In this special edition of the “Get Hired” podcast, the hosts, including Nicky Bulmer, co-host Misty Combs, and guest Michelle Frechette, answer listener-submitted questions on job seeking. They discuss how to address job hopping by providing context on resumes, the pros and cons of functional versus chronological resume formats, and strategies for explaining employment gaps. The episode also covers handling common interview questions, the importance of being honest about salary expectations, and the role of social media in hiring. The speakers offer practical advice to empower job seekers in their application process.
Top Takeaways:
- Job Interviews Are a Two-Way Street: Candidates should ask insightful questions, such as how salary ranges are determined and what differentiates top earners from lower earners.It’s important for job seekers to showcase their skills and experience even if the interviewer doesn’t directly ask about them.
- Thinking Beyond Standard Questions: Candidates should anticipate questions beyond their resumes and prepare to discuss communication tools, remote work habits, and problem-solving approaches.
- Tailor Your Resume to the Job You’re Applying For: It’s important to customize your resume for each job application. Highlight relevant skills, experiences, and achievements that directly relate to the position. A generic resume may not stand out as much, while one that speaks to the specific needs of the company and role shows that you’ve taken the time to understand what they’re looking for, making you a more appealing candidate.
Mentioned In The Show:
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- Michelle Frechette (Director of Community Relations, Post Status)
- Olivia Bisset (Intern, Post Status)
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Transcript
Nicky Bulmer 00:00:04 Welcome to our third Get Hired podcast. Today is a very special podcast. It’s, it’s a very special holiday here in the US. You know, a day for love and celebration. It’s my birthday. No it’s Valentine’s Day and.
Michelle Frechette: Happy birthday.
Nicky Bulmer: Thank you. So we are going to do a special edition of the podcast today where instead of having a job seeker on. We had some folks give us questions that they, have about the process. And, Michelle Frechette is joining us today to ask those questions for us. And as always or as always, except for last week, we have my boss and co-host Misty with us today.
Michelle Frechette 00:00:52 Awesome. Good. It’s good to see you guys. And it’s really exciting. I got a lot of these questions on LinkedIn on different, Slack channels. People DM’d me some of the questions so and I thought a lot of them are really, really good. There’s there’s one I’m not really sure what they mean, so maybe we’ll skip that one? But but all the rest I think are pretty good.
Michelle Frechette 00:01:11 So let’s just jump right in. The idea behind this is we are definitely. Or you are, on other other episodes, interviewing people as though they were applying for a job with you. And looking at their resume and giving feedback. But this episode can give everybody a little bit of feedback about how to prepare their resume, how to prepare for those interviews so that when they do come on the show, if they’ve watched this episode, they will have a little bit of, be a little bit further in the process so that you can refine even more. I was always told, ask questions, get answers, ask better questions. And what this allows them to do is address all of these and then maybe go deeper when they come and talk to you and for future episodes. So let’s get right into iZt. The first question I love and I have seen people do this. I have been fortunate not to do this in my life, but the first question says, if I’ve had more than, say, 4 or 5 jobs in a two year span, how do I make it look like I don’t job hop?
Nicky Bulmer 00:02:15 That’s a tough one because you kind of do job hop. But if there’s a valid reason for job hopping, you can put that on your resume too. So, what I like to see is if it’s a very short tenure in a position and it’s a contact, contract role or a temporary position or a layoff that happened, just put that in parentheses next to, you know, the dates worked and then we know, okay, it’s not a job hopper. It’s a short term role or an unfortunate situation or whatever. It’s also something you can address in your cover letter to if you had like, extenuating circumstances, you can do a cover letter to kind of talk about that.
Michelle Frechette 00:02:55 And I’ve seen some people have to leave a job because the company closed. Like that would be important to note too, right? So, like, I didn’t leave. Everybody had to leave.
Nicky Bulmer 00:03:04 Yeah, I mean, that’s kind of in the vein of layoffs. Just extreme.
Michelle Frechette 00:03:10 Even the CEO was laid off.
Nicky Bulmer 00:03:12 Yeah. Yeah.
Misty Combs00:03:14 But there there’s. Also some situations where you think a position just is very different than what your expectation was or the team, and it’s just not a good fit. And that that’s okay to, to be open and honest about that. I started to roll with high expectations, unfortunately. The mutual decision was that, I would seek other opportunities or it just wasn’t a good fit. But being very careful not to speak negatively. I personally once worked for somebody who I would have described as if Satan had a sister. She’d have been meaner. I remember.
Nicky Bulmer: You worked for you! you work for you.
Misty Combs: Yeah. Okay. Haha!
Michelle Frechette 00:03:50 Right. So you don’t want to, like, throw people under the bus. Like I had to leave because the boss was so bad. Kind of thing. Because now is the boss really the problem or are you really the problem? And so and are you going to badmouth our company and all of those things that you have to think about.
Misty Combs 00:04:04 Exactly.
Nicky Bulmer 00:04:05 And I think that’s great. If there’s, you know, maybe 1 or 2 very short ten years over the to the two years span. But if every job that you have is, oh, this wasn’t a good fit, this wasn’t a good fit either, then you start going, you know, if you smell poo everywhere you go, check your shoe situation.
Michelle Frechette 00:04:23 Yeah. I mean, I would have gone with if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck. But yeah, the poo analogy is a good one too. Well, let me ask this question around this, and I think I actually noted this in one of the future questions as well. I’ve seen people put together a functional resume versus a chronological resume with a functional resume. Yes. Your dates of of, you know, working someplace are there. Is it is it like is it hiding things if you put a functional resume together so that it’s like showing all the work you did in a particular area as opposed to like, I worked here and I worked here and I worked here and I worked here. Is is that good? Bad? Indifferent?
Nicky Bulmer 00:05:02 I don’t mind a functional resume, but usually when I see a functional resume at the very end of it, they’ll put just a list of their jobs and how long they were there just to tie it all together. Because to me it is a red flag if there’s no dates.
Michelle Frechette 00:05:15 Yeah, that makes sense. MIsty do you think the same?
Misty Combs 00:05:18 I do, sorry. My dog was barking so I, I muted but I, I think it helps particularly if you’ve had a lot of broad experience in a lot of different industries or a lot of different types of positions, or you’ve done a lot of different contracting assignments because your skill set is really broad. Sometimes that that functional resume really helps target the skills and abilities that that particular position is looking for versus your your information is all messed up, messed up or hard to find. And and any time you can make it easy for a hiring manager to see what makes you special quickly, it’s at your advantage.
Michelle Frechette 00:05:55 Now, this question wasn’t in the list, so I’m just going to spring this one on you. But when somebody puts their I know in the United States anyway. Right. So we’re we’re coming from an American perspective here because we’re hiring here in the United States. You’re not allowed to ask me how old I am. You can ask me that once I’ve been hired. I have to put that down in, you know, whatever my date of birth to get insurance and things like that. But to be hired, you can’t say. So how old are you? Because of, you know, age discrimination, etc.. If I were to put the year that I graduated college, does that not also tell you? Kind of. I mean, not definitely. People go back to college at later years, but is that something that that we should just leave off there? Because it also tells you my age, especially in my 50s.
Nicky Bulmer 00:06:38 Misty and I actually just had a conversation about this yesterday. And it’s not about our hiring practices, but somebody that she knows that is is job seeking right now. So I’ll let you take this one, Misty.
Misty Combs 00:06:51 Somebody in my life is doing a job that is very physically demanding, and he graduated from high school in 1984, and he had that on his resume. And he’s applied for multiple jobs in the industry, where he is experienced and knowledgeable and has lots of people that that will say he does a great job and he’s not he’s not even getting selected for interviews.
So he asked me this week to take a look at his resume like, oh, you have to take that off. Because although you are very physically fit and very capable of doing that, they’re not giving you a chance. You really need to not disclose that information. And and again, like you said, it’s not like people don’t have a business reasons for that information. Insurance, any company that has over 100 employees has to file an EEO report. And one of the things we hear in onboarding is you can’t ask me my ethnicity and my race. There really is business reasons why they they would have to ask you some of that stuff after you have started your employment, but absolutely not something that’s legal in the US when you’re job seeking. And sometimes, at least in my industry, I have, I have been asked, some of the information, do you have kids and, are you married? And those types of things? When I was interviewing with some smaller companies and I don’t necessarily think it’s ill intent, sometimes I really think it’s they don’t know better, and they’re looking for some common ground to speak to you or, or, conversation in the interview.
Misty Combs 00:08:27 And sometimes you might address that with, Oh, that, that that’s hilarious. But yes, I really do. I, I am familiar with with the employment line, and I know you’re just testing my knowledge to see if I would answer that illegal question, or sometimes it’s, this might not be the best time to to talk about that since it’s not really related to the job needs or my career path. So some of that how you answer that might be related to your gut check with the person that you’re speaking to, because not everybody has a sense of humor.
Michelle Frechette 00:09:02 That’s true. Very true. And especially certain industries.
Nicky Bulmer 00:09:06 But does that make you want to work with them? You know.
Michelle Frechette 00:09:09 Right. I read recently that, not to even answer questions about your hobbies because certain hobbies will lead towards. Oh, they must have kids. They don’t have kids. You know, like, oh, my hobby is, I coached my son’s little league. Well, now I know you’ve got kids, right? So, like, you want to make sure that that you’re staying above board and and a good question, like, if I wanted to tell you that, like, like, like we had on the podcast last time, to say like, oh, I do Dungeons and Dragons. And I’m in a, an improv group, whatever. Because those skill sets lead directly to the job. That’s a different story than I coach my kids little league and I’m I’m. This is our third try with in-vitro fertilization. Like those are like there’s different things to ask, answer and not answer. Right. Depending on the job too.
Nicky Bulmer 00:10:00 Coaching can be a good skill set because it shows, you know, organization. It shows being able to bring people together, leadership, teamwork and all that. Just to say coaching, you don’t have to say coaching my kids team.
Michelle Frechette 00:10:14 You could say baseball. I coach baseball, right? And if they dig deep or say, you know, it’s just something I do in my free time, you don’t have to go deeper. Yeah. So I said, I asked you, how do we explain, like 4 to 5 jobs in two years? How do I explain big gaps in my resume? Because sometimes people have gaps in their resume, because they’ve been job seeking for a really long time and they haven’t found a good fit or they haven’t been hired, or like your friend Misty, who’s, like, not even getting a chance because he had his high school date on his diploma. Other people took time off to have kids, or they took care of an aging parent or whatever the reason is. They had taken time off. There was a big gap. So how would you explain gaps in the resume?
Nicky Bulmer 00:10:56 One clever thing that I’ve seen people do that have taken time off to, you know, start a family or whatever, or take care of a loved one who was passing or something. Is they put it on their resume as a job, like home manager or, you know, home care facilitator or, you know, something like that. I mean, and everybody knows what that means, but it also shows that they’ve been doing something they’re created not to apply it to a skill set. So, and it doesn’t necessarily tell if you have kids or, or whatever either.
Michelle Frechette 00:11:33 If you put that in your cover letter, is it likely to get missed because people look at the resume more in depth than the cover letter? Would you still include it in the resume?
Nicky Bulmer 00:11:42 I would put it in a cover letter and explain it if you know vaguely, you know. but, I’d say, you know, it’s 50/50 if anybody is even going to read your cover letter. Right. Depends on what you’re applying to.
Michelle Frechette 00:11:57 Makes sense. One of the questions I’ve always hated, and I don’t see people asking this as often anymore. Like the last job. Granted, I’ve only had four jobs in my whole life because I tend to stick with places very long. But the question of where do you see yourself in five years, I think is absolutely ridiculous in today’s day and age because like, how do you even answer it? Like, I see myself working for you and making this company the best that it could ever be. Like, how do you answer that question?
Nicky Bulmer 00:12:23 If you look at my my training that I made for people who do hiring within our company. I have a list of questions that I hate that you shouldn’t ever use, and that is one of them. It’s like there’s so many better ways. Like, one of the the ways that we’ve suggested changing it is if you’re still with the company in five years, what do you foresee your biggest contribution having been over that five years or.
Michelle Frechette: Oh, I like that.
Nicky Bulmer 00:12:46 You know some. Yeah. Something to show longevity. But, that’s just one of those questions that there’s not really a great answer. I just think of that Family Guy episode where he. And it’s totally inappropriate. So I’m not going to talk about it, but, he’s sitting there going, don’t say this, don’t say this. And then he says it, and it makes it significantly worse than if he had said what he was going to say initially. But it’s just there’s no good answer, really.
Michelle Frechette 00:13:14 Retired is absolutely not the right answer either.
Nicky Bulmer 00:13:18 No.
Michelle Frechette 00:13:19 Taking all the knowledge I learned from here to start my own company, it’s also not the right answer. Yes, Misty.
Misty Combs 00:13:24 Knowing that sometimes there they are going to be asked that question by maybe some hiring managers that haven’t figured out that’s not a great question. I would say what what they’re trying to glean out of you is what you might, might see as your career path. So I’d like to grow into a leadership role. I’d like to grow in this industry into whatever the next step is. So whether it’s, problematic or not. What would you like to do in your future is probably going to be your best answer, but how long will it take me to get your job is another really bad answer, which I have.
Michelle Frechette 00:14:00 I want to be sitting in your seat.
Misty Combs 00:14:02 Yeah.
Michelle Frechette 00:14:04 When are you retiring? Are you retiring in the next five years? Because I’d like to do what you do.
Nicky Bulmer 00:14:09 And it really depends on, like, where you’re applying the kind of questions that you’re going to get. So some, you know, industries are very forward thinking and they try to stay up with the current generation trends and everything. And technology in general tends to be more forward thinking in that way, generally. Obviously every company has their own thing. But if you go into something like government or, you know, education, they’re very, very set. And this is 1960. We’re going to ask you the same 15 questions we have, you know, the 20s and, you know, It had you and they when I, when I go help at schools with like Mike interview days and stuff they give like a sample resume or application to the kids to fill out and they have on there.
Nicky Bulmer 00:14:58 Have you been convicted of a felony? And, you know, just a bunch of questions that are not legal to ask. And I’m like, hey, you can’t ask this. And they’re like, why? It’s on our our, you know, application. I’m like, you’re, you’re you no, here’s here’s the laws that passed twenty years ago.
Michelle Frechette 00:15:15 Why don’t you have, like why don’t you have a lawyer look over that application again for you?
Nicky Bulmer 00:15:19 Yeah. And they’re like, well, nobody could work here if they’re a felon. And I’m like, okay, you deal with that after, you know, background checks and stuff, but you can’t, you can’t.
Michelle Frechette 00:15:29 And so often you get asked, like, what do you see as some of your greatest strengths. And those are usually a little bit easier to answer. But the the harder question is what do you see as your, your biggest weakness? There’s other ways people ask that particular question. You know, early on I was told, take one of your strengths and turn it into a weakness so that when you answer it, it sounds like a, you know, kind of thing, like, oh, I’m incredibly detail oriented, which sometimes makes it blah, blah, blah, right? And that’s like, you all see right through that, right? Like if I say, oh, I’m just such a hard worker that sometimes yada yada yada. So what how do you answer the question of what some of your your what your weaknesses are?
Nicky Bulmer 00:16:07 Exactly like that.
Michelle Frechette 00:16:10 So that is the right way to do.
Nicky Bulmer 00:16:12 It is the right way to do it. And we also we can see through it. But also, it also shows a problem solving skill for you that you figured out how to answer it in a way that doesn’t make you look negative. The other thing that you can do is take a true weakness and say, this is what I’m doing to improve on this, and this is how far I’ve come.
Michelle Frechette 00:16:32 I said the way that I try to address it sometimes is to say, well, one thing I’d still like to learn in this industry is x, y, z. So it’s not really a weakness, but it’s something I want to improve on by learning more. And I think that it kind of answers the question, even so, without telling you that, like, I’m always two minutes late to my desk or whatever, you know? That kind of thing. So there’s sometimes you gotta get creative.
Nicky Bulmer 00:16:55 I got to stop by that coffee bar.
Michelle Frechette 00:16:56 I know, right.
Nicky Bulmer 00:16:57 Like.
Michelle Frechette 00:16:58 I made my coffee this morning.
Misty Combs 00:17:01 I do love your cup, though.
Michelle Frechette 00:17:03 Thank you. This is my favorite Wonder Woman cup. It holds two cups of coffee. And yes, there are two cups of coffee and steamed milk in there right now. Okay. So I saw a job I like. I know that I don’t tick all the boxes. Should I still apply? And if so, should I address those areas that I don’t tick in my cover letter?
Nicky Bulmer 00:17:22 This is an interesting statistic that goes along with this question, because men will apply to any job that they have a vague compatibility with, and but women in general will only apply to something that they have like 80% or more of the qualifications listed. And they’re confident that they have those. What I always suggest when I’m talking to students is if it’s a job that you’re interested in and you think you can do, apply. You might not meet all the boxes. But almost nobody meets all the boxes. You know, just go for it. Yeah. Where’s that they can say is no. And you get some feedback on how to improve next time.
Michelle Frechette 00:18:02 It’s not the 80s where you had to print your resume at a print shop and mail it off to somebody. So you haven’t lost any money by applying for that job online, right? You all remember that. And I do think.
Misty Combs 00:18:14 Oh, I do, and I think your point is good as far as if there’s something that you don’t quite meet, could you answer it in the cover letter? You can in the cover letter, but you can also in your professional summary section. You know, back in the old days, we used to have, you know, the job that you want and that’s your professional summary. So you may have some skills or experience that isn’t exactly ticking the box, but it is relational. And you might want to explain what that is.
Michelle Frechette 00:18:42 Yeah. So that brings out like back in the 80s, we used to have to take your we didn’t have printers at home. We didn’t have computers and all these things. You went to a professional resume person who typed your resume up. You took it to Kinko’s. I don’t know if there’s still a Kinko’s around? I don’t know, you took it to Kinko’s.
Misty Combs: Yes.
Michelle Frechette: Okay.
Nicky Bulmer 00:18:59 Fedex. Fedex, Kinko’s.
Michelle Frechette 00:19:00 Oh, there you go. And you got it printed. Like my mom. I remember my mom paying, like, 50 bucks or something to get 50 resumes printed. And so one resume had to fit all jobs you were applying to. Today that’s not the case. You can tailor resume by resume, but the one thing I would say, if you do that, make sure you double a check before you send it off that you haven’t applied to Liquid Web. And on top it says A2 hosting. You want to make sure that you’re actually matching the resume to the person you’re applying to.
Misty Combs 00:19:29 So we do see that and that. But you also want to make sure you kept a copy of what you actually sent them, because later you may be asked to explain it in your format, maybe be different, or you might be calling out things that you didn’t give them. Yeah. And so if you do a little.
Michelle Frechette 00:19:43 If you do update that resume, save that copy of something else from your original.
Misty Combs 00:19:49 And it does get a little trickier with applicant tracking systems that have you apply with your LinkedIn profile. You might not be able to do quite as much customizing for that specific job.
Michelle Frechette 00:20:01 True. Well that’s another question that came up. A little further down I’ll go to that one now. I can’t seem to find it, but I say, oh, here it is. If I have an updated LinkedIn account, do I even need a resume? Was the question.
Nicky Bulmer 00:20:14 I hate one click applies to the job because one click applies. Skip most of my application questions that I add to customize the application. So if I have 800 applications that roll in in 24 hours, and we have people that did the one click apply, and then people who actually bothered to go and look at the job and look at the questions and fill out everything and completion. I’m going with that one for completion. So yeah, watch out for the one. Click apply because you might be one clicking yourself out of an opportunity.
Michelle Frechette 00:20:51 Oh I like that. That’s a good. Watch out for that one. Click apply. You might be one click taking yourself out of the running. That’s good. Okay. There’s a lot of questions. We’re definitely not going to get through all of them. We’re going to have to do more episodes like this in the future. Every once in a while I have an idea for one for your seats so we can teach other people what to how to put together a job posting and what kinds of questions to ask. So I think that would be a good one coming up, maybe this summer sometime. But, one of the questions, what do I wear for my online interview? You’re only going to see me from the waist up. How important is my background? What should I be wearing from the waist up? Do I wear headphones? Do I not wear headphones? What’s your quick answer to that one?
Nicky Bulmer 00:21:32 I don’t care that much about your background, as long as there’s not, like, a Nazi poster hanging behind you.
Nicky Bulmer 00:21:38 Or you know it. I mean, use something tasteful that’s not going to spark a large amount of controversy or blur it so you can’t tell that that’s there, you know. Dress it. I tell people, dress for the job that they want and then one step up, do that online, too. If you’re going for a casual job, wear a polo shirt. You know, I don’t care if you’re wearing pants or not as long as you’re not standing out.
Michelle Frechette 00:22:04 Exactly. I’m not like, have kids running around in the background. Put yourself in a nice quiet spot so you can listen and answer the questions. Use your head about it, right? Starbucks is not the place to do a job interview online. It’s a little too noisy.
Misty Combs 00:22:17 But I also think it’s important to position yourself so you’re at least looking at the camera and as much as possible at the camera, versus because I have lots of meetings where this is the view I have of people and it just feels.
Michelle Frechette 00:22:30 They’re watching on one screen, but the camera’s on another. Yeah, that’s.
Nicky Bulmer 00:22:33 No tasteful side boob.
Michelle Frechette 00:22:36 Yeah, exactly.
Nicky Bulmer 00:22:39 Haha Misty.
Michelle Frechette 00:22:42 No matter who you are. Let’s see. I’m going to skip down a couple. Can a hiring company go through my social media profiles to assess if I’m the right candidate for them?
Misty Combs 00:22:54 They can.
Michelle Frechette 00:22:57 Do you? In general? Not necessarily. You two in particular, but do you think hiring people who are in those positions do that?
Nicky Bulmer 00:23:04 Yeah. Yeah. 1,000%. Yes. I don’t necessarily because I, I don’t necessarily think that’s fair as long as they’re not, you know, wildly out there. You know, and people are reposting them saying and saying things. But there are other people in this company that do go look at social media as well. But especially if you’re in like a marketing role or something, where you’re going to be posting as us on social media. Sure. Yeah. There’s definitely a possibility that your social media could come into play.
Michelle Frechette 00:23:38 If you get.
Misty Combs 00:23:39 Or leadership roles.
Michelle Frechette: True.
Misty Combs 00:23:40 If you’re applying for a leadership role, they want to make sure that you are somebody who might be respectable. And maybe you aren’t posting that tasteful side boob all over the interwebs. You know.
Michelle Frechette 00:23:52 There’s a there’s a Cosmopolitan in every hand, in your hand, in every photo. But, also, like if you’ve badmouthed past companies, that’s not a good look on you. So if you’ve constantly been haranguing about your job and your boss, you’re probably not the kind of person I’d want working for me either, right? Because who knows what’s going to come out of your mouth next week?
Nicky Bulmer 00:24:12 My favorite was, someone found, a social media for an applicant, and this was actually a fairly high leadership role where they’re like, yeah, I didn’t go to work all last week because I was on a coke and whiskey bender. Like, thanks for letting us know.
Michelle Frechette 00:24:31 Yeah. Not the kind of person we’re looking for in this position. Thank you very much.
Nicky Bulmer 00:24:35 Yeah. Keep your coke and whiskey whiskey benders under wraps.
Michelle Frechette 00:24:40 Yeah. Some things. You know, we used to warn college students when I worked in education. Like the red solo cups should not be in your then at the time Facebook profile. Right. Like people are going to see those kinds of things. But so just make sure, you know do a little cleansing if you need to. Yeah. Especially bad mouthing. It’s it’s just a terrible, terrible thing to do. So we addressed this a little bit before, but in the United States, can you even ask if I’m pregnant or if I’m planning to have children or if I’m married?
Misty Combs: Nope.
Nicky Bulmer 00:25:10 No. Yeah. I once received a resume that was 27 pages long from a person in the US that listed out, their spiritual leaders name the church they attend every one of their children’s names. Like just everything that I didn’t want to know. Their age, where they went to school.
Michelle Frechette 00:25:34 And goodness. Here’s my life story.
Nicky Bulmer 00:25:37 Like, it was rough. And it was actually a reference from an internal, from a current employee. They were referring a friend of theirs that went to the same church as them. And I was like, I normally don’t discuss applicants with their referrals at all. But I’m going to tell you that you need to revisit your friend and help them rework their resume, because it will not get them anywhere.
Michelle Frechette 00:26:04 Right
Nicky Bulmer 00:26:05 Please.
Michelle Frechette 00:26:06 Yikes. Yeah, we talked about it like last week, that you don’t have to stick to a one page resume anymore because everything’s online, but 28 is a little extreme.
Nicky Bulmer 00:26:16 And a lot of times we’ll see it from people who are applying, especially from Middle Eastern countries. They’ll have their religion, their father’s name, their age, and a bunch of personal information. So depending where you come from, it may be required to say those things. But if you’re applying to the US or from the US. Probably not.
Michelle Frechette 00:26:40 What about photos like? I’ve seen people put their photo on their resume, and when I was working in a higher education and there was, you know, title, whatever it was at the time. And, and we had to make sure that we were not discriminating. We told people like, by and large, don’t put your don’t put your ethnicity on your application. Don’t put your, your photo on your application because you can be discriminated against. I could, I could have the name, you know, Sarah Smith, but I could be a, you know, obviously a woman or black woman or, you know, whatever. And then you have cause for discrimination.
Nicky Bulmer 00:27:17 Misty laughed because I always go off about pictures. I’m like, I hate pictures on resumes. I don’t want to know. Like, when I review resumes, I don’t even read the person’s name before I review their qualifications on the resume, because I don’t want any unconscious bias to slip in when I’m reviewing their qualifications, you know? But if that picture is there, front and center, it tells you all of the things that you don’t want to know when you’re assessing their skill set. And if it’s somebody that does have a conscious or unconscious bias, it’s definitely going to affect the way that they look through those skill sets.
Misty Combs 00:27:51 My favorite is the 1993 glamour shot that they might still be using on their resume in the 2000 with remember those really tall things that look like lips and like all the hairspray with like backlighting. It’s amazing.
Michelle Frechette 00:28:07 I have a photo send you later.
Misty Combs 00:28:09 Haha. I’ll trade you one.
Nicky Bulmer 00:28:15 I, I received a resume that actually was just a photo, and it was a woman in a bikini laying across the hood of like, this busted old, like 1982, Monte Carlo, with a with a pit bull on with a chain.
Michelle Frechette 00:28:32 Okay.
Nicky Bulmer 00:28:33 Yeah, and it was parked up by the Detroit River. And I was like, this is not I am not your target audience for this. But also, nobody is your target audience for this. Not not in this industry. There may be industries where it is, but not this one.
Michelle Frechette 00:28:50 If you’re a model, maybe? Yeah.
Nicky Bulmer 00:28:52 Yeah, exactly. A model or. Yeah. The only time that I think that a picture is appropriate on a resume is if you’re going to be doing something publicly facing. So if you’re going to be doing podcasts or, you know, social media videos or, you know, like a news anchor or something, then they’re going to want those headshots. But usually that’s that’s a whole different situation where it wouldn’t be on your resume, you’d actually be sending in a headshot.
Michelle Frechette 00:29:25 If the application doesn’t ask for it, don’t include it. Right?
Nicky Bulmer 00:29:28 Exactly, Yes.
Michelle Frechette00:29:30 Okay.I think that that’s a good rule of thumb for sure.
Nicky Bulmer 00:29:33 I think it’s a generational trend.
Michelle Frechette 00:29:35 Yeah.
Nicky Bulmer 00:29:35 Because a lot of, a lot of, like Gen Z applications come with a photo on their resume.
Michelle Frechette 00:29:43 This is one of my favorite questions. I will make sure that we include it because we have to wrap up pretty soon. But, what is something that I should avoid doing or saying in an interview that would immediately put me in the do not hire pile?
Nicky Bulmer 00:29:57 Oh, I got one. This was an actual interview that I had where the, the guy was applying for a windows support role, and he was talking about his time in his cybersecurity club at the college and talked extensively about how bad this woman was in the cybersecurity club.
Nicky Bulmer 00:30:21 And he kept referring to, I mean, it sounded like she was not doing a good job, but the way he kept referencing her gender over and over and over again is immediate. And so I asked him, I said, why? Why is it so important for me to know that this was a woman that was failing in this role? You know, if it was a guy that was failing in the role, would you continue to make sure that I was aware that it was a guy failing in this role? And he’s like, well, she’s just she’s the only woman in the club. And I was like, well, that’s not really a better answer.
Michelle Frechette 00:30:59 It’s not a reason. No. Yeah.
Nicky Bulmer 00:31:02 So if you show anything that’s going to show you as discriminatory or misogynistic or.
Michelle Frechette 00:31:10 Biased at all.
Nicky Bulmer 00:31:11 Biased, yeah, that’s going to shut me right down on hiring you.
Michelle Frechette 00:31:16 That makes sense.
Misty Combs 00:31:17 And not not that we don’t all care about it. None of us want to work, you know, 200 hours a week. But when you are there’s other ways to ask. Then coming right out and saying, so what do you do for me? For work life balance and exactly how much time can I take off? If you have an unlimited PTO policy? How much time do I actually have to be at work? Is not screaming that the company is going to be able to rely on you for star performance, and to be there when we need you, so it’s a lot harder to see you in a role versus somebody who isn’t quite so focused on it. And if that is something that’s important to you might ask about what is a typical work week look like for a team member or, any company policies related to time off and, flexibility and those types of things. So you can still get the same information, but not quite be a red flag in how you ask it.
Michelle Frechette 00:32:12 So here’s this brings this question. This is a perfect, perfect segue into if it’s a remote job, as so many are now in our industry. What’s another question? How can I ask a question that would let me know if it’s a good culture fit for me. How do I ask about the company culture so that I know if it’s a good fit?
Nicky Bulmer 00:32:32 Just ask about the company culture. I don’t think there’s anything negative inherently about asking about the company culture. I love it when people ask about, you know, what’s the company culture like? How do you integrate people working remotely so that, you know, you remember there’s a person behind the keyboard there, you know, what do you do to bring the team together? So there’s team cohesion, even though we’re not working in the same room. There’s, there’s a lot of ways to ask that. And all of them are. Well, most of them are good.
Michelle Frechette 00:33:03 Not like. Well, do you ship pizza to me once a month because. No, somebody’s.
Nicky Bulmer 00:33:09 I’ve been asked that. Been asked that
Michelle Frechette 00:33:11 Surprised, not surprised, not surprised.
Misty Combs 00:33:14 And to make sure that that you are getting consistency in your answer, you might ask your the recruiter or the HR person about company culture and ask the hiring manager about team culture. And as Nicki said, team cohesion. And how do we bring people together and how do we ensure that they connect? And, and hopefully both of those answers align. So you have some confidence that it’s real.
Michelle Frechette 00:33:39 Okay. So this is going to be my last question, I think. And this isn’t on the list either. It’s something that just popped in my head. So think on this one for a second. There’s a balance between you knowing that I’m doing my work and me not feeling spied on. Right? So we know I’ve seen on TikTok all these places where you can buy things that’ll keep moving your mouse because you’re making sure that I’m at my desk.
Nicky Bulmer: A wiggler.
Michelle Frechette: Yeah, that kind of thing. How can I, in an interview, find out that this is a job where I have freedom to do my job without being micromanaged in a way that means that if I’m not on camera, if my mouse isn’t moving, if there aren’t keystroke, you know, there’s you’re not counting my keystrokes, things like that.
Michelle Frechette 00:34:17 So that I don’t feel like I’ve just entered a prison. And I and I have the room to do my job. Now, I know at LiquidWeb that’s not something that’s ever asked. It’s not something you’re not like. You know, making sure my mouse is moving all the time. Because quite honestly, there’s other times I’m doing other things besides for my job. But there are companies that do that. So if I was applying, how do I make sure that the culture is such that I’m not being micromanaged in that way?
Nicky Bulmer 00:34:42 Ask about leadership styles. Are you a hands on leader? Do you give people the freedom to get their job done? Or do you, you know, oversee progress or you know, how do you ensure that your team is meeting goals without, you know, making them feel suffocated. You know, just questions to give them the opportunity to say something good about the company. But it’ll also give you the information that you’re looking for as far as like productivity software and stuff.
Michelle Frechette 00:35:14 Because if you ask about product, go ahead.
Misty Combs 00:35:17 How is my performance or my success measured?
Michelle Frechette 00:35:20 Oh good. Yeah. Because if I ask about productivity software. It sounds like I’m trying to not do my job right. Especially to somebody who’s using productivity software. Right. If I ask you in an interview. I don’t think that’s a red flag as much as I’m trying to get catch the culture. But if you are somebody who’s using that kind of software, it sounds like, oh, she doesn’t want to do her job. She’s just looking to work in a remote position so she can have all this free time, take her naps and all of these other things, you know, so it’s it’s a it’s an interesting balance that we have in remote work to know that people are doing their job and getting the job done, versus what are we paying them for kind of thing.
Misty Combs 00:35:56 I, I once worked for a medical technology company, and one of the services they provided is if you call your asking nurse for your health insurance, this was the call center that you called.
Misty Combs 00:36:06 So you had all these highly skilled, experienced nurses that we were trying to talk into taking a job away from patient care and sit at a desk. What we didn’t tell them unless you asked, what and how you were measured in your quality ratings and your productivity ratings was in a shift, they were allowed no more than nine minutes. Why nine? I don’t know of unaccounted time. So nine minutes to use a restroom, to grab a cup of coffee outside of a designated break. So if you were not talking to a patient, you had to be documenting something to a patient in nine minutes of flexibility. So if nobody asked, we didn’t go out of our way to tell them that. It’s basically, you know, you’re one of the guys on one of the oars in the ship that’s, you know, rowing. And you, you have no, no freedom. And nobody wanted to work there, particularly somebody who was skilled and cared about people and dedicated to nursing. And now you’re you basically got somebody standing over you with a stick beating you if you’re not constantly working. Nobody wanted to do that.
Michelle Frechette 00:37:11 No, of course not. That’s that carrot and stick is not a really great way to motivate people in their jobs, for sure.
Nicky Bulmer 00:37:17 And that’s one of the things you can ask them to is in a remote environment. How do you ensure productivity amongst the teams so you don’t have one person pulling all of the weight of the team too. Which shows that you’re concerned about being the one person pulling all of the weight of the team if there’s other people screwing around. But, you know, really, you’re asking do you use productivity software?
Michelle Frechette 00:37:41 Yeah. I think one of the good questions. It’s understandable.Go ahead.
Misty Combs 00:37:44 It is actually an understandable situation why companies may do that. And even, you know, LiquidWeb. We’ve had a number of people since we have went fully remote, who got another job and didn’t bother to quit this one. So they really weren’t working. And it took, you know, their leadership and how they measured performance and productivity, which isn’t in keystrokes and isn’t in, you know, live time with your monitor until you saw a big failing and how it was measured. We didn’t know that they actually quit.
Michelle Frechette 00:38:16 Right. Goodness gracious. Yeah. That’s another that’s a story for another time, I’m sure. Like, we could go a whole hour on, on productivity and things like that, which we won’t, because that’s not what this podcast about. But also, don’t be that person. I like to ask a question when I’m interviewing people. That is not a standard question, which is at the end, I say to them, is there anything I didn’t ask you about that you really wish you’d had the opportunity to tell me? Because sometimes I’m like, oh, I really want to tell her this. I really want to tell her this. First of all, if it’s something really cool, you can put it in your cover letter or your resume, but also have those kinds of questions in the back of your mind. And if they don’t ask you that, take the opportunity to tell them anyway. Just because somebody doesn’t ask you about XYZ, that you have in your experience and your hopes and your dreams for your future, doesn’t mean you can’t bring those things up as well.
Michelle Frechette 00:39:04 So, for example, like I’ve had people say I’ve never worked remotely before, what do you how do you communicate in a remote community? And then I have the opportunity to talk about Slack and, you know, Google and things that we use to be connected and to communicate in a remote community. So, but think about those questions in advance. You can you can ask any question you want when you are being interviewed, because this is a two way conversation, just as the company is interested in making sure that you’re a good fit for them, you need to know that they’re a good fit for you too, because that is what’s going to be the perfect working relationship. Well, okay, nothing’s perfect, but that’s going to be a good working relationship is if you feel confident that you’ve taken the right job too. I think we could do another, episode sometime. Just on salary and salary negotiation, and salary transparency and those kinds of things. So I’m not going to go into that right now. But it also is one of those things where you want to find out early what the salary is, because you may be overshooting. Maybe I’m maybe I want $120,000 a year, but the job’s offering 60, so I don’t want to waste my time or your time if we’re in that situation, so.
Misty Combs 00:40:12 All right, so I’m preparing for an interview. So. Yeah. So the research that you do so you can ask the questions at the end of the interview. So you go into the interview prepared for the types of things. Plus salary.
Nicky Bulmer 00:40:24 A lot of states are requiring the salary to be posted in the job posting now. Colorado, I think, was one of the first ones. California is on board now. I think there’s like 20 or so at this point that have jumped on board. I don’t have the exact number. I know it’s more than nine.
Michelle Frechette 00:40:40 It’s good practice for a company to put that out there. It really is especially. Yeah, I know you’re putting a range and people are going to ask for the top of the range. You’re hoping they want the bottom of the range. We’re all going to find somewhere in the middle to meet.
Michelle Frechette 00:40:51 But it’s really it’s a good way to assess whether or not a job is something for you. I’ve set positions that we have here to people who say, wow, that would be great salary for me. And other people say, oh, I’m really looking for more. I’m like, then don’t waste your time, you know? So it’s a really good way for you to self-select the jobs that you want to apply for.
Misty Combs 00:41:10 What really bring up a I’m sorry, you bring up a really good point about the salary range. So in your interview, if you have an opportunity to ask questions, asking what is the skill set that is the difference between the top of the range versus the bottom of the range? Also gives you some information about what the company values, what that leader value is, how your performance is measured.
Michelle Frechette: Good point.
Nicky Bulmer 00:41:32 When you’re applying and it asks what you’re looking for for salary, be honest. Because if you if you’re worried about not getting an interview because of your honesty, then you’re not a fit for the position if your salary is not in line with it.
Nicky Bulmer 00:41:49 Don’t lie to me and say, oh yeah, 75,000 would be fine for me. And then we get in the interview and be like, oh, actually, I want 80 or 90,000. Well, the top of the range is 75. So thank you for your time. Have a nice day. Also, don’t lie to me.
Michelle Frechette 00:42:05 Yeah, yeah, we could probably do an episode sometime this fall talking about negotiations, and title negotiations and things like that when somebody is hiring for a job. So. But there’s so much more we could ask. Maybe we’ll do, you know, 2 or 3 episodes interviewing people, and we’ll come back and we’ll do one of these kinds of chatting back and forth about some of the good things, some good questions people might have and attacking, tackling those particular issues, if you’ll have me back to do those kinds of things.
Nicky Bulmer 00:42:32 So, yeah, I don’t know. You’ve been rushing us today, so.
Michelle Frechette 00:42:35 We got to keep it as time people will listen.
Nicky Bulmer 00:42:40 An hour right. We’re only at 45, so.
Michelle Frechette 00:42:42 Oh, like 45 is the sweet spot though, right? Like an hour gets a little long. So, anyway, that’s all the questions I have for you today. I’m going to let you wrap it up. If there’s anything you want to say and how you invite people to apply for the show.
Nicky Bulmer 00:42:58 Do you want to wrap up Misty, I opened.
Misty Combs 00:43:01 share with would you do the how you apply for the show since I don’t have the link in front of me and I can’t remember what it is, but thank you. Thank you, Michelle, for collecting the questions and asking us. This has been fun, and I like being kept on my toes for this. And thank you, Nicky, for leading the discussion and the answers. Since I’m a bit out of practice and you do it every day, so I appreciate you both.
Nicky Bulmer 00:43:28 You can apply to be on the show, through the Post Status website. I don’t know, can you edit that in at the end?
Michelle Frechette 00:43:37 So yeah.
Nicky Bulmer 00:43:38 So it’s link on the screen.
Michelle Frechette 00:43:39 The link, all of the, all of the links will be in the show notes for sure. But go to https://poststatus.com/get-hired-podcast/ and you’ll be able to see everything right there. There’s a form at the bottom so you can have your resume and your interview skills. I don’t want to say tested. What’s the right word? practiced with Nikki and Misty in the future.
Nicky Bulmer 00:44:00 Honed..
Michelle Frechette 00:44:00 Honed. There you go. Tightened up, finessed all of those kind of questions. So. Well, thanks for having me for this episode. And, yeah, look forward to the next one.
Misty Combs: Thank you.
Nicky Bulmer 00:44:12 Thank you for joining us, everybody.
