Katy/West Houston Aggie Mothers’ Club
October 4, 2007
General Meeting Minutes
The President of Katy/West Houston Aggie Moms, Penny Nelson, called the meeting to order and welcomed everyone.
Programs Chair, Ginger Westbrook introduced our guest speaker Paul Pausky from the Former Students Association. Paul started by asking how many Aggies were in the room. A few hands went up but Paul said everyone in the room was an Aggie. Paul gave all of the Katy/West Houston Aggie Moms lots of useful information to help our students in their search for employment during and following their time in Aggieland. ( Katy/ Aggie Mom Secretary note:The paragraphs are long to conserve space here but all wording is as written by Paul Pausky) Following are Paul notes:
©Paul Pausky 2006
Guide to Make Your Resume More Effective
Let’s clarify the most basic purpose of a resume. A resume is one tool that helps an employer identify people with knowledge, skills, experience, and talent that match up with the specific needs of their organization. It is not written by the company. It is a document written by prospective employees that are competing for the attention of a manager that has the authority and budget to add individuals to their team. A resume is a reflection of the person it represents. Spelling and grammar are important, but your ability to communicate that you are the most cost effective match for the items on that manager’s shopping list will strongly influence whether you are called for an interview. Needless to say, resumes that get noticed are customized to get the attention of each unique reader. It takes a lot of work to deliver a resume that connects with the hiring authority’s needs; that is why you have heard that getting a job is a full time job.
What Every Resume Writer Needs to Know
Before we make changes to your resume, it is important that we briefly review a few job search realities: The person that you need to connect with is the person that has the ability and authority to hire you; or the person that is willing to deliver your resume to that person that has the ability to hire you. It is important that you learn to differentiate between the people that can help you and the people that can block your efforts. Stated somewhat differently, human resource managers only hire human resources staff. You need to connect with the person that you will work for. Most managers do not enjoy, nor are they paid for, reading resumes. They are paid to achieve goals, on budget. They make time to review resumes when they need to add to their team to achieve their goals. The review process is very streamlined. In the first stage a manager has no intention of reading every line of every resume, instead they will spend between 5 and 30 seconds to skim each resume looking for individuals that display multiple, potential matches to their needs. If the material in your resume does not “jump out” as a potential match with their
needs, you will not make the cut. In most cases the second round is focused on a more thorough review designed to identify a reasonable number of interview prospects.
Through experience, many managers have learned to reduce the aforementioned process by encouraging team members and peers to forward resumes believed to identify candidates. This is often referred to as the “Hidden” job market. They do this for several reasons. Employees and peers will only refer individuals where they see real potential. This method can be much more effective. It eliminates the time required to post job descriptions, reduces the time it takes to receive resumes, and reduces review time. This approach eliminates the expense of print or online advertising by eliminating the need for want ads. And, perhaps of equal importance, reduces liability of the more formal candidate screening process. Smart job seekers do not rely on luck when developing their resume or planning their job search. They will usually seek out experts on the subject and ask for some advice and assistance to maximize the effectiveness of their efforts. Ironically, asking others for advice and assistance is a key to success with the entire job search process. It is a commonly held belief that around eighty percent (80%) of successful job searchers will “connect” with their job through networking. This process has been dramatically energized for Texas Aggies in recent years with the availability of the On-Line Directory of Former Students available to The Aggie Network. Understanding how to develop a resume as part of a deliberate networking process is important to new graduates, but it will be absolutely essential later in your career when you are looking for your second or third job and the mortgage payment is due. We have learned through experience that job searches stall when the job seekers begin to rely primarily on mass broadcasting of resumes addressed blindly to companies or to web-based job boards. Mass resume broadcasts typically fail to produce results for one simple reason: Employers do not hire people from a sense of philanthropy; they hire people to fill specific needs. Perhaps the most important thing that you need to know about developing resumes is the work that should go into the pre-delivery of your resume. This phase is built around informational interviews and extensive company research. As you ask people for advice and assistance they will identify potential work groups or employers that need help. These sources will also often describe the needs in demand within that organization and industry. Customize each resume to highlight the knowledge, skills, and experience you possess that meets the specific needs of that potential employer. Experience will show that the most effective resumes will verify what people have heard about you…rather than introduce you. In these situations you will be viewed as an answer to their needs rather than someone just looking for a job. The balance of this Guide is dedicated to helping you develop a resume that packages “Product You” in a way that identifies you as an essential part of your next employer’s team.
OK, Let’s Answer Your Formatting Questions
Inexperienced job seekers see the resume as their primary, if not only, marketing tool. As a result they place more emphasis on the formatting of the resume than on the information that is to be presented. The format is important, but remember that the purpose of the resume is to make the person that has the ability to hire you, want to talk to you. Substance is key. Format is secondary. That said; let’s get some of the more common formatting questions out of the way so that we can focus on substance.
Substance is key. Format is secondary.
Question: One page or two? The majority of new graduates can present their offerings on a single page resume. Seasoned Former Students, some Graduate Students, and a very few, very marketable new graduates may need a second page to tell their story. Remember, however, that the second page will rarely be looked at during a 30 second skim. Your best stuff must be on page one if you want to make sure that it has a chance to be seen. Students submitting resumes
Understanding how to develop a resume as part of a deliberate networking process is
important to new graduates, but it will be absolutely essential later in your career
when you are looking for your second or third job and the mortgage payment is due.
for pre-selection for Campus interviews organized by the Career Center are limited to one page, but that doesn’t mean that you can not bring a longer resume to your interview.
Question: Chronological or Functional format? Use the format that most effectively presents your package. The chronological format can be used to emphasize your development as a resource and the organizations that you have been associated with. This is important if you have progressed through leadership roles or had increasingly noteworthy responsibilities with more recognizable organizations. The functional format can emphasize the range of knowledge, skills, and abilities that match with the employer’s needs. Smart job seekers use both, depending on the specific situation. If you choose to submit your resume to a web-based job listing, convert the resume to a scannable text format. Career Center Staff members can familiarize you with the appropriate formatting.
Question: Include an Objective or Overview Statement?
Yes, you should develop a statement that shows the reader that you match their needs. This statement should not identify your goals or the type of organization that you want to work for. Rather, it should briefly summarize what you will bring to the hiring organization. Borrowing loosely from President Kennedy’s famous speech…Ask not what the Employer can do for you, tell what you can do for the Employer!
Identifying What’s Marketable
This Guide has made several references to the importance of presenting a resume that
addresses the specific needs of each employer. This can be accomplished without starting each resume from scratch.
Start developing your resume with brainstorming sessions designed to identify marketable
knowledge, skills, and experience that you have accumulated in your lifetime. A list of action verbs san help stimulate your thoughts and memory. Draw from activities that you participated in related to school, extra-curricular organizations, volunteer work and your previous employment. Then list your responsibilities and accomplishments with each. Include activities from job description you have held, but you should also include the things that you did outside of the job description to accomplish your goals. As examples; working with people across departmental lines to complete a project is activity rarely referenced in a job description, but it is highly sought after by Employers, as is the ability to work with Customers to identify their individual needs and their preferences. Reflect back to remember events and or accomplishments that give you an extra twinge of pride. Don't be shy or modest while you are brainstorming.
The Career Center provides extensive web-based resources related to
resume formatting and development on the “Student” section of the
Career Center’s web-site at http://careercenter.tamu.edu under the “Career
and Job Research” link. This information is valuable to both Students and
Former Students.
Start the development of your resume with a brainstorming session designed to
identify marketable knowledge, skills, and experience that you have accumulated in
your lifetime.
©Paul Pausky 2006
Don’t worry about what fits where on your resume yet. During this phase you are pursuing two important goals. You are assembling an inventory that will help you align with a variety of needs. And in the process of documenting each item you are refreshing your memory regarding the details of each item which will be helpful in future conversations. The result of this effort will be your inventory resume. This “Inventory” resume is more information than you want to provide an Employer for a specific position, but it will provide a continuously growing inventory of the knowledge, skills, experiences, and talent that you have accumulated. Inventory resumes will prove particularly important to those
of you identifying transferable skills during career changes or for those that opt for careers in consulting or contract services. In those jobs you will constantly be providing representative project descriptions to secure new assignments. Inventory resumes can also be used if you choose to submit to a resume database that utilizes text file resumes for keyword searches. Employers using these databases are generally trolling, looking for matches within pre-screened groups posted with the Career Center, third party headhunters, and with resume banks at area networking clubs. (i.e. they are specifically looking for Aggies). Occasionally this keyword search approach will yield results.
Then pick from this inventory information that you want to use to create your generic resume and your targeted resumes. Select your most marketable, broad-range offerings for the generic resume. Your targeted resumes will naturally focus on the more specific knowledge, skills, experiences, and talents sought after by a specific Employer where you have identified needs.
Targeting Resumes
Most people start to build their resume by borrowing someone else’s attractive resume, replacing the previous person’s information, with their own information. The writer typically focuses on filling in blank spaces with information describing their life experiences, rather than focusing on what the employer is looking for. This approach yields a completed resume document, but the document rarely provides the desired results. The resume fails to grab the employer’s attention, or to identify a match between needs and abilities. One effective way to help people understand targeted resume development and the related job search process is to relate it to a common life experience. At some time in your life you have probably gone fishing or you watched someone else that was fishing. There are actually quite a few correlations between fishing and the process of securing a job. If this concept seems a stretch please follow along anyway. It will soon make sense. Every resume needs “Hooks” to grab and hold the attention of a prospective employer. Since space on your resume is precious, think of each line on your resume as a fishing hook. A hook by itself is of little consequence, but that same hook presented with attractive bait to hungry fish has proven an effective tool for putting food on the table. The best baits are knowledge, skills, experiences, and talent that align with an employer’s needs. How do you know what baits are attractive for particular jobs that you are interested in?
You need ‘Hooks” on your resume to grab and hold
the attention of a prospective employer
Ask the fish. Ask people at a company or in an industry that draws your interest or that are familiar with the type of job in question. Savvy fisherpersons will share information indicating areas where people are successfully hooking fish and areas where they are wasting their time. Have you ever noticed that fishermen are always asking other fishermen if the fish are biting and what kind of bait is working?
It helps to use technology that can show you where the fish are at. The Association of Former Students sponsors resources that can provide valuable assistance to Aggies that are in or considering a career transition. Active members of The Association of Former Students can access the web-based Online Directory of Former Students located at
http://www.aggienetwork.com to identify potential contacts by name, company, class year,
occupation, geographic area, major and campus organization. In the context of fishing, the directory is a great fish finder. These contacts often serve as great resources for informational interviews where job seekers can learn about existing or evolving needs and where they can connect with the hidden job market. Searchers can contact Aggies regarding their industry or their respective companies to see what work they might need to have performed or to identify holes that organization might need filled. Quite often job searchers can create their own opportunities this way. The key to a successful informational interview is to focus on understanding their organization, their needs and their future needs. In other words you are learning, not selling. Armed with information from these networking efforts you will have a much better idea of how and where to fish.
Many fishing experts also utilize scents that make the bait more attractive in an extra effort to capture the fish’s attention. Take time when developing the information on your resume to accurately present the depth and breadth of your abilities. A good way to approach this task is to ask “so what?” as you review each item within your inventory. Make sure that you quantify information where ever possible. Consider a situation where an employer is looking for a project manager. Telling the Prospective Employer that you managed a project could be of interest to them. Telling them that you managed a $4Million project that was finished on time and under budget will most likely grab their attention and make them want to talk to you.
Over time the informational interviews will help you identify specific areas of needs and will provide you a depth of knowledge of specific matches that you have with those needs. It will also help create opportunities where you can be identified as the prospective match for teams where you would otherwise be an unknown commodity. Now is the time to develop a resume targeted to show your alignment with a manager’s shopping list. Bait your hooks wisely.
Conclusion
Development of an effective resume is not a stand-alone activity to be completed before you begin your job search. In reality, development of your resume and networking efforts with prospective employers should be closely interrelated to help you match your offerings with specific needs of individual employers.
The resume format to be used warrants consideration to maximize readability and presentation, but the substance of the knowledge, skills, experiences, and talent that you offer prospective Employers should receive your primary attention.
Finally, space on a resume is precious. Consider each line of your resume as an opportunity to hook the attention of your targeted Employer and make them see your match with their needs.
©Paul Pausky 2006
For More information please contact:
The Texas A&M Career Center: Koldus Building suite 209 (979) 845-5139
Example of Contact Introduction:
Step 1 After Identifying a networking contact, Send an e-mail (individuals only – No Group Mailings) or leave a voice mail. Let them know date /time when you will call back. (This will help you handle screeners when you can say “they are expecting my call at “ that time.) Recommend that you do not send your resume at this point.
Howdy ____________
My name is ____________. I’m a Student at Texas A&M and am considering (industry / job type).
While searching name of the networking resource, I saw that you are in this line of work. Would you have a moment
to share some Aggie advice and ideas and to discuss a couple of questions regarding your occupation and industry?
Thank You for your assistance
Name
Phone #
Step 2 Conduct an informal but “business-like” interview. Respect their time and spend more time listening than talking. Remember…they are the experts. The feedback on needs and desired characteristics/skills can be used to customize your resume. Make sure you send a Thank You note that evening, before you go to bed.
1 How did you get to where you are today?
2 If you were starting your career today; What would you do differently?
3 Where do you see opportunity areas, needs?
4 What characteristics/skills make for a good _________?
5 How would you describe the culture of your organization?
6 Do you know anybody that needs help?
During an informational interview DO NOT ASK FOR AVAILABLE POSITIONS OR JOB OPENINGS. You requested their help with advice and ideas, they did not agree to serve as your agent. Asking if they know someone that needs help is less demanding. Focusing on help needed instead of job openings helps you gain access to the hidden job market.
Step 3 Some day in the future an Aggie will contact you for your advice and ideas. Please make the time to help them.
Paul is a valuable resource for all Aggies. Paul stayed for our meeting. He answered many questions. He even helped with the take down of the tables and chairs.
Secretary, Kathleen Wilburn said the minutes were posted near the entrance. The minutes were approved as posted.
Treasures Report-Theresa Ashton reported as of 8/21/2007 that the checking account balance was $2,494.97. The monthly income was $2,372.56, the monthly expenses were $724.03, with a balance as of 9/09/07 of $4,143.50. The investment account balance as of 8/21/07 was $23,466.00, and investment income interest of $19.83, for a balance of $23,485.83. The Treasurer’s Report stands approved as read.
Officers and Committees
Vice President at Large/ Love Fund-Nancy Williford said the Love Fund has $203.23.
Vice President/Student drawings-Karen Kurt said there would be 5 student drawings.
Parliamentarian-Renee Anchors presented Bylaw changes to the membership at the October General Meeting. See the website for changes. . http://www.katywesthoustonaggiemoms.com/ A copy of changes will be posted with the minutes and a copy will be filed with the secretary notes.
Care Packages- Laurel Adami had sold 42 care packages as of September 20, 2007. Money was deposited with the treasurer. Laurel encouraged all to purchase a care package for their student.
Skit- Nancy Williford and Sonna Lumpkins entertained us with a little skit about AGGIE MOMS CAMP. It is Nov 9-11, 2007: at the Hilton Hotel. Nancy said it was not too late to sign up for camp.
Membership/Directory- Emma Lipperdt said we have 51 new members and 69 returning. The new 2007-2008 Membership form is on the website. http://www.katywesthoustonaggiemoms.com/ The Directories will be available at the November General Meeting. We had 13 new moms and 1 future Aggie Mom attending the meeting.
Grocery Rebates- Renee Anchors –Renee reminded us that we can turn in our Ink Jets and cell phones for recycling.
Historian-Debbie Szuluk - Karen Kurt took pictures for Debbie.
Hospitality/Door prizes-Lori Etchison had a lovely table setting to display all the refreshment goodies brought by: Debbie Vaughn, Lita Hrbacek, Kathi Powell, Sandy Thorp, Christine Sabbaugh, Vicki Welsch, Wendy Thorp,
Lori Etchison, Susan Morkovsky, Zoe Brooks, Suzie Carpenter, Tondi Branch, and Pam Zinnante . Lori thanked everyone that brought goodies.
Programs- Ginger Westbrook told us that next month’s program will be Beutel Health Center.
Publications-Kay Pontious Kay asked for any announcements to be sent as soon as possible so that they can be put in local publications.
Scholarship-Debbie Derong said changes were being concerning scholarships and that we check the website for details.
Socials-Linne Atteberry ( absent) No Report.
Telephone-Marilyn Mokwa said you could call the Hotline anytime of the day: 281-394-8108, to listen to two minutes of Katy/West Houston Aggie Mom News. Call to hear Marilyn talk fast.
Ways and Means-Christina McCaslin and Kathy Keeney are new Co-Chairs for Ways and Means. The sign up sheets for Winter-in-Aggieland were at the table and Aggie Moms were encouraged to sign up to work November 29 or 30.
Webmaster-Sonna Lumpkins reminded all of the website address: http://www.katywesthoustonaggiemoms.com/. Check it out. Sonna asks for all to send her recipes, Aggie brags and stories to her email solumpk@gmail.com .
Old Business
Aggie Mom’s Camp November 9-11, 2007.
12 th Mom Stretch. A game was played, and lead by Nancy Wiliford.
Kay Pontious entertained the Aggie Moms with some items overheard on campus’ such as: “Dude, don’t worry, you only need a D to graduate, D stands for Diploma”. If anyone would like to talk about any Aggie Tradition for a General Meeting contact Sonna Lumpkins at solumpk@gmail.com for details.
New Business
By-Laws – Renee Anchors Linda Bundy proposed the Motion that we accept the changes as shown and the motion was seconded by Pam Zinnante
NW Houston Aggie Moms—Annual China Luncheon Penny Nelson told about the event.
Introduction of new members- First time moms told about themselves and their Aggie. Welcome to Aggie Moms and to the Katy/West Houston Aggie Moms Club.
Announcements
Renew memberships. Dues are $20.00.
Aggie Brags & Good Bull stories-Please call or send the incredible and interesting news of the Aggie Experience to Sonna Lumpkins for posting on the website http://www.katywesthoustonaggiemoms.com/.
Drawing for Door Prizes-Lori Etchison announced the winners: Kathleen Wilburn, Pam Zinnante and Terry Schlanger. Congratulations to the lucky winners!
Student Drawings-Karen Kurt said there was enough for five student drawings. Congratulations to the lucky student winners!
Next General Meeting is Thursday, November 1 st @ 7:00pm
Adjournment-Penny thanked everyone for coming. There was no further business, and meeting adjourned.
Respectfully submitted,
Kathleen Wilburn
Secretary 2007-2008