Been downsized, outsourced or just put out to pasture because you have gray hair? Need the edge for finding a new career? Allow me to share some invaluable resources. Most folks have been loyal, dedicated employees only to find at age 50 or 60 they are out of a job but still need to work. Anyone who knows me, knows about my 200 page resume and my curiosity and courage to try new things. No matter if you are “true blue” and dedicated or a career hopper like me, finding a job today is a full-time job and it takes much know-how to beat the applicant tracking software and its role to weed you out.
Free Employment Service and Job Coaching
I discovered an incredible employment service presented by Church at the Crossing called Passport to Employment. It is FREE and of unparalleled quality for people who are unemployed or under-employed. P2E offers career support and crisis counseling, help with identifying talents, skills and strengths to find employment, help with building resumes, cover letters, network systems and interview techniques. They offer group coaching and one-on-one assistance, financial management assistance and a multitude of speakers from employment agencies and recruiting firms. They even offer a FREE 61 page online guidebook which outlines the details of the program.
The Starting Point
Start with a meeting on any Monday night from 7-9 pm at Church at the Crossing 9111 Haverstick Road, Indianapolis. You will be warmly welcomed and you will leave encouraged with an arsenal of help in your back pocket. I don’t own a navy blue suit nor heaven forbid panty hose. My interview garb consists of snake skin cowboy boots and I worried about how I could ever find a fulfilling job with my eclectic attributes. I learned there is actually a category for people like me, it is called a Purple Squirrel but in spite of this, the Passport to Employment staff actually like me.
Professional Resume to Give You the Edge
Our speaker this week was Butler grad and Professional Resume Writer, Don Bauder. He has been a career consultant for 20 years and he is now one of a very few Certified Professional Resume Writers. He is a dynamic speaker but he delivered some bad news. “Its not about you” Don said and no one cares what our career objective is and prospective employers don’t give two hoots about what we were responsible for in our past work experience. Today we need to brand ourselves and market our skills and show those skills with tantalizing results attached and have a few STAR stories. A STAR story is a Situation or Task you were presented with, the Action you took and the Result. He said we need a lot of white space in our resumes. I was guilty of using the smallest readable font size and filling every square inch of the paper with all my many “responsible for” statements. Even with all this good news that I was doing everything wrong, Don was motivating and encouraging and I was certain he was the right person to hire to set this Purple Squirrel apart from the rest. Contact Don at don_bauder@hotmail.com or LinkedIn.com/in/donbauder.
Remember, it is NOT about you, it is all about THEM. Let Don show you how gray hair can be an attribute when competing against millennials. I am proof positive, you can teach an old dog a new trick.