A slew of employees in the Northern Virginia area have been impacted by President Donald Trump’s efforts to dramatically scale back the federal workforce. And these employees likely need help honing their resumes and translating their skills to search for private sector jobs. We turned to Bill Fitzgerald, the CEO of the Northern Virginia recruiting firm FitzDrake Search and author of the new book, Searching for a Job Sucks, for some advice.
Fitzgerald says there are four questions recruiters and hiring managers want your resume to answer immediately:
- Professionally speaking, what are you?
- Where have you worked?
- What have you been responsible for?
- What have you accomplished?
“The faster that I can answer those questions when I’m looking at your resume, the more likely I’m going to want to keep reading and learning more,” Fitzgerald says. “If they’ve been used to not having to do that while working for the government — they’ve just been promoted or been able to transfer from one department to another — it’s going to be different.”
Fitzgerald stresses the importance of being “outcome-oriented, not just activity-oriented. When you write something down, ask yourself, ‘Why did that matter? What’s the ‘so what’ behind this accomplishment?’ Keep digging deeper to understand how it made a difference — how it made a measurable difference. And that is the currency that private sector companies are going to be looking at.”
When crafting their resumes, “The trap people fall into is, they over-index on [terms] like teamwork and communication and interpersonal skills. And honestly, at this initial stage of the process as a recruiter — and this may sound harsh, but I don’t care about that. They’ve got to write accomplishments in a way that speaks to an outcome,” he says.
Once you’ve got a resume together, Fitzgerald says, the most important thing to know about today’s job market is, “You gotta be seen.”
How to Get Noticed
It may seem easy to be seen in the digital age, but Fitzgerald says that just makes the field more crowded. His counterintuitive advice is, “I wouldn’t apply online.”
Sites such as LinkedIn make it easier than ever to apply for jobs. Some posts have an “easy apply” option. But that just makes it harder to stand out in an ever-bigger crowd.
If you see a job that seems an excellent fit for your background and skills, Fitzgerald says it’s generally not difficult to find the name and email address of the hiring manager on LinkedIn. He emphasizes that you should reserve this method for jobs that truly interest you.
When you email the hiring manager, keep it to the point.
“It’s basically two sentences. That first sentence is: ‘Hi, I’m Bill, I’ve got 20 years in XY, I’ve worked in these three industries, led teams of XYZ number.’ It’s a hook that would immediately grab that reader’s attention. And then the second sentence is: ‘I’m very interested in your [open position], [and] look forward to speaking; Sincerely, Bill.’ And then I copy and paste the resume right in that email.”
“A lot of people are not reading. They’re scanning,” Fitzgerald says. “So, in that first sentence, you’ve got to have some things in there that speak to, as quantifiable as possible, what makes you unique, what makes you special. So that when the reader scans, they see, ‘Oh, Department of Defense, a team of 400 — wow, that that’s pretty big.’ Or they see a budget. [It’s] telling people what makes them unique in the marketplace. So if I scan that, I’m likely to keep scanning. And then I get to a resume I don’t have to click; I don’t have to open up a document. I can see very quickly what that person has done, what they are, where they’ve worked, what they’ve been responsible for, and what they’ve accomplished.”
Build Your Network
It’s also important to build up your network, or as Fitzgerald puts it, “You need to build an army of people that want to help you find your next opportunity.”
“The mistake most people make is, once they get a job, they put their head down. They go to work, and they forget about all those relationships. And they don’t keep in touch with people.” That means starting the conversation cold, so Fitzgerald advises taking it slow.
“Think about former colleagues, former bosses, former customers, former vendors. Think of friends. Think about who you know you can reach out to — not to ask for a job. You’re reaching out with several questions you have that’ll help you rekindle a relationship: ‘So what do you see happening in the market?’ ‘Who are the organizations locally that might be hiring for somebody with my kind of background?’ ‘Any advice on my job search strategy? Any changes I could make to my resume?’ … If you start cold with three or four questions that are easy for somebody to answer, and they’re glad to hear from you, they’re very likely to say, ‘Hey, let’s talk.’ And you can start that process.”
‘It’s Just Hard’
Fitzgerald also warns that it’s a tough job market, especially in certain fields. “Most of the hiring has been in the healthcare sector, government sector, services sector. It’s not that there isn’t any hope. It’s just going to take longer for people than maybe what they’ve been used to in the past.”
Fitzgerald says he doesn’t tell people this to scare them, but so they won’t take a difficult job search personally. He advises building a support system of family and friends; keeping in mind that you can’t look for work eight hours a day, five days a week — you need to recharge. And keep in mind that it’s challenging for everyone.
“If it’s hard, or if it’s taking longer than they thought, it’s not about them. There are a lot of circumstances right now that make this really difficult for people. … It’s just going to take longer, and just you’ve got to maintain that sense of self. Maintain that sense of confidence in who you are, in what you bring to the marketplace. But it’s just hard.”
Feature image, stock.adobe.com
