Episode #502: Mastering Resume Writing and Career Pivots with Barbara Safani

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Spending a snow day with Barbara Cefani, who has 14 awards in international competitions related to resume writing, has more credentials than I thought there were actually credentials to be gotten in the space. And she is an executive coach and helps people move on in their careers successfully and into the right place and how they should present themselves. So, Barbara, thanks for

being on the show. Thanks for having me, Pete. So to start off, you know, what what changed or what what happened that you dedicated your life to to helping others, in their career paths? Yeah. So I used to sort of be on the other side of the the house. I used to be in human resources, and I did recruiting of candidates. And, later on, I found myself in my own search and having to sort of recreate my career history, go out there, and

pitch myself. And, I really learned what it was like to be on the other side of the table, and I really wanted to take the skills that I had acquired as a recruiter and bring them to candidates who were competing for jobs and help them present their best face, in terms of the collateral they were presenting to an employer as well as the narrative they were, creating in order to get in front of them and land their next

job. Got it. So so all the, the Moore writing, that you've assisted people on, Talk about when someone's changing careers, or or moving into a different industry, how you kinda reframe the narrative of a resume that do you look for analogies? Do you look for, you know, specifics on the company that they're targeting and, you know, kinda customize to each one? Yeah. Well, I I what I try to look for is the transferability of the

skill. So sometimes people actually, they think they're making a career change. It is really more like a pivot where a lot of the functional skills that they have can be used in the next industry they're going to. So, for example, somebody who's in a technology role, maybe they've been in in one industry and they're switching to another industry, but the functional capabilities are similar. Or even somebody who's maybe been on the marketing side of the business and is

now moving into sales. We look at the transferability, the intersection of the skills, and what we're trying to do is focus on accomplishments, within those roles that will have relevancy to a future employer. Got it. So my dad, has probably got one of the cleanest resumes I've ever seen. I think he worked for 2 companies, back in the day. You know, what what are some of the things that are red flags to you, whether it's somebody who's, you know, been in the job for 2 years sequentially,

know, and this is their 5th job opportunity. Yeah. How do they kinda explain some of the volatility or movement of, of of different companies? How do you help them with that circumstance? Sure. I think people's perspective is a bit different. Very few people are getting the gold watch anymore and staying at one company for 30 years. And, transitions from one job to another, it's actually very, relative to the person who's looking at your your resume.

So somebody who is in a demographic in their forties, their fifties, a 5 year employment stint sounds short. Somebody's in their thirties, that sounds like a long time. So I think that there is a lot more, grace that's given to somebody who has made a few career have had short term employment. However, with that being said, there are a lot of reasons for that, and sometimes it's actually because it was a consulting gig, and that's not

noted in the resume it should be. Sometimes it's a downsizing. It's okay to note that on the resume very briefly that the the position ended because of a downsizing, because the person who was reviewing the resume is drawing their own conclusions, whether it's fair or not. You and you wanna get to that point where you

actually get to have a conversation with them. So wherever you can document the reason for a change, or maybe you moved and that was the reason for the change, document it so that you're telling a cleaner story and you're eliminating potential bias. Got it. Yeah. As you take a look at, people that just send their LinkedIn URL out versus, you know, a thoughtful resume that's, you know, nicely formatted and has a narrative to it. You know, how has that changed, and and do you think that's better

or worse? Well, I think LinkedIn is a really important tool, and everybody should be taking advantage of it. And if this point, if you're not on LinkedIn, people wonder if you've been living underneath a rock. So they really do complement each other. But LinkedIn is a little bit

limiting. First of all, it's limited in terms of the the characters, the the amount that you can put on it, and the structure of it is such that it's not really friendly to people who've had what we call portfolio careers Square there's maybe some diversity in the roles they've had or, you know, so many people now are in a gig economy where they're doing multiple roles at once. And LinkedIn doesn't really explain that

story very well. And and going back your earlier point, it could be confusing to the reader, and they could wonder if the person's actually hopping around. So I always encourage people to have both because the reality is even if they ask for your LinkedIn profile or you can apply via your LinkedIn profile,

most of the time, they still ask you for a resume. And the resume, the other point about it is that in a LinkedIn profile, it needs to be kind of scrubbed and sanitized a bit, whereas in a resume, it can be more specific. Something you would share in a resume you wouldn't necessarily wanna share to millions of viewers on LinkedIn. Gotcha. You know, as you advise and help people in this use of AI or or things that are be done, you know, with a

ZipRecruiter and they're, you know, searching for keywords, Yeah. I tell people if you're gonna do an m and a transaction and you don't have an adviser, you're basically playing checkers and the buyer's

playing chess. Is that kind of what goes on? You know, if somebody hires you, we get to play chess, you know, how the systems work, versus kinda going it on your own and and, you know, flying by the seat of your pants and hopefully something matches, but, you know, you don't know the behind the scenes of it? How much of that's a little? Yeah. That's part of you know, everybody's trying to game the system. You know? What are the

keywords? And they're sort of trying to put the keywords in there. And these ATS, these applicant tracking systems, I tell people they're like they're like one part voodoo, one part luck, one you know, it it's just they're they're very imperfect systems. And most people do not get their jobs because they've posted for something online. Most people get their jobs because there's a relationship. And so in

that case, a resume is an accompaniment to the relationship. It's it's it's anchoring the conversation as opposed to being the single thing that gets you in the door. So I encourage Pete, and if I'm helping them with a resume, yes, I'm writing with, keywords in mind that is a component of the resume, but I'm not stuffing them in a way that's unnatural or wouldn't read right to the human eye. And it's really more about educating people that a resume is a tool. It's not a silver

bullet. It needs to be accompanied with a strategy for getting in front of the right decision makers, and that goes way past just posting online. Got it. What what are some of the, you know, stories that that you tell applicants where somebody came in and, you know, you basically retold their entire, you know, career and and and told a a story that maybe they

didn't realize, they actually had? Or, you know, something maybe they're changing careers and it's actually a great fit Square they thought it was, you know, a chance that they could potentially get into something? Yeah. I I think sometimes what happens with people when they write their own resumes is they they look like job descriptions. It's

just sort of a list of tasks. And what they forget is that a resume is really more about what you brought to that Talks, how you how you took a certain task and turned it into a benefit for the company. And a lot of times Pete don't think that way because, you know, people go to work, they do their job, they think about when's lunch. They don't they don't think about when you know, what did I accomplish today? And

so I'm really encouraging them to take that step back. And it it can be really hard to write your own resume because you're too close to it. So I'm offering a certain objectivity to say, you know, it sounds like in this case, you assisted in this process that helped bring in new business or helped reduce the cost or improve margins, etcetera. So I'm connecting things sort of on a higher level that, again, it's just been hard for them because they've just been

doing their day to day job, and that's very empowering. You know? And then you can create a narrative about that. And I find that when I work with people, they actually can go out into the market with a lot more confidence because their messaging is so much stronger, and they can own that.

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The rewards vault is going to allow a member to set up their own profile. They are going to answer questions. You are gonna get those answers. You're gonna be able to target those members and you're gonna reward them inside your club, inside your spa, and outside of the club and outside of the spa to get them to become loyal, to get them to pay their monthly dues, and to be rewarded properly for the actions. A lot of companies are cutting back on

rewards. You shouldn't be. Promotion Vault's your answer. Trust me. This is real. So, you know, a lot of Pete, have given advice to others saying, like, don't give up your your job until you, you'll find your next job. How do you feel about that as a, a directive? You know, somebody might say, hey. Look. I wanna devote my entire time to actually finding the the the right

fit, and I can't really moonlight doing that. At the same time, you know, if you're not employed, somebody might, you know, question, you know, a gap in a resume or, you know, why you left your current job before you got a new one. How do you, you know, think about that? And is that something that people need to be concerned about? It seems somewhat of like a myth, maybe not a fact. Well, a few things. First of all, you always need to be able to account for any transition in your

chronology. It's a very typical question to ask. Why did you go from job a to job b? And, again, you have to assume the person who's looking at your resume, they sometimes have, they make assumptions with that are not always fair. You know, if even if if you were, if you left a job, they're trying to figure out, did you leave on your own? Was it a downsizing? Was it political? Was it a relationship issue? You have to be able to account for

that. So that's number 1. The second thing is, if you are in a job search and you're working a full time job, then your job search becomes part time. Right? You can't you can't dedicate all of your time to the job search, which could mean that you would spend more time in search because of that. However, for many people, that's not realistic. They need cash flow, or they need the the stimulation of the

job or whatever. There are other people who maybe have the luxury of taking that time and dedicating it to their search. The length of time you spend in a search also kind of depends at your professional level. Somebody who's at an executive level, employers don't necessarily see a red flag if they've been out of the market for 6 months or more. Somebody who's at a more junior position, they might wonder a little bit more about what they've been doing with that time.

So the bottom line is the most important thing is that you need to be able to account for the time that you're in search in case you're asked about it. But whether you you are in search and working or just in search, that's a personal decision. Some Pete, there could be a little bit of a bias, particularly from a headhunter because they wanna headhunt somebody away that's already at a job that they've taken away as opposed to somebody's on the

open market. But I don't think that should be the determining factor for somebody. You know, people who get into a new career search, you know, after 60 or 90 days, you know, they they get frustrated. They might get, you know, depressed. They might think, hey, nobody wants me. So what what do you tell people, you know,

under over if we use, you know, like a a sports term? You know, how long does it take to get a job if you're, you know, 50 years old and you're changing a career, versus, you know, 24 years old and and looking for, you know, a a a lower or middle entry level position? Well, regardless of age, if you're actually changing careers, you're making a big pivot, typically, your search is gonna be longer. So that's not so much age related. Where it

can be age related is yes. As as you sort of go up the corporate ladder, so to speak, typically, there's fewer jobs, right, at the level that you're looking at. And at an executive level, it's not unusual to spend 6 months to a year in a search with 9 months being the sweet spot where things really start gelling. If you're somebody who's more entry level in your career, it's it's a typical, trajectory might be more like 3 to 6 months, but there's no norm. I have people who land right

away. I have people who take longer, and a lot of it also depends on the strength of the person's network when they start and how they're able to activate that. One one thing that's happened in the fitness industry over the last 15 years is, some companies have hired somebody from Starbucks,

because they worked at Starbucks. Some people have hired someone who worked at Best Buy or Home Depot and thought that they could take those retail skills and build out to basically turn it into a successful career as an executive running up, basically, a sales and marketing company, which a lot of retail that are big boxes, you don't have a a marketing engine that is a lot different than a regional health coaching.

Have you seen certain companies, you know, basically effect people for the wrong reasons or select people because of a brand equity that might not really have the right brand attached to what the new business is? Are you flipping back to your recruiter side? Yeah.

I I've seen a lot of miss mismatched candidates, or I see the reverse Square the candidate sees a lot of red flags and they try to, like, wish them away because they're so excited to get the job and then they, you know and then sometimes when I meet them after they've gotten that job, it's really not the right fit. But I I think I think there is some value in looking at the functional skills that are required in one industry and how they might

transition to another industry. And I think that there is a lot of unfair bias when there's an industry you'll often see on a job posting must have experience in this industry. Whereas there's, you know, the person has a certain functional area of expertise, whether it's operations, it's marketing, it's Talks, that actually is transferable. So I would probably say Moore more often the other case that the the company is resistant to taking the person from outside the industry because they're

fearful of bringing in someone from the outside. Got it. Got it. You know, what what's a typical Dave, you got a question? Yeah. I'm I I mean, speaking personally for for people listening to this, I've used barber services over a decade ago and can't speak highly enough. And and I you just addressed it. And I think there's a lot of concern about transferable skills, especially in the fitness. Okay. They might wanna go into management, but there's concerns, especially Pete that I know

personally. Oh, I'm a personal trainer, and that's all I could do, but I wanna get into working at a hotel, or I wanna get into management, but I don't have a business background. And all all I have in quotes is multiple certifications as a personal trainer. And, god, you know, what am I gonna do now? You kind of addressed it, but I think that's really important to to to talk a little bit more about. So so the interesting thing okay.

Somebody who's a personal trainer, right, they'll often get into it there with a passion for fit for fitness, and they become a personal trainer. The reality is if you're at a big box gym, you're a salesperson. You're you are right? You're trying to bring new clientele into the gym and promote personal training packages, etcetera. And I don't know if personal trainers always kind of see that connection. So just right there I mean, your your

sales, there's marketing, there's a it's a customer facing job. There's the customer experience component to it. You know, there there's there's a lot of there and and if you're a personal trainer who maybe is doing their out on their own, you you're probably promoting yourself. You're using social media. There there's huge marketing push. You're using technology potentially to, you know, maybe you're training

people virtually, etcetera. So, yes, there's sort of that that technical aspect of being a personal trainer and the certifications and the the knowledge of of of that, but there are so many

other factors that perhaps personal trainers are overlooking. And if they're creating marketing collateral to sport to support that, that's very easy to be able to, you know, to be able to show, like, you how you you filled your classes or you were the highest, you know, performer, in sales for the month or, you know, sort of your creativity, maybe creating a new class or something like that. There's so many ways to play it that go past just being a trainer.

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services to meet the demands of your members. And, hey, let's get people happy, healthy, and sweating, and the recovery should be just as good as the workout. Question for you related to, certifications that people get or, I'll give you an example. My nephew is is a junior in high school, and, couple of people in my family are concerned he's not gonna get into, you know, a school that is, that is

noteworthy, let's just say. So there's classes that are available, you know, like Columbia Business School might have, like, a a 2 week crash course for $2,000 to be, the business of sports, just to kinda have that as, you know, something that was extracurricular and that showed, you know, initiative to learn more about the field that he wants to go into. How do you view certain things like that? Because it's really not, you know, a full degree. It's not a full, you know,

semester. You know, it might be 5 or 6 classes, and, obviously, it's a big revenue generator for, you know, schools like Harvard or or or Stanford that have the, you know, quote, unquote, executive education, departments that are, you know, helping people build their resume. You know, is that brand equity is that something you recommend? Is that something that should happen more

naturally? Or do do you tell people, hey. You gotta beef this up, you know, based on, you know, some companies like to hire only from these schools, so go get a, you know, a 2 or 4 week class, you know, from this to kinda check off that box. What what are your thoughts on that? I think it depends on the skills. So, for

example, let's use technology as a skill. You know, somebody might not have a 4 year degree, in IT, but if they've gone to coding school, or if they've taken a coding class, they have a very specific skill set or somebody who takes even somebody who takes a class in game design or motion design or or something, you know, something like that. That's transferable immediately. With something like business, I think that,

it's it's valuable, it's helpful. I think there will always be companies that will sort of, you know, be like, we want people from these Ivy League schools and that's it, but I would say that's definitely changing. I would say the whole concept of the 4 year degree is changing. I have a lot of clients who come to me and they're always like, you know, I never got

my degree, and they're so distraught about that. And the reality is, the degree really it has relevance when you first get it, and you're competing against other people who just got their degree. But the further you get away from that degree, the less relevance there is, and the more it's about what have you done for me lately, you know, what have

you done? So even, you know, in your relative's case, it it it having getting experience that is then transferable to the next job is going to be more important than that initial degree as he goes through his career. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. It's great advice. The last question I have is related to whether it's on a resume, choose it on a resume, but it's always in an interview. You know, tell tell us what your weaknesses are.

That seems to be a a Square question that, you know, historically comes up and, you know, I remember I used to say, I don't say no enough or I'm an overachiever or, you know, I I I work too much or, you know, what what are some of the things that you wanna be transparent and honest about and some things that maybe, you know, too much information. Sure. Yeah. Well, first of all, a lot of times, you're right. What people do is they try to to spin it. They make it sound sort of like a a strength.

You know, I'm a perfectionist is is an example. Right. And the reality is that being a perfectionist, it translates to a lot of Pete, like, can't maybe they can't get stuff done. It is that is a bad that is a weakness that you wouldn't necessarily wanna expose. Yeah. And so what you wanna do is you wanna think about you wanna say something that's authentic, but not

something that's going to be damaging to your candidacy. Right? So you're not gonna pull out something that you know, an example where you cost the company money or clients or things like that. You wanna maybe pick something that's truly a weakness, but maybe it's not super relevant to the role that you're going for. And particularly, if there's a pivot that you're making, you can choose something that's sort of part of your original skill set that won't be part of of the the new skill set. So I

think the the most important thing is to prepare before for each interview. Think about, you know, what that weakness might be and how you're gonna how you're gonna say it authentically. And, also, to understand a lot of times when they ask that question, they actually know the answer. Like, if you're pivoting to industries and somebody asks you what is your weakness, you know, you might say by saying, I know I don't have direct experience in this industry. However, what I

do have are these skills, a, b, c, which are transferable. So you're just addressing it head on. Got it. Got it. That's great. Look, there's a there's a lot of opportunity in our halo sector. There's a lot of private equity that's coming in, and they usually upgrade their c level teams, once they make an investment. So, we'll encourage everyone to reach out to you for help in landing the next best job as well as, you know, making sure they've got a

career path and a narrative down. So appreciate your advice. And, yeah, I think people need to take hold of their resume and their LinkedIn, you know, more aggressively and also, you know, not be shy to tell people, you know, what they've done at their last, couple opportunities that they've, that they've nailed versus, you know, just relying on what's, what's on the page. So any other, advice or any quotes that you live

by? Well, my favorite quote is change is inevitable except from a vending machine. I think that's really true, you know, in into these world and the world of work, etcetera. I think the other I've just leave people with the fact that, you know, if if somebody does decide that they do want to work with someone professionally, it can be a little bit daunting. It's not a super regulated industry. I would

encourage people to do their homework. There there are multiple certifications that resume writers go through, in order to really, hone their writing skills. If you're working with somebody or if you if you inquire to somebody, ask them if you'll be working with them or someone on their team. Because you might like that person or develop a rapport, but then you're kinda handed off to

somebody else. So make sure that it's somebody that you feel comfortable with, that you you feel that they've got appropriate credentials, just like, you know, the fitness industry, certainly, you know, you need to be certified to be a trainer, and then there's all different types of credentials, and that's an expectation in that industry. I would make the same analogy in this industry and look for those qualifications because I think they do make a difference.

Look. Appreciate, what you've done and what you're doing. It really helps people, and it builds a lot of confidence when they get jobs. And that's something that, you know, helps the mental health of this country clearly. And everybody needs a role model and everybody needs a coach. So thanks for coming on. Appreciate your HALO and Dave over the years and, hopefully, we can send more people your way to, to get to the next level. Thanks so much. Awesome.