CAREER ADVICE FROM THE SOURCE

Shelly Gourlay is known for her 30+ year talent acquisition track record with global brands including Nike and Columbia Sportswear. She currently runs the Sports Product Management Master’s Program at the University of Oregon where she identifies and develops future sports product industry leaders. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Shelly for several years as an instructor for the program.

I asked Shelly, “What matters most with a resume?” Her advice is direct and incredibly helpful. Here’s what she had to say:

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Amazon, Apple, and Google consistently top the global brand ranking charts. They do pretty much everything right and we buy into it. It’s easy and natural for us to think about companies like those big names as brands. They make things and we buy those things. What we seldom do though is think of ourselves as brands. I want to help you make that shift within yourself because it will be a game-changer for your career. 

As a career coach, I help people with all aspects of landing their dream careers but there’s probably nothing more significant in career success than how you view yourself. If you start seeing yourself as a brand, and even better, as your favorite brand, you will be blown away by what will happen for you career-wise.

I know this is a big shift in thinking for many of us and there are several things to consider in how you create and manage your brand. To keep it simple, and to get you started, I’m going to give you what I think are the three first steps to thinking about yourself as a brand:

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You are probably on your phone 5+ hours each day. I’m going to guess over half of your phone time is social media use. It’s pretty shocking but if you don’t believe me set a timer for 30 minutes and see if you can avoid checking social media that entire time. I’m not sure what we’re all looking for by endlessly scrolling. It’s as if we think we’re going to miss something critically important so we must check again … and again … or perhaps we think some life-changing news is going to appear and we don’t want to be the last to know. Whatever the reason, it’s the reality for most people.  

I regularly hear people share their struggles with job searching and interviewing. Today I have three easy things you can do while you’re on your phone anyway to help get you closer to your next job. Simply put, if you’ve read this far, you must care about your career so let’s put some of that screen time to good use. 

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I’ll start by saying it had nothing to do with applying online and then waiting to be called. Getting into Nike is like getting into any sought-after company - there’s a formula. If you have career goals that are bigger than what you’re doing now, read on.

My journey into Nike has keys you can use to help you land your dream job. I’ll warn you the path into a global brand or any top company is not easy, not a straight line, and not for the impatient. I’ve broken the formula down into 5 steps you can use with any company. 

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Learn how to get really good at telling your own story. This week Merryn joins Tammy Gooler Loeb on the podcast ‘Work From The Inside Out’. Merryn shares with Tammy the highs and lows of her own career journey and how there are 10 seconds that really matter in how you tell your story. Merryn talks about the major transitions she undertook in her career including how she made a huge change to balance her professional goals with her desire to one day be a mom. Check out the episode and be sure to listen to other episodes of Work From the Inside Out. Tammy regularly hosts guests like Merryn who have undertaken brave career transitions to achieve a great level of happiness in their work.

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We’ve all had that feeling the night before an interview – the anxiety of not knowing how it will go and the nervousness about screwing up your big chance. The good news is the success formula for interviews isn’t rocket science. I’ve studied it and taught it for years and want to share it with you. Through my work and through numerous interviews with HR people and hiring managers, I’ve compiled 6 interview pitfalls you can easily avoid. 

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If you’ve read my book or taken my online course, you know I see interviewing as a game. Interviewing is a game of strategically placing the best stories you have as the answers to the interviewer’s questions. You need to know ahead of time the 5-7 reasons why you’ll get hired and make sure those reasons are crafted as stories or examples in how you answer the interview questions. I tell people I personally prep for interviews to have their resume in front of them and have 5-7 key words written on the corner of their resume to cue them to their best stories so they remember to use them during the interview.

 

With that approach in mind, there are several questions you need to know how to ace during your next interview. I give you 5 of them below as well as some tips to think about with your answer for each. 

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Public speaking is one of the most common fears people have. It was something I was terrified of for years until I decided to tackle the fear. To help you start to conquer your own fear of public speaking, I’m excited to share wisdom from a veteran public speaking expert, Gary Lo. Gary’s background is incredible, boasting experience as TedX speaker and High Impact Presentation Winner. He has given over 500 presentations in 30 different cities and has worked for numerous impressive global brands and universities. 

I asked Gary a few questions about how he has mastered public speaking and what people can do to follow in his footsteps. 

MTH: Years ago, what were the most important things you did to help you conquer public speaking fear?

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Recruiters have a significant amount of power in the job search game. They sit in a unique position between applicants and hiring managers deciding who goes in the MAYBE pile and who goes straight to the NO pile. If you’re currently looking for a job or plan to be in the near future, this 3-minute read could be a game-changer for you. 

I went straight to the source and asked two of Portland’s top recruiters what catches their attention. Take note of these 5 easy ways you can get noticed by a recruiter and get closer to your dream job:

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One of the things I’m asked about most often is LinkedIn. People realize how important it is for professional networking but there’s still lots of uncertainty about how to make a great first impression with your LinkedIn profile. If you get someone to actually go to your profile, you want to keep them there!

When I look at someone’s LinkedIn, I quickly scan for the following things:

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Sometimes you come in second for the job you really want or the job you want isn’t open right now. If you’ve networked or interviewed your way to a good relationship with someone at a company where you’d like to work, that’s the perfect way to turn a connection into a resume builder. And if you play your cards right, it could lead you to your next job. 

One way you can leverage your connection into your next job is through project work. What’s project work? It’s work you do for someone that is clearly defined and helps them with their job and helps you with your resume. Doing project-based work for someone is a great way to prove your skillset. The easiest type of project work to get is work you can do remotely and independently. Any sort of market research, be it in-person research or online research, is doable and can deliver great value to your connection. Possible ideas include industry trends, competitor activity, or best practices. 

For example, let’s say you want to work in consumer electronics, your target is Sony, and you know someone who works there. My philosophy is you need to make it difficult for people to say no. There’s a way to handle this situation that makes it much more likely for you to get a YES. There are the three keys to getting a YES:

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If you’re looking for a job or will be soon, your LinkedIn profile needs to be stellar because it’s often the first thing recruiters see about you. Most LinkedIn profiles could be significantly improved with just a few minutes of work. My recent blog post 5 Things You Must Do Online offered advice on how to maximize your LinkedIn profile. If you haven’t read it and done those things yet, they are no-brainers and will significantly impact how you’re coming across online. Taking that blog post a step further, today, I’ll share how you can use keywords in your LinkedIn profile to get noticed by recruiters and ultimately get what you want quicker.

Here are 5 things that’ll take you less than 10 minutes to do to your LinkedIn profile that could drastically effect how you’re showing up in recruiter search results.

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There’s an art to interviewing.  It’s the perfect balance of being authentic to who you are while saying and doing the right things to come across as the undisputed top candidate for the job.  

My two recent blog posts on interviewing (10 Tough Questions You Need to Know How to Answer and The Biggest Secret You Need to Know About Interviewing) focused on how to win by doing things right.  While that’s great and important, there’s another angle to consider, which is not doing anything drastically wrong during an interview.  That’s what I’m going to focus on today by sharing with you the 5 things people most commonly screw up in interviews that lead them to not get hired. 

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Do you wonder why public speaking feels so difficult?  And why you haven’t been able to master it yet?  It’s simple really.  You’re too focused on memorizing specific statements, sometimes even exact words and then reciting them.  That’s a sure-fire way to deliver a weak presentation, and you are capable of much better than that.  

Here are two things I’d like to encourage you to do differently moving forward to up your presentation game:

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This month we sat down with Jim Wood, Partner and Executive Creative Director with AnalogFolk.  Jim works in NYC, which is one of the ad agency's six global locations.  He's a veteran in the advertising world with almost 20 years of experience and a roster of current and past clients including Nike, CLIF Bar, jetBlue and BMW. We talked to him about working in the advertising world.  Check out what he had to say ...

Made To Hire: Advertising sits under the broader umbrella of marketing. Why does advertising specifically interest you over any other type of marketing?

JW:  If Marketing is the house, Advertising is the game room. It offers all the toys and tools anyone would need to create unique, emotional and persuasive reasons to engage with a brand.

Made To Hire:  How did you get your break into the advertising world?

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Are you prepping for an interview?  Or thinking about going after a new positon soon?  Here are 10 tough interview questions you should be ready to answer. Questions like these challenge you to be quick on your feet and put your best self forward.  After each question, I’ve included some advice on things to consider with your answer.

1.     What motivates you?

a.    Think big and be inspirational if you can be.  For example, ‘Helping people’ or ‘The opportunity to impact change,’ are great motivators to share.

b.    Ideally share an example related to professional success

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This month we sat down with Jenna Fallon-Schindler, Senior Account Manager at Adobe.  We talked to her about working in the tech world and what it's like changing industries.  Check out what she had to say ...

Made To Hire:  I know your background is on the digital side of sport.  What has it been like moving to a purely tech-focused company like Adobe?  

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Don’t assume your resume ever makes it to human eyes.  Many companies, especially the big ones, use resume screening software to pull out the most qualified applicants.  Recruiters and hiring managers don’t have the time to go through all the resumes submitted for a position so you need to be smart to beat the software and make it to human eyes.  I have 5 must-do tips to help your resume make it through:

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