Job Seeker Tips and Trends with Career Organic

June 29, 2023
Season 3
Episode 125
 Career Pauses, Career Pivots, Featured, Inspiring Moms, Job Search, Money, Podcast 0:56:03

June 29, 2023 / Mom &… Podcast Episode 125 / Guest: Briar Dougherty

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Show Summary:

Our guest this week, Briar Dougherty (pronounced Dock-er-tee), started her career in the fitness industry, where she quickly became Crunch Fitness’s youngest general manager in history. If you think that’s impressive, just wait. Briar’s career pivots took her from the gym, to Saks Fifth Avenue, to coaching, to CEO of a career transition coaching business. We talk about the current climate for job-seekers, hiring trends, resume tips, and more. Briar is a wealth of knowledge! If you’re even thinking about starting a job search you don’t want to miss this episode packed with tips and trends for job seekers.

Topics From This Episode:

  • Career pivots [1:20-5:23]
  • Shifting priorities  [1:20-5:23]
  • Motherhood  [1:20-5:23]
  • Boundaries [5:59]
  • Being taken for granted or taken advantage of at work [6:14]
  • Being a woman in a male dominated industry [7:42]
  • Trends in hiring [9:22]
  • Applicant pools [13:04-15:01]
  • Applying for jobs that have been open a while [13:04-15:01]
  • What job-seekers should worry about (and should not worry about!) [15:52]
  • Mapping out your skillset [15:52-20:05]
  • Deciding whether you meet the requirements for a job [20:05-23:45]
  • How many jobs you should apply for when actively searching [23:46-26:22]
  • Resume writing [27:09]
  • Using Chat GPT to help with resumes [27:09]
  • How to address career gaps
  • Putting your gaps on the resume
  • The validity of unpaid work
  • Job Seeker Members at Career Organic
  • Career Organic services

Look, Listen, Learns

Missy

Briar

  • Researching seed oils and nutrition
  • Pride and Prejudice audio book
  • Learning about building an addition to her home

Susanne

  • Looking at a branch that fell on her house and learning about tree services

More About Briar Dougherty:

Briar is the Founder and CEO of Career Organic, dedicated to helping professionals make career transitions at all levels. She has been a hiring manager for the past 20 years, growing internal and external teams and professionals. She speaks, teaches, and mentors across international markets, staying current on industry trends and hiring practices across the globe.

Connect with Briar Doughberty and Career Organic:

Career Organic Social Channels 

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Musical Notes

Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock.

Transcript is auto-generated by a robot. Apologies in advance for misspellings or errors.

[00:00:00] Susanne: Welcome to the Mom and.dot podcast. I’m Suzanne Kerns, mom and.dot writer, LGBTQ and sex ed advocate, and this week Emergency Arborist Shopper. More in the Look List and learns about that.

[00:00:18] Missy: exciting.

[00:00:19] Susanne: Yeah.

[00:00:20] Missy: Yeah, I’m Missy Stevens mom and dot.dot writer, foster child Advocate, and this week getting ready for college visits with my son. Yay.

[00:00:29] Susanne: so exciting.

It’s more

exciting cuz I’m not doing it.

[00:00:33] Missy: I don’t, I don’t know how excited he is, but I’m so excited.

[00:00:36] Susanne: Oh, well to date, we are so excited to be welcoming Breyer. Dockerty to the podcast, Breyer is the founder and c e o of Career Organic, dedicated to helping professionals make career transitions at all levels. She has been a hiring manager for the past 20 years, growing internal and external teams and professionals.

She speaks, teaches and mentors across international markets staying current on. industry trends and hiring practices, across the globe. Welcome. We are so glad you’re here.

[00:01:07] Briar: Thank you so much for having me.

[00:01:09] Missy: We are really excited and we got just a glimpse of what you do in your bio, but we’d love the Briar 1 0 1, kind of where you started and how you got to where you are today, and if there’s any key pivots along the way.

[00:01:20] Briar: so I actually am from the, the Northeast. So I grew up in the Poconos in Pennsylvania and made the trek to New York City to go to college, and during college was probably one of my. Best pivots was I was working for a New York City health and fitness club and very quickly found my niche in being able to manage people, um, loving the client experience.

And so I went from just being a front desk worker to a manager on duty, then an assistant manager, assistant general manager, and then by the age of 20, before I graduated and before. Before I was legal to drink, uh, I was actually running my own Crunch Fitness in Manhattan. It’s a 40,000 square foot facility.

I had a staff of 55. and that to me, when I look back at everything I’ve done in my career, was the first stage of me being able to grow and make as many mistakes as I, I humanly could at that moment. Cuz I made a lot, uh, Learning not to be friends with your staff. learning about boundary setting, as a very young individual, as the youngest general manager, ever for Crunch Fitness at that time, I was also, I. Easily manipulated into working, you know, all hours of the day and feeling like I had to overcommit, both mind, body and soul and, put everything I had into the business and, and often forgot about myself. So that was one of my biggest pivots. Um, after that I ended up working with. An organization that ran salons and spas across, both Canada and the United States.

And I was the kind of owner of the relationship with Saks Fifth Avenue, which was one of the vendors. And so I ran the, salon and spa Saks Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. So flagship location, and quickly grew into a regional director role where I oversaw the entire northeast. Of all Saks Fifth Avenues. I did acquisitions and mergers with the company and different, brands and brand levels and that was in a great, a great experience.

Again, still young in my career and taken advantage of and lots of fun learning experiences. And when I shifted and I, I left Saks Fifth Avenue, I, I moved to Atlanta and when I moved, I started my career over. I kind of took a step back, took a breather, was more intentional about what I wanted to do and what I wanted to do with my time.

And it was the first time being in the city where you needed a car. You could actually go to the grocery store and fill your fridge, which I had never experienced yet. Uh, because you can only get the amount of groceries you could carry to your apartment when you lived in New York City. And so life just changed.

my priorities changed and I went through, you know, some different jobs and elevations and some really fun things that I got to experience. And then I became a mom. And when I became a mom, it’s probably one of my favorite pivots, uh, of my career. I had the most blissful three months with my son and decided I did not wanna go back to corporate America.

And so that was really the, opportunity I had to. Pivot and, and say, you know what? I’m gonna open my own company and I’m gonna start venturing out on my own. And at that point, I had had so many people coming to me for help with their interview, rewriting their resume, giving them coaching on how to, you know, get to that next executive level because I had been there already in my career and had been coaching so, So many of my associates and employees underneath me that it was just a natural pivot.

And so tho those are my, you know, the 1 0 1 on Breyer. Those are my favorite pivots because they are literally my life lessons that every single thing that I’ve ever done since falls back on.

[00:05:24] Susanne: Oh my gosh. I

[00:05:25] Missy: a great story.

[00:05:26] Susanne: impressed by you. Oh my gosh. The amount you’ve done. And I guess I’m personally super impressed just because the leadership stuff as far as owning those management positions, that is something that took me probably about 20 years to get to a point to be comfortable with. And the fact that you were doing that in your twenties is so impressive to me just because that that is not something that comes naturally to me.

So

[00:05:53] Briar: It, it was definitely a learning curve to start with. Um, but great, great life lessons.

[00:05:59] Susanne: Oh yeah. And I, I really relate to that idea of when you’re in your twenties, not having the boundaries and being taken advantage of, but I don’t mean taken Yeah. Yeah.

[00:06:12] Missy: yeah. Taken advantage

[00:06:13] Susanne: but yeah.

[00:06:14] Briar: I would definitely agree with the term taken advantage of and, um, uh, not even knowing that it’s happening because I was. So emotionally naive at that age, right? I hadn’t really experienced the world, and especially coming from the Poconos to New York City, it’s a culture shock.

You know, I, I lived in a very rural community. We had a tractor day, bring your tractor to school day at my

[00:06:39] Missy: awesome.

[00:06:40] Briar: So you go from that and then you go to Manhattan and, and I would never take any of it back, but wow. Like the. The naive moments I had are, are often fondly looked upon now as, moments that set me up for success further in my career.

[00:06:56] Susanne: Yeah,

[00:06:57] Missy: I think about it a lot now at this age and when I’m looking back over jobs I’ve had and things I’ve done, I realize I was absolutely taken advantage of and that I put up with a lot of things because I thought I had to.

[00:07:12] Briar: Yes.

[00:07:13] Missy: I, it was just a different time. Women were not, we were not talked to the way we’re talked to now, like no one told us, you don’t have to put up with that shit.

Like, use your voice, speak up. They told us smile. I was told to smile in a, performance review. and I’m like, I’m doing my job. You’re not smiling in the meeting. I’m just doing my job. But it, it’s so interesting what we put up with when we’re 20 and maybe even in our thirties, that, I mean now we’re just, I’m not gonna do that.

[00:07:42] Briar: And as a woman too, in that early gym experience, it’s a very, and especially back when I was in this role, very male dominated industry, and I was one of two general managers that were female, and so I was 20 and female. And so, uh, I actually am like ve, I feel blessed to have gone through all of that and that I had the strength and the confidence to work through it.

It didn’t destroy me, it didn’t destroy my confidence. It actually gave me more just because of my personality. Uh, it, it gave me that challenge and I love challenge it. It’s, it’s kind of a fuel for me. So I lucked out in that regard. But yes, 100%, just a totally different world.

[00:08:29] Susanne: Ah, I mean I, we could spend the whole hour just talking about that. I’m thinking about my first job. I mean, I literally, cuz I used to have to do time sheets for my clients and stuff. It was regularly 80 hours a week, which is, I. Bons and I was working in an advertising agency, which a lot of the leadership there, cuz it was in the nineties.

So the lot of leadership in ad agencies at that time were the people who were just coming up like in the Mad Men days.

[00:08:57] Missy: Yep.

[00:08:58] Susanne: And it just trickled down into every aspect of the world. And I’m hoping it is different now, which is why I really want to, Here are some of your insights as far as industry trends and hiring practices and things that are going on in the world today.

For some of us who’ve been outta the workforce for a while, maybe thinking of relaunching, what do we need to be aware of that’s going on out there today?

[00:09:22] Briar: So right now it’s an interesting market because we’re coming off of Covid, right? So it’s, it’s easier to explain, if we kind of just go back just a notch, um, covid shut down all of our markets and when the market reopened, there was a hiring frenzy. And what happened that I see that is a detriment to, to candidates right now is that in order to get that talent back, We inflated salaries, we inflated, processes that are not sustainable.

And so all of these promises were made. And now, this past year, so if you saw a lot of the, the tech layoffs and, you know, November, December, huge tech layoffs, um, big tech, and everybody was getting very, very scared in the market. But if you actually look at the trends, you would see that. When we reopened the market, a lot of those tech giants were still in their innovation phases.

They wanted to start pumping those new products out, new services, new features, when in the economy. We didn’t have those consumers with that extra money trying to buy those innovative processes. We’re looking at food, we’re looking at healthcare, all of these, you know, staples where you can’t afford those, you’re not gonna be purchasing anything extra.

And so a lot of those layoffs had to do with those teams, those innovation teams, those strategic operations teams. And now we’re starting to level out. And we’re starting to course correct. So organizations are looking at their budgets a bit more closely cuz they understand the consumer market, right?

It’s been a year, so we’ve been able to assess that as organizations and so I’m seeing more hiring happen. but they’re taking their time now. They’re not rushing through the interview process, which they were before. So you could apply and two weeks later be in a new role. Because everyone needed workers.

So now it’s a longer process I’m seeing right now between four and five weeks for a candidate pipeline to happen. Meaning if you apply today, you may not get a response from that application for the next four weeks. Whether you’re even moving on in the candidate process or the hiring process with that talent acquisition team.

And so when I see that trend happen, everybody in the market needs to be a lot more intentional about how they’re applying, what their brand looks like, and then what’s the strategy to stay motivated when this is happening.

[00:12:00] Susanne: Oh,

[00:12:01] Missy: that’s good for you to know. Suzanne, since

[00:12:03] Susanne: Uh, no. Did you see me? I was looking

[00:12:06] Missy: I saw you writing notes.

[00:12:07] Susanne: notes because that is, I don’t know, I don’t even know what I’m thinking. But, yeah, so for example, if someone, uh, who is a co-host on this podcast is sending out resumes and considering doing some roles, so, I mean, I don’t even know what I’m expecting because we should know from our writer roles that, you know, you can submit proposals or whatever and just never hear back.

So it, I don’t expect to send out a resume and like someone’s just been sitting there waiting for it. Um, but

[00:12:38] Briar: Depends on the size of the company.

[00:12:40] Missy: Depends.

[00:12:41] Susanne: true. That’s true. uh, that’s the other thing, if you’re looking like on, indeed or any of those places, sometimes they say this role was posted 14 days ago or 30 days ago.

Like if it’s a role that’s 30 days ago, like I haven’t even been looking at those. But it sounds like if it’s still listed there, that it’s still open. Um, is.

[00:13:00] Briar: I do have, I do have a tip on that one.

[00:13:02] Susanne: Okay. Ooh, I like tips.

[00:13:04] Briar: So I, I work with a lot of professionals on a daily basis, so I get a lot of feedback right, direct from the market, so, And hiring teams because it is taking a lot longer. and a lot of companies have cut their recruitment staff, right? So you have less people trying to fill more roles with more candidates in the market, right?

Because we have a, a hybrid and remote roles now. So you’ve opened up the demographic of who can actually apply to these roles. So, A role of 200 applicants might be getting a thousand applicants now. So we have to think about the numbers. And so as an organization that hires right, I’m a, I’m an active hiring manager.

I’ve been for years, but in my organization I know that we run first round shortlists, right? So if we get 200 applicants and we’re shortlisting them, we might come up with 40 people from that 200 that actually fit the job description. So that’s a big point. Is because of the, the want and desire to have a remote or hybrid role, a lot more people are applying to roles.

They just don’t fit. So there’s that first vetting process. So you have to think if we, if we go down to 40 people for that role, and then maybe 10 of them are gonna get the interview. If none of those 10 pan out, they’re going back to the applicant pool. If. 100 more applicants came in. You are now in that consideration Pool.

Where you have already been kind of taken out of that if you applied within that first month round. So I’m a big fan of going after those roles that have been sitting there because you don’t know where they are in that applicant pool process. So why would you miss out on that? The worst that can happen is you never hear from the company again.

The best that can happen is that you make it into that second shortlist round.

[00:15:01] Susanne: Yeah, they might be even more desperate.

[00:15:04] Missy: Right.

[00:15:05] Briar: Well, or on the other side, the, the silver lining of that is that when you’ve gone through that first interview process, you know even more as an employer who you want and who you don’t want, and so you start refining those attributes you’re looking for, it makes it a lot easier.

[00:15:22] Missy: Okay,

[00:15:23] Susanne: my

gosh. Why didn’t we schedule you for three hours?

[00:15:27] Missy: right and this is something else we were thinking about and I think this is the perfect, like lead in to that. Suzanne maybe has been worrying about some of the wrong things. So what do you see? I’m just gonna call you out, Suzanne, but what are you seeing that job seekers might be spending too much time worrying about and conversely, what are they not worrying about enough now that this process looks so different?

[00:15:52] Briar: So, so I would say Where I see a lot of candidates go wrong and lose motivation because of it, is that a lot of coaches in the industry will say, well, you gotta go after the companies you wanna target and you have to like refine your search. And, and what happens is that there’s a hyper focus on that first and foremost.

And what I see is when a candidate is, so a mom, for instance, you’re reentering. the candidate pool and, and like job market, you might not have confidence yet. You might not have, you know, how do my skills from the past translate? Right? So there’s, there’s a lot of ambiguity going into it. And so asking someone like that, or even a, a military transition, any of these transitions that are like 180 right from stop to start and starting again, They come with that ambiguity and and of confidence and lack of clarity on where you’re actually headed and how it all works.

So I think refining too much creates such a tiny pool that you can apply to. And so I hear often, well, I only applied to two roles this week cuz I only found two roles that really speak to the company, to the role, to the mission of the product that they serve. And so they’re on like a 12 month application stream.

If, if that’s the approach versus just starting with a much larger scope. And, and I say this not to take away from intention of company or product or purpose, but to understand that culture. Does not always come from the top and actually lead all the way to the bottom right. You can have a, a company that is well known for their culture and get on a really crap team and, and it be not a great fit.

And so, because I’ve seen a lot of that and I’ve done a lot of personal like executive coaching with people that are. Over it like I was sold on a lie and I have a lot of those conversations. I know that if you open up the scope of your your search, you’re gonna be able to interview against that culture.

You’re gonna have more interviews, you’re gonna have more interaction with recruiters and all of those tiny interactions are what create that traction and momentum. And so I go for the momentum first, cuz I know when you’re in a career transition, it’s just. It’s crabby, you know, it’s like, ah, I don’t know, half the stuff going on.

I don’t know. Oh, I don’t know about my resume. I don’t know about LinkedIn. I don’t know if I should be posting this. What do I say to the recruiter when they, they come back to me? There are so many questions. And so create that momentum, get a little bit of that confidence back, and how do you do that? You create a wider scope.

And so to the question of What do you want to pay attention to? You wanna pay attention to, first and foremost, what is it that you want to go after? And, and I often think about it from this perspective is we have a lot of teachers right now that are jumping ship. I want out of academia, and I say teachers and, and that is a broad term.

I’m not talking just K through 12. I’m talking, college higher, like all higher ed, literally from graduate programs, certification programs, all of this. And the first question is, what do I do with this skillset? And so, If I were talking to the mass majority of of candidates out there, or p potential candidates, right?

People that are thinking about making this career transition, it’s to map out your skillset that you most enjoy. So what do you gravitate toward most? Because when you get to that interview and when you get to that networking round, when you can speak passionately, About what you’re going to be doing for an

[00:19:46] Missy: Mm. Mm-hmm.

[00:19:47] Briar: speak confidently about that skillset, you’re gonna have the upper hand.

If you go for the skills that you’re like, I think these work, but I’m not really sure about how to talk about them, and you bring that to an interview, you’re always gonna get tapped out from someone else who came with that level of confidence.

[00:20:05] Susanne: And so, just so I don’t read too much into that because we have talked to coaches in the past and just, I’ve seen this with our friends that, you know, women look at a job description with 10 requirements, and if we’re missing two of them, we’ll just be like, oh, I guess I don’t fit that role.

Whereas I think most men would be like, I could run this company. So, so when you’re looking at, for example, a list of 10, If you nail seven to eight of those, but a couple of them, you’re like, eh, is, is that something you still say? Just go for? It doesn’t mean that you can’t speak confidently to

[00:20:38] Briar: My rate is 50.

[00:20:40] Susanne: 50% Woo.

[00:20:42] Briar: and here’s why, as a hiring manager, right? So I run both roles. So not only do we do, coaching in, in this industry for candidates, But I’m also a hiring manager, so my team is writing these job posts. We’re part of that process. Well think about this as an employer, are you gonna put the bare minimum on your job post of what you would really like to have in your, your ranks, or are you gonna put like every idea that you could possibly come up with?

That would be amazing if this person actually existed out there. Like, think about that as an employer, what would you do?

[00:21:19] Missy: Right,

[00:21:20] Briar: Right.

You’re gonna, you’re gonna put the max

[00:21:23] Missy: see like light bulbs just like pinging over your head. Suzanne,

[00:21:26] Susanne: I know and I feel like the biggest idiot, cause we do, I don’t know if it’s a, an Enneagram nine thing or a woman thing, or a just me thing where if I see 10 things, if I don’t know exactly all 10 of them, I’m just like, whoop, I guess I’m not the right person for this.

[00:21:43] Missy: I’m thinking about all the jobs I didn’t apply for.

[00:21:46] Briar: Okay,

so, so here’s why I have a 50% rule, because I know in the job descriptions that we put out, for career organic in particular, we don’t overshoot for the moon, but we do put the real life things that would be amazing for someone to have. Now, if I find someone who fits seven of the 10, And someone else who fits five of the 10, and I know the five of the 10 is gonna be a better culture fit for us.

That five outta 10 might be the winner. It, it really depends on that confidence you bring to the interview. Right? So, so when I think about should you apply or should you not, the first question is, can you do the role? I don’t care about the attributes, I don’t care about the, the actual bullets you’re looking at.

Like literally, if I plopped you in there and sat you down and said, Hey, this is what you are accountable to every day, could you do the role? And if you’re like, Nope, nope, nope. Like, I need all the training, I can’t do any of it, then you don’t apply. Because you’re doing yourself a disservice because if another role that’s much more aligned to you comes up in two weeks, you’ve now just applied to that role.

Does that make sense?

[00:23:01] Susanne: that does make sense. Yeah.

[00:23:03] Briar: But But if you’re like, I could sit in that seat and I can do that. Well, I’d have to learn that and I’d have to learn that, but ultimately I can do this. Why wouldn’t you apply? Because every single role has proprietary knowledge that you’re gonna have to learn. If you hire an assistant tomorrow to run your podcast.

They’re gonna have to learn like, what do you use to stream it? What do you use to record it? Like all of those things need to be taught no matter what. But do they have the organizational skills you’re looking for? Do they have the experiences of maybe working with moms? Whatever that is, those are the core functions you’re really looking at.

But it doesn’t mean the posting didn’t have five extras just in case.

[00:23:46] Susanne: Okay. Now I still have a little nugget, something in here. You mentioned a few minutes ago about if you’re just submitting two resumes, I. A week that you’re looking at a year long search. So again, I’m thinking of this back of like submitting book proposals or submitting article proposals or whatever.

if you’re looking for an agent, you’re sending it out to, you know, 10, 20 agents and. You don’t expect to hear back from any of them. So is that similar when you’re sending out resumes? I’ve, and then another part of my brain is like, oh no, you do it one at a time and then if you don’t hear back you go to the next one.

Cuz that would be rude to apply for another job if someone wants to accept you, like kind of thing. So like where in the middle

[00:24:27] Briar: a lot of self, self-sabotaging dialogue happening in there. So, uh, yes. So, so there is a, a, a. A metric I can give to kind of start with that milestone cuz having those milestones and goals on a weekly basis is very important. It’s actually, what I teach in starting a job search or a job search strategy.

So 15 to 20 is a good number to try and hit. And the reason is this is that you’ve got three audiences you’re speaking to. You’ve got an a t s, which is that applicant tracking system. So it’s scanning your resume, it’s seeing if you’re even a fit. Do you have the years of experience? Do you have the right titles?

All of these things it’s looking for. And then it kicks it to the recruiter. So now we’ve got the recruiter looking at your resume. The recruiter has to decide whether or not they give you an email, they give you a phone call, and they do that screening, and then it moves to the hiring team, right? And so if you think about those two first gatekeepers, If you’re submitting two and both of them don’t make it through the a t s, you’re at zero for the week.

Now if you submit, say 15 and two, get blocked from the a t s, you’ve got 13 applications that are now in front of a recruiter. And so if the recruiter says, eight of those are gonna be declined, you’ve still got. Five applications that are active, right? So, so numbers do play a game in this because one, we’re working with a tool, right?

Like an actual software system that that tracks you as an applicant and then you have a human being looking at it and it’s, there’s bias in that and what they’re looking for. So you’re not always gonna make it through, even if you’re a great candidate for them. So 15 to 20 is a good, that’s where I see a lot of people make the most traction and speed up that process.

[00:26:23] Susanne: Missy, I’m gonna go rogue here and jump around with some questions. Cause I think this leads into the question of we had about resumes that are being read digitally by this system.

Um, I actually had someone do my resume a, a couple months back and when I got it back I was really surprised at how. Not robotic.

It sounded, but it was V, it wasn’t as conversational as maybe resumes were back two decades ago when I started. So like What is the deal with resumes now? How should people be writing them so that they can still convey a compelling story about their experience, but also, you know, not sound like a robot that needs to be read by this system.

[00:27:09] Briar: so, I teach this resume writing, not only to my staff, cause we have resume writers on staff, but also in the market when, when I’m doing workshops and, and resume writing, classes. And so the approach is, this is one, you have to have a skills section. So having a skill section, and it can be at the top, it can be all the way at the bottom, just depending on how much experience you have and what you wanna showcase on that first page.

And so if you have a skill section, what you can now do is utilize chat g p T. Okay. So if you’re doing your own resume writing or you’re applying to roles and you just need a little quick hack, you can put your. job description into chat G p T and ask it to pull out its keywords and then you can look at your skills section and see did you miss any, any relevant high level keywords, right?

Because like, we’re gonna have soft skills like passion and, collaborative and all of those. That recruiter is looking for that technical skillset. Like do you have regional management? If, if it’s a regional manager role, you need regional management, team leadership. Uh, stakeholder engagement, right? And so running it through something like that can just tell you your gaps.

But what you should not be doing is rewriting all of your bullets per application, cuz you’re never gonna submit more than two applications a week at that rate. So the, the concept is this, when you’re looking at writing a resume, you wanna one know your target. What type of roles are you applying to? Now if you come to me and you say, well, I wanna be an HR generalist and I wanna be a social media coordinator, you’re writing two resumes. Hands down, those things have zero to do with each other. Okay. But if you said you wanna be an HR generalist or maybe an in-house recruiter, those two can marry because of this. Core function overlap. So if you think of typical roles, you have lots of core functions with them. So if I think about operations in particular, it’s probably the easiest to talk about operations is people management, budget management, process management, right?

So like we have these like core. Functions. So you wanna make sure that in your resume, the bullets that you have, talk to the core functions of the roles you’re applying to. And if all of your bullets, and I mean all like you go back to your history and you rewrite them to be focused on one of those core functions.

And I’ll give you one very quick anecdote here. So if you think about a lifeguard wanting to go into pr. Okay. The one piece of being a lifeguard that translates to PR is crisis management, right? So if you’re thinking about that skillset and how to rewrite it, it’s not that they had PR experience when they were a lifeguard, right?

But it was that they were able to handle information overload, be able to crisis, manage a situation on the fly. And then report on that to a team, to a supervisor, or any of those pieces, right? And so when I talk about translating core functions, that’s what we’re doing. And so a good resume. Has done that for you.

So, so your question about like storytelling versus bots, I’m all about the bots in your skill section 100%. Like get those keywords in there. Don’t try and like create a narrative in the skill section or have long lines. Literally it’s like a couple words for each phrase. Be done, check it to the job description, make sure you update that.

But your bullets should not have to change if you do it from that perspective.

[00:31:01] Susanne: Got it.

[00:31:02] Missy: Oh, okay. So while we’re on this topic, I have a question that’s near and dear to my heart, and I believe to Suzanne’s as well. What do we do with the career gaps? Like how do we make that get past the robot?

[00:31:14] Briar: 100%. So, so it’s not the robot that’s gonna kick you out, it’s gonna be the recruiter, right? So we’re at the second audience when we see gaps. And so my big take on this, especially because of Covid, Put your gaps on the resume. So when we work with parents in particular, we’ll actually put career pause and then we’ll come up with whatever title is comfortable for our client.

We put the dates and then we might have one creative bullet of, you know, um, Curriculum development, if you’re like, you know, doing preschool with them, um, it could be, dedicating time and energy to, the livelihood of a tiny human, whatever really fits right that we can put on there.

And it’s just like typically one line. unless you’re like house manager or doing so, you know, part of the PTA or any of those pieces, you can put that in there as well. But you have to remember, there’s a ton of gaps. So we have people that were furloughed and laid off During covid, so think about someone working with Delta.

So you have the role and the end date like that. You were terminated in mass layoff from Delta. And we actually put that as another line. And so we will put. layoff or furloughed comma delta and put the dates. And then you put a bullet saying, part of an overhaul of, staffing during the pandemic.

[00:32:37] Missy: Mm-hmm.

[00:32:37] Briar: Guess what happens when you do this? And this can be like, hospice care. It could be relocation. I’ve had people where, they move overseas and now they’re relocating with their partner back to the states and they have to take the year cuz it’s like a whole transition and they’ve gotta get back into everything.

And so there’s a lot of transitions happening like that in a lot of gaps, um, for a lot of reasons. And so I think listing that and being a little bit vulnerable allows the interviewer not to step in it. Because you have to think about this as an interviewer. If I see a two year gap and you just try and glaze over it on your resume, I’m gonna say, Hey, what were you doing between 2016 and 2018?

And you’re like, well, my father died and I was taking care of his estate. What has now happened to the interview? How, how do you come back from that one as an interviewer? Cuz like, I’m sitting here feeling really guilty about actually bringing that up. Your energy is now pulled down because you’re like, now I have to explain this situation that I don’t wanna talk about.

Um, the additional piece is like if you had a child, you don’t have to sit there and validate that, you know, that’s just a part of your experience, part of your life. But if someone sees that. You’re being very forthright and it makes it a lot easier to get through that interview process. And that’s what I am more concerned about.

Because if a recruiter likes you and likes the experiences, they’re gonna give you a call. It’s not gonna be an issue. As long as they know you weren’t just laid off and never went back to work. Cuz that’s the red flag is why were you not able to get rehired? Does that make sense? That’s what they’re looking for.

So if you lay it out for them, you’re setting yourself up and them for success. Once you do get to the interview round.

[00:34:23] Susanne: This question is probably, uh, relevant for only me, but so what if you’ve had two gaps? So like kid number one, kid number two, maybe, or like someone took a job in between caretaking. So that is what I do have on my resume. There was a couple years, then I did some contract work, and then there’re another couple years without any paid.

Works. So does that then?

[00:34:50] Briar: You would put both gaps on there. However, I, I wanna, I wanna think about it creatively, right? Because if you’re doing, even if you’re doing volunteer work while you’re a parent, right,

[00:35:02] Missy: Yeah.

[00:35:02] Briar: you can limit the gap. And put the work because it’s all experience. Right? And, and this is something that I think women tend to struggle with a lot is if I wasn’t paid then it wasn’t work.

And I’ll, I’ll put it in perspective. So Before I got paid, I volunteered for a nonprofit. And I was the acting c o o while we were getting funding, I did all the strategic partnerships. I was having a lot of conversation, and the person that was the figurehead of the, the foundation was a former N F L player.

So, I mean, he got us meetings with like VP of Coca-Cola sustainability. We were working with Chick-fil-A. and I’m leading these presentations and meetings now. For the first half of that, I wasn’t paid. Does that make that work not valid?

[00:35:55] Missy: No,

[00:35:56] Briar: Does that make the experience less valuable for someone else who needs help running their nonprofit if they wanted to call me for advice,

[00:36:04] Missy: right,

[00:36:05] Briar: right?

[00:36:06] Susanne: Yes.

[00:36:07] Missy: I mean,

[00:36:07] Briar: remember, if you are doing something, even on a volunteer internship, returnship apprenticeship, it goes on your resume and that supersedes the gap.

[00:36:18] Susanne: Oh

[00:36:18] Missy: I think, I mean, I can speak for myself, but somewhat for you, Suzanne, too. I’m pretty familiar with what you’ve done. Like you don’t have giant gaps. You might have long stretches where you weren’t being paid, but I. That’s not a gap. You were always doing something. so I think that, yeah, I think learning to look at it differently, it’s all valid.

It’s all work.

[00:36:39] Briar: That’s right.

[00:36:40] Susanne: Oh my gosh. We have so many more questions

[00:36:44] Missy: So many, and it’s 1145.

[00:36:46] Susanne: Okay. Because yeah, we do actually get to the look, listen, and learn. Will you come back if we want to do a follow up on doing actually like interview prep and

[00:36:56] Briar: Oh, absolutely.

[00:36:56] Susanne: sprinkle LinkedIn that we can

schedule that?

[00:36:59] Missy: prep would be a fantastic

[00:37:01] Susanne: Yes. I think we could do a whole episode dedicated

[00:37:04] Missy: although I got really nervous that you might make us practice during the episode.

[00:37:08] Susanne: Don’t make us role

[00:37:09] Briar: I only, I only do that when, um, I’m in my like group teaching sessions, so,

[00:37:15] Missy: Okay.

[00:37:16] Susanne: Okay,

[00:37:16] Missy: Just saying it. I was like, oh no, I don’t know if I wanna do that.

[00:37:19] Susanne: We are definitely going to have you back to that. But before we go to look, list and learns, I mean, uh, we’ve touched on a broad swath of your coaching services and, um, hopefully, people will see the value in that as much as we do and how important that is to have a coach to help with some of that.

So for people who, oh, I’m

[00:37:41] Briar: Really, really quickly on that note, sorry, I know you’re, and we can maybe edit that,

[00:37:45] Missy: Oh, no, you’re good.

You’re

[00:37:46] Briar: just to give you a, a notice on that is, um, we actually have this thing called the job seeker membership. And I’m not sure if you saw that or not. So, so we have a job search support program, and it isn’t a group setting.

We run it through a Slack channel. And so everybody has monthly access each month. It’s just a monthly subscription model for our community to be involved with coaching, but at a much more affordable. Price point as well as a group collective environment. And what we’ve seen is that a lot of people going through job search and and transitions, they don’t feel motivated on a daily basis because no one else is in it with them.

And so this model allows us to have daily interactions, daily support, live q and a sessions, live weekly coaching in topics like interview prep, networking, how to start your job search, like what things do you need to do, how to find your innate motivations. If you’re making a career transition, you’re not necessarily sure what to do yet.

And so this environment that we’ve created has been really. Amazing to see the expedited success. So it takes a job search, and we’ve had about 88% of our members so far finding and accepting job offers between four and six weeks of working within this community with us. And then for people who are taking longer, they’re going through the entire job search process and really trying to refine what they want first before even entering.

[00:39:22] Susanne: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:23] Briar: it’s been a, an interesting, dynamic that’s been created because we’ve come together as a community and provided coaching at a rate that’s affordable. Cause it’s $39 a month right now

[00:39:35] Susanne: That does seem pretty reasonable.

[00:39:37] Briar: to this.

[00:39:39] Missy: that is amazing. And what else? Do you offer for clients? Like how do people work with you if they’re looking for something more one-on-one?

[00:39:46] Briar: Yeah, so we have one-on-one done for you services is what I would say. And so from that perspective, we do resume writing, cover letters, LinkedIn profile, writing, and we do profile writing, both for if you’re looking for a corporate job or say you’re a business owner and you don’t wanna lose. the ability to attract clients, but you also wanna be attractive to corporations.

We actually write hybrid profiles for that particular situation. Uh, for LinkedIn, uh, we do one-on-one coaching where we’re working with career transitions. You know how to get clarity in your search. We do interview prep. So getting ready for specific interviews, generic interviewing, just like getting, getting those stories.

We also do comp package negotiations, so if you get a job offer, how do we work through that entire negotiation process? And then I also work, one-on-one with clients from executive leadership coaching. I do entrepreneur coaching where, you know, small businesses need to course correct their, their model or really understand how to.

Drive purpose and profit together. And so we, we work on just about everything on a one-on-one basis, but we also do have that, that group aspect as well

[00:41:05] Missy: I mean, I was taking notes, which I always, we always laugh when we do that because we could just play this back and listen to it again, but still I was taking notes. That’s amazing what you offer.

[00:41:14] Susanne: Everything, everything from start to finish,

whatever

[00:41:17] Briar: start to finish.

[00:41:18] Susanne: and then even beyond when you get to be to the executive level. And so for people who do want to, we’re gonna have it all in the show notes, but where should they find you online?

[00:41:28] Briar: Yeah, the best way to find us is on our website, career organic.com, and we actually have a chat function on our website where we have live actual humans. that we’ll chat about your current situation. any questions whatsoever are always on the table. We hear a lot of different situations on there, so that’s the best place to both see what we offer as well as be able to get contact immediately with our team.

[00:41:55] Missy: Fantastic.

[00:41:57] Susanne: Oh, okay. And then, yeah, we will immediately be following up with your team after this to schedule round two to answer the rest of the questions we

[00:42:05] Briar: And then there’s also LinkedIn, you know, so, so my entire team, including myself, is on LinkedIn. I am always very open and willing to hear from anybody going through a career transition or just even contemplating a career transition. I’m the only Briar Dockerty. On LinkedIn, so if you type my name in, I am the only one that comes up.

[00:42:29] Susanne: Well

[00:42:29] Missy: our listeners, Dockerty is spelled

[00:42:32] Briar: D O U

[00:42:33] Missy: Doherty. Yeah.

[00:42:34] Briar: G h E R T Y. That’s right. Do.

[00:42:37] Susanne: Find it in the show notes for sure. All right. Well, As hard as it is to break away from this awesome conversation and I’m learning so much. I know. Oh, I know. I didn’t have any look list and learns. We could just skip it. No, I’m just kidding. We are. We’re gonna do the look list and learned, and if there are any listeners here for the first time, welcome.

We are so glad you’re here. The end of each show. We just spent a couple minutes talking about some of the things that we are either watching or reading or listening to. I. Are learning about and we do not like to put our guests in the hot seat. So Missy, okay, you wanna do your look list and learns?

[00:43:15] Missy: sure. so I’m have been looking at this week my local bookstore, um, This is nothing that anybody hasn’t heard before, but it’s really important to support your local bookstores. I have this amazing one by me. It’s called Larkin Owl, and it has a little bistro and coffee shop attached to it. They do an incredible job of.

Reaching out to the community of trying to promote things from within the community. It is just a great place run by people who are really passionate about books. So if you have a store like that, I know it takes longer to drive over there and go than it does to hit buy from Amazon. Or if you go and they don’t have the book you want, you have to ask them to order it.

Like I know that that takes a little bit longer, but I have been thinking about it so much LA lately that it’s just, it’s worth it and the way I feel when I am there. And it’s just, it just feels good and it, mine is a good place to work. They may not all be like that, but I, there’s a great place to sit and get some work done as well, which is sort of magical.

I love to work surrounded by books. So yeah. So that is my look and Well, I have another look slash listen cuz I listened to it more than watched it. But shiny happy people on prime, which is the Dugger documentary and talks about I L B P or I B L P, I can’t remember the initials.

this really fascinating cult, essentially, uh, and fascinating in the grossest way, like it’s pretty upsetting. but stuff I really didn’t know before, but having grown up in a church, There were some crossovers. I recognized some of that and they talk a little bit about, um, James Dobson and focus on the family.

And that was a thing that in my Protestant life I heard some of. And so, I’m fascinated by religious cults and by religious, unpacking and deconstructing and all of that. It’s just something I’m working on myself now. So it’s fascinating, but it’s disgusting. Um,

[00:45:17] Susanne: I’ll have to save that for when Chris is on a trip. That’s one of the shows he won’t watch

[00:45:21] Missy: Yes. Oh yeah.

[00:45:22] Susanne: but I’m kind of, I’m kind of interested in it too, so, yeah.

[00:45:24] Missy: Yeah. Mark was like, what are you doing? And I was like, I,

I’m

[00:45:27] Susanne: get covid again so I can watch it.

[00:45:29] Missy: no, don’t say that. Not going

[00:45:31] Susanne: No, knock on wood. Knock on wood.

[00:45:33] Missy: and my learn is more of an ask. I need help with supplements. So if we have any listener out there who is a doctor or knows a doctor,

[00:45:43] Susanne: gonna get hit by so many MLMs right now.

[00:45:46] Missy: No MLMs, I’m not buying in. But I, you know, I have like real life doctors who’ve said, okay, take this and this.

And then of course I’ve done some reading and some TikTok and looking for the information and there are so many supplements you could take all day long. I don’t think that’s actually very good for you. I don’t think that’s necessary. so I’m trying to figure out beyond vitamin D, which I. I’m woefully short on, I never have enough vitamin D, even if I’m taking it so beyond that, and magnesium, which seems to be universally

[00:46:15] Susanne: was gonna say I’m a sucker for some magnesium. Yep.

[00:46:18] Missy: Yeah, and I’ve been taking it with zinc cuz apparently magnesium, zinc and vitamin D are good friends.

[00:46:24] Susanne: Oh, it’s like vitamin C and iron. They like to play together. Okay.

[00:46:28] Missy: And then, you know, I’m like taking something for my eyes cuz my mom has macular degeneration, so I wanna protect my eyes and then I’m taking the omegas cuz women need that for their hearts and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Like, there’s so much, what do I take? What do I, I have a really balanced diet and so at least I think so I should probably talk to a nutritionist, but I think I have a good diet so, What am I getting from my food? What do I need to take? What is too much? So if anybody knows, reach out to me and tell me. I would love to hear

[00:46:55] Susanne: We should have a dietician. Come on.

[00:46:58] Missy: we need one. Yeah, we need to find a good one and

[00:47:01] Susanne: Okay.

[00:47:02] Briar: And, and that actually segues into mine.

[00:47:05] Missy: Good. Well, it’s

[00:47:05] Susanne: Ooh,

good cuz it’s your turn.

Perfect.

[00:47:09] Briar: my, look, it was very interesting is I’ve been doing a lot more research on, seed oils and, um, nutritional things for my kids because I actually have a very restricted diet. I had cancer in 2014 and I cleaned up my diet completely. Cancer went down very quickly after my surgery and all of this, and I reintroduced like carbs and sugars and things like that back into my diet in 2018 and got recurrence.

[00:47:43] Missy: Oh.

[00:47:43] Briar: And so, um, I very quickly went back to my diet and literally within two months, the growth in my neck had actually gone down by 40%. And so food for me is like a very strict lifestyle. And so I do a lot of research, but it just came back, where now I’m trying to incorporate my diet for my children

[00:48:07] Susanne: Mm-hmm.

[00:48:08] Briar: because they’d have different needs than me and, you know, different reactions to different foods.

And so I’ve been looking at, I do a lot of cooking, so I, I cook. All our meals, um, we don’t do a lot of processed foods, which makes it a little more difficult, especially in the summer and like wanting to go to the beach or go to the lake or anything like that. It’s like you have to actually bring a cooler and things need to be set up.

Um, But the, the seed oil piece and like what we’re cooking with, even like our oils like olive oil, you know, a certain heat. I’ve been reading about how they process avocado oil and like all the actual processing things,

which is kind of neat because once you see what they’re doing to the food makes you wanna do less of it.

So,

so that’s been like a lot of my reading as of recently. Um, Then I would say my, listen, it’s just this week, um, I have so much on my mind and so I become kind of an insomniac sometimes when like things are just, they won’t shut down. And so I’ve been playing an audiobook of Pride and Prejudice, so,

[00:49:18] Susanne: Oh

[00:49:18] Briar: Every night.

And I love it cuz it’s got this, you know, like really amazing British accent. And I like the story. It’s one of my favorites. and my daughter, my seven year old daughter and I have read the book together and she really enjoys

[00:49:31] Susanne: Oh fun.

[00:49:32] Briar: And so I’ve been playing that each night. I can’t make it really through a chapter, which is sad

[00:49:38] Missy: But that’s the goal,

[00:49:39] Briar: like literally puts me out and I’m,

I’m like, done. Completely done. Which is exactly why I am using it. So that’s, that’s my listen, um, right now

[00:49:48] Susanne: Thank goodness for those timers or else I’d go, I’d wake up and the whole book would be done.

[00:49:51] Briar: it.

That’s, that’s kind of how, how I am right now. Um, and then my learn is we are. Trying to consider having my parents move in with us and creating an in-law suite for them.

Um, and so I’ve been doing a lot of research and trying to learn on how are those spaces and what’s the cost per square foot and what are the charges for building this and that, and, and trying to get my head wrapped around it. Before moving on to, you know, builders and getting exact estimates and quotes.

And so, uh, I think that’s what I’m dreaming of when I can’t go to sleep

[00:50:31] Susanne: Oh yeah. No wonder

[00:50:33] Missy: I was about to say, no wonder you’re not resting like you do have a lot on your mind.

[00:50:38] Briar: So that, that’s my, my look list and learn.

[00:50:40] Susanne: Oh my gosh, those are good ones and mine will be super fast because I did not organize my, look, listen, learn, because I was addressing, I am looking at a giant branch that I listened to fall on my roof. While I was eating breakfast this morning, and I am going to learn, I’m sure shortly how expensive it is to have that removed.

And I’m also gonna be listening and looking at two whining dogs because they cannot go outside now because if this thing falls, they will be history. They, I mean, it’s probably 10 times as big as bear. So, yes. So that is my look, listen, and learn. I will be,

[00:51:19] Missy: I’m sorry. It’s

not fun.

[00:51:20] Susanne: I don’t wanna learn how much it’s gonna cost.

[00:51:23] Missy: I think it, I mean, it’s not gonna be cheap. I’m not gonna lie to you, but I think. After, you know, during the freeze when, I mean the trees around here, Briar were like snapping. I don’t know if you saw any of that in the news. Like they were so cold that they were like exploding basically and falling and it was this horrible loud noise all around us.

And so we had, we had a very large one fall right into the pool and we had a couple other large ones hit structures on their way down. We had a lot of damage. and we had another huge one that. Just landed on our patio, but it was really big and then a quite large one on the roof as well. Like it was a mess.

And I mean, it was not cheap to get help with that, but, um, it’s not as awful as I

[00:52:05] Briar: Deductible. Right.

[00:52:06] Missy: Right. Well, and I expected, I think I had worked myself up to thinking this is gonna be thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. So when they gave me us the bid, I was like, okay, go. Please go take care of the branches.

Like, we’ll pay you

[00:52:18] Susanne: You know what, that’s actually a really good point just as far as perspective, because to me this is like a huge deal cuz I’m picturing like what it would involve for me to have to go up there and remove it for,

[00:52:29] Missy: Right. You don’t have

[00:52:29] Susanne: is probably like, oh yeah, let me just get my saw and I’ll just shimmy up there and it’s probably like nothing to them.

So, so

[00:52:37] Missy: It’s not cheap, but it

[00:52:38] Susanne: I’m, seeing it through my, my amateur

[00:52:41] Missy: Well, that was mine too. I was like, how does one get a tree out of a pool? I mean, what? I guess now we just have this, I’ve pictured it like an aquarium, you know, where fish are swimming around, like things. I’m like, it’s just an aquarium feature.

[00:52:53] Susanne: we just have a tree in our pool now. I guess this is how we live.

[00:52:57] Missy: But I mean, my boys and my husband were able to haul that out with some help, like they got it done, but I’m just imagining the worst because I was looking at

[00:53:04] Briar: Right. Wrap it around, winch that out, and,

[00:53:08] Missy: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:08] Susanne: I know as I was heading in here, my husband has an office in a above our garage, which looks straight at where this branch is. He’s like, I think if I got a rope like so I was like, I’m going into a call, so don’t do that while I’m

[00:53:23] Missy: Please don’t do

[00:53:24] Susanne: I don’t know if he was kidding or not. Hopefully he was, but I’m like, oh

[00:53:28] Missy: There was a lot of climbing ladders and using ropes by my boys and my husband, and it’s so unnerving. We’re not bonded and insured for that. Like, don’t

do that. It’s scary.

[00:53:38] Susanne: Chris worked with a doctor once who told him that anything over climbing up, I think it was either two or three feet. You hire a professional cuz he, he was a, a back surgeon. He’s like, yeah, it’s just not worth it. Anything, anything over this high step stool,

[00:53:54] Missy: yes. Hire someone who is prepared.

[00:53:56] Susanne: Yeah,

[00:53:57] Missy: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:58] Susanne: oh my gosh, I’m, I’m already looking forward to the next time you come back, so I’m really excited and I’m so excited about this stuff I learned today.

I thought I was so crazy sending out three resumes this week. I thought, wow, I’m really flooding the market. So just learning that piece of it. Oh, just get ready if you’re smacking yourself in the head now. Just wait until the next one when we talk about the interview, because.

[00:54:22] Missy: Oh gosh. I

[00:54:23] Briar: You were flooding the market with three residents. My goodness.

[00:54:29] Susanne: Oh no, you

[00:54:30] Missy: Yeah, you’ve gotta send out 12 more.

[00:54:32] Susanne: No, I know. No. Yeah, yeah. Mentally prepare yourself for the next round with us, because we’re even worse when it comes to that. So.

[00:54:42] Briar: Good.

[00:54:42] Missy: so bad.

[00:54:43] Susanne: Oh my gosh. Well thank you so much for joining us. I think there’s probably a lot of listeners who had to like pull over to take notes or who are re-listening to this one cuz this one was jam packed

[00:54:54] Missy: really was.

[00:54:55] Susanne: So thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. And yet we’ll have all the links in the show notes y’all, for anybody who wants to follow up with Breyer and get some more information about services.

[00:55:05] Briar: Thanks for having me.

[00:55:06] Missy: absolutely. Have a great rest of your day.

[00:55:09] Susanne: All right. See you next week, everybody. Or hear you next week. Bye.

[00:55:13] Missy: Bye