bad breaks like Myers experienced--can make it seem like an untimely end is in sight.

Entrepreneurs say these experiences have taught them a variety of lessons about leading in a crisis.

The departures en masse at ISI left Myers stuck with many challenges to grapple with, including how to replace several million dollars in annual sales revenue that had basically walked out the door.

His immediate battle plan: 

·         Don’t waste time

·         Reevaluate business strategy

·         Figure out what resources are on hand

·         Immediately get to work squeezing the most out of them.

Myers recalls ISI had hired some younger sales professionals, so the way forward partly involved giving them “a good pep talk and intense training,” and bringing them up to speed--fast.

“I grabbed some sales accounts, too,” he says. “I improvised. Engineers pitched in to fill the gaps. People can look at a crisis, and panic and fall apart. We said: ‘Let’s look at this as a clean slate.’”

Time Management

Time Management 101

by Nathaniel Davis

Here are some basic steps, which should give you a basic idea of what it takes to get you going:

1. Define what you want out of life. Do this by listing your goals and values. What do you really want out of life? When you do this step thoroughly, you will notice a difference. You will also see that 90% of people have not completed this first essential step towards a more constructive life.
2. Figure out some next steps towards your life goals. After that, start taking small steps towards them. If you define your goals tonight, you can start taking steps tomorrow. Even if these are fundamental steps, they do not have to take forever. You can always come back and revise your goals later.
3. Take a firm control of your everyday tasks, and projects. This is a basic time management habit needed at your hectic workplaces today. Techniques of these sorts really represent "hands on" time management. Knowing that you have your tasks under control will also help you to stay calm. Stress won't catch you easily.
4. Take control of your incoming paper flow (brochures, magazines, invoices, etc.). Also organize your existing papers and documents.
5. Clean your desk at work, and keep it clean. It really benefits your time management.
6. Transform your email software from a task overwhelming enemy, to an effective tool, which actually helps you keeping in control of things. You will find joy in an empty email inbox, once you learn how to do it.
7. Start using your increased free time to develop yourself in new or lost areas of life.