All right, hello everyone.
I'd like to officially welcome you to today's webinar,
Translating VISTA Service to Your Resume and Career.
I'm Calvin Landrum,
a training coordinator for The Corporation for National and Community Service,
and I'll be the host for today's webinar.
I'll also be facilitating the live Q&A at the end of the session.
Joining our production team are Rachel
and Indy from our partners at Education Northwest.
They'll be managing the WebEx technology
and will be helping address questions you may have during the session.
Leading today's session we're delighted to have with us Erin Barnhart PhD.
Dr. Barnhart is the founder and president of Effective Altruism LLC,
as well as the director of operations for the American Gap Association.
Erin serves on the board of directors for the Building Bridges Coalition,
on the Oregon Committee on Volunteerism,
and as an online instructor for the AmeriCorps VISTA Blend.
She teaches a section of the Volunteer Mobilization course.
And she's also an adjunct professor at the University of Oregon,
and Concordia University Portland.
Erin is also an AmeriCorps and CCC alum, like myself.
Today, we'll also hear from two other VISTA alumni guest speakers
Jordan Katcher and Erin Pringle.
And we'll hear a little bit more from them later.
Our goal from this session are that after today, you're able to, first,
effectively translate and highlight important aspects of your
VISTA service on your resume, identify key words
and language for your resume that resonates with various job fields
and sectors, and we also want you to be able to build a portfolio
that showcases the experience you gained and work you
accomplished during your service.
You'll do so much during your service,
and it's nice to be able to show that off.
We're going to be begin today by looking at how you can prepare for a
successful transition out of your VISTA service.
We'll focus on some tangible ways you can highlight
and share your service experience, both in person and through your resume.
Along the way, we'll hear from two VISTA alumni about their
personal experiences with this process.
Finally, we'll close by sharing some additional resources at the end with a
question-and-answer session.
So, before I hand this presentation over to Erin,
I'd like to share a tweet that was sent to #vistabuzz last spring.
As you can see, even six years later,
the benefits of serving with VISTA continue to manifest themselves.
At CNCS we wanted to learn more, so we reached out to this alum
and learned that after her VISTA service with Adult Literacy Program,
she went on to graduate from school -- she went on to graduate school for
public health.
Today she is currently employed as a statistician at a large research hospital.
When asked to explain the connection between her VISTA service
and the career benefits, she says,
"I have been asked about VISTA in every job interview I've been on.
My opinion is that my graduate degree is what makes me qualified for the
research jobs that I've taken,
but the skills I've gained from VISTA may have set me apart
from other candidates."
Keeping this in mind, I am excited, very excited, that Erin
and our guest speakers are here to discuss,
the best ways to represent VISTA service while undergoing a career surge
and really how to set yourself apart from other applicants.
Erin, are you there?
I am.
Thank you so much, Calvin.
Yeah.
Hi, everybody.  It's a pleasure to be here today for this webinar.
I very much enjoyed your responses to our opening chat question.
You know, we got to see some of the great common responses like veterinarian
and astronaut and President, but we also got some really creative ones,
including someone who wanted to be a cat.
And the person who wanted to be cat, you are speaking my language, so you
and I are on the same page.
Before we dive into our webinar content this afternoon,
I would like to ask you guys two quick questions, you know,
via the poll questions on your screen there.
The first is where are you in your term of service?
Have you just begun, are you in the middle, are you nearing the end,
or have you already completed?
The other question is, do you know what you want to do post-VISTA?
Some of us might know or are pretty sure what you want to do post-service.
Some are in the process of currently considering
and exploring what you would like to do.
And then there are always those of us who just aren't sure yet.
So I'm going to give you just about a minute
or so to respond to those questions.
In fact, I can see that it's winding up already.
So we've got a pretty nice mix it looks like.
Several folks who are early in the term of service,
several folks in the middle, several nearing the end.
Let's see, scroll on down a little bit there, and what we want to do, yeah,
lots of folks right in that consideration process.
That's pretty typical for this type of webinar.
The nice thing is no matter where you are in your term of service,
you're going to find some useful information here on this call today.
We're going to talk about some things you can do at the very beginning,
things you can do in the middle of your service,
as well as many things you can do even if you've already finished.
And as far as knowing what you want to do next, it's never too early
or too late, so we will spend some time giving you some tools
and resources to help with both of those.
So, preparing for the transition.
First, we're going to talk about what you can do today to prepare for
your professional next steps.
The first thing we suggest is building a portfolio.
Collect things like writing samples, social media posts, program materials,
outcomes and evaluations, trainings you completed, software you've used.
Capture this kind of information and keep it all in one place.
Effectively what you're doing is building a portfolio of things you have done
and completed and learned,
and it's going to be easier for you to share those skills and interests
and abilities when the time comes.
If you've already completed your term of service, go ahead
and request copies of these materials from the organization where you serve.
Chances are they're going to have copies of all of the kind of stuff;
that you can just go right on back to them and say,
"Hey, I'm building my portfolio, can you send me some materials?"
The next step in preparing for the transition is you start identifying
careers and programs of interest.
There's a couple different ways you can do this.
One is by starting to track job posts, potential employers, potential roles,
and identifying those that are particularly interesting to you.
There's an activity I like to share that can be found in
Idealist.org Guide to Nonprofit Careers,
that we're going to give you a link at the very end of this webinar.
And the activity means -- or rather,
instructs you to spend time on a site like Idealist or Monster.com
or Simply Hired, and just collect any job posts that sounds
remotely interesting to you.
Don't assess whether you're a good fit for it.
Don't assess whether you really want to do.
Just, really, if it's interesting, you copy and you paste it.
And what you do is once you have, let's say, 25, 30, 40,
even 50 of those positions set aside, go through them with fresh eyes
and see if you can identify what it is about them that's most appealing to you.
You may be surprised by the results.
It may not be that you want to work just in one particular career field,
but rather you're drawn to roles where you have autonomy,
or you might be drawn to roles where you work closely on a team of colleagues,
as opposed to independently.
So that's a great activity for you to identify potential careers
and jobs that might be of interest.
You also want to spend some time thinking about degree programs that might be
of interest, and, again, if you're thinking about going back to school,
think about what potential educational paths might be most useful
or most engaging.
Another thing that we like to suggest is talking to your colleagues,
your peers, organizational partners.
Where do they think you would thrive?
What do they think you might be great at?
What do they want to do?
Try to get a sense for what their interests are,
and that may spark something for you as well.
And, again, when you're thinking about the back-to-school question,
research possible programs
and ask for recommendations from informational interviews and colleagues.
So, speaking of informational interviews,
this is an excellent way to identify what you might want to do
and to learn more about potential career paths.
Ask your colleagues, your supervisor, your friends,
your peers who they know in particular fields
or at particular organizations of interest.
Take a look at LinkedIn.
See who might be connected to something that's interesting.
And an informational interview is an opportunity to, over coffee or lunch,
ask questions about what they studied, what they read,
what you should do to prepare if you're interested in this type of career.
You might also ask if they'd be willing to share a copy of their resume.
See if you could take a look at what their career path is.
There's a lot you can really learn from this type of process,
including what skill sets are needed to do particular kinds of work,
what does a day-to-day really look like in that type of role,
and it helps you assess whether it's going to be a good fit for what you
really want to do.
You might consider listening to the recording of a webinar I presented last
year on the topic of career research.
It was titled "Considering Your Career Options:  What You Can Do Today?"
You'll find that on the VISTA site.
And, actually, it looks like there's a link on the screen there.
This webinar covers some of the career research activities like informational
interviews that I just mentioned in even more depth.
The last thing on the preparing for the transition here is request letters of
recommendation, especially as you near the end of your term of service.
Ask your colleagues, your supervisor, your peers,
those who have seen what you're capable of,
if they'd be willing to write a letter of recommendation and/or if they'd be
willing to serve as a reference for you down the road.
So now we're going to spend a little more time talking
specifically about portfolios.
You see on your screen here,
here is a list of the kinds of things you might collect for your portfolio.
So we've got writing and work samples, program materials, accolades and kudos,
thank you letters, certificates,
lots of different types of information that tells a story of your work
as a VISTA member.
Keep in mind that your portfolio can be something you create on paper,
something that's principled.
Or something you host online.
And you can use a site like Word Press, Google Site, Square Space.
There's lots of options that are either free or really low cost,
and you can create a really professional looking space to capture what you've
done and what you're capable of.
There's also a really terrific guide for creating your own portfolio,
and that's titled "VISTA Portfolio Toolkit: Turning Service into a Career."
You'll find the link to this toolkit in the chat window right now,
as well as on the resources slide at the end of this presentation.
So let's talk about translating service to career speak.
This is basically the process of best describing what you did as a VISTA for a
non-VISTA audience.
First and foremost,
prepare a one- to two-sentence description so that you can seamlessly
explain VISTA to a potential employer.
This is always the tricky part of the process,
and as an AmeriCorps alum myself, not everybody knows what AmeriCorps is.
Not everybody knows what VISTA is.
So creating a very brief seamless way to describe it is going to be an
excellent tool in your toolkit.
For example it might say -- this is an example for you -- AmeriCorps VISTA
members live and serve in some of our nation's poorest urban and rural areas.
With passion commitment, hard work, and innovative solutions,
VISTA members build capacity by creating
or expanding programs designed to bring individuals
and communities out of poverty.
Two sentences, it basically describes what AmeriCorps does,
what your focus is,
and how capacity building is really at the heart of what AmeriCorps members do.
And you'll see that second bullet point on your screen there is define
capacity building.
So part of the process here is to learn how to talk about what capacity
building is.
There's a hint here, every single field, whether it's for profit, nonprofit,
government, educational, needs capacity building, and everyone on this call,
everyone's who has done AmeriCorps VISTA work has been in the
field of capacity building,
so this is a critical step for you to explain how what you've done as a VISTA
can be replicated anywhere.
So looking at our next screen here, capacity building, effectively it is based.
It is a set of activities that expands the scale, reach, efficiency
or effectiveness of programs or organization.
That's what you learned at PSO.
The tasks and activities related to capacity building includes things like
create, expand, or strengthen an organization's systems or processes,
as well as the transfer of knowledge products
and relationships to the staff and volunteers of the host site.
Your examples might include an ability to do more with less.
Leveraging human, financial, and other resources to meet organizational goals.
It's developing internal programs
and strategies to make the organization more efficient, more sustainable.
It's participating in resource development and volunteer engagement.
Again, to make the organization more sustainable,
to be able to do more with less, to engage the community,
to meet the mission of the organization.
These are the types of things that define capacity building,
and these are the sorts of things that you'll want to talk about with an
employer, with an educational application process, letting them know,
this is the type of work you've done
and this is the type of work that's needed at almost
every type of organization.
So now we're going to spend a little time talking about how to
translate your service to what I call career speak.
First and foremost, reflect on your service
and brainstorm a list of skills you've developed, accomplishments
and activities you've completed or which you assisted, materials you created,
responsibilities you held.
Take a look at your position description.
Take a look at you day-to-day.
What were you responsible for?
What activities did you complete?
What skills did you develop?
Again, what was your day-to-day?
What were you responsible for each day?
What did you complete?
And, also, what did you need to know or do to succeed in your role?
Consider technical, interpersonal, and characteristic skills.
Some examples of technical skills might be database development,
community outreach, volunteer management, resource development,
community development, project management, and program development.
Examples of interpersonal skills could be coalition building,
experience working with diverse groups of individuals,
experience working across sectors.
And characteristics could include things like being mission-oriented,
a critical thinker, having cultural competency, being a quick learner,
motivated, outcome oriented, flexible, innovative, and dedicated.
These are the sort of terms that you'll use on your resume;
that you'll use in job or application interviews.
It's a description of your skills that puts them in the
context of the workplace.
So we're going to do a quick activity here.
What I'd like you to do is think about what skills
and experiences have you gained during your VISTA service?
So I'd like to ask you to enter those ideas in your chat box,
and you'll see the visual on the right that shows what the chat is.
Make sure you send it to all participants.
And we want to make sure they're visible to everyone,
so do be sure to put them in the chat panel rather than the Q&A panel
further down the screen.
So I'm seeing some great examples here; conflict management, absolutely;
grant writing; patience; coalition building; presentation skills;
website coding, data entry, database management, using Microsoft Office;
doing resource work; cultural competency with veterans; community outreach,
constant contact.
As your peers are putting these up on the screen,
I highly recommend that when you see something that also relates to you,
jot it down.
This is a brainstorming process for yourself,
as well as seeing what your peers are listing,
because chances are someone else is going to identify something that
also applies to you.
So I'm seeing Adobe, social media, professional development,
leadership skills, relationship building, graphic design, time management,
excellent point, office professionalism, self-starter,
working with diverse populations.
These are fantastic suggestions
and things to capture as you think about how to describe what you did
and gained and learned as a VISTA member.
So let's keep going with translating service to career speak.
One of the other things you'll really want to do here is learn the terms of
your desired field or sector.
Every field, every sector has its own language.
So spend some time researching your specific field or a job of interest.
What terms are common in their job posts?
Use sites like LinkedIn, idealist.org, usajobs.gov, monster.com, Simply Hired.
We'll have more links at the end of the end of the webinar to share
with you like those.
But go through job posts and see if they use a particular type of language
when they describe the work of that job.
Seek examples of resumes from people in those fields.
What type of terms do they use?
Is there a common language to their work?
And then ask, during the informational interviews,
what language you should know, what particular word you should use.
Part of this reason for this is just to become fluent in the language of those
particular careers, and part of it is during the application process,
it is not uncommon for hiring managers to be looking for those
types of key words.
So we want to make sure you have the language for the fields correct.
And that next step is really to translate your VISTA service to that
sector or field language.
So how might you describe your skills, experiences, and responsibilities to,
let's say, a nonprofit employer, how about a for-profit employer, or public
or educational organization?
We have an example on the screen there, which is pretty much the same skill
or activity translated for each sector.
What in the public sector they might call community outreach,
in the private sector they'll probably call marketing and -- sorry,
reverse that, in the non-profit sector,
they probably call it community outreach.
In the private sector they probably call it marketing,
and then in the government or public sectors,
they might call it public awareness.
Effectively, those are all the same thing, which is about educating
and bringing awareness to the public about a particular idea or product
or program or value or activity.
But it's a different language used for a different field.
So you're going to want to learn what that language is,
and then make sure that you're using it as you describe your
particular skill set.
So at this time, I'd like to introduce one of my colleagues, Jordan Katcher.
Jordan is a VISTA alumna who served with the tribal colleges
and universities VISTA team from 2014 to 2016.
After her service, Jordan was hired by her nonprofit
and currently serves as program coordinator for their Department of the
Interior VISTA team based out of Beckley, West Virginia.
Jordan.
Thank you, Erin.
Hi everybody.
So as mentioned, my name is Jordan Katcher,
and after college I joined the AmeriCorps family,
where I started my service out on the Mescalero Apache Reservation with
AmeriCorps State National, and then afterwards, I joined VISTA
and I served at United Tribes Technical College North Dakota under a piloted
program entitled "Tribal Colleges and Universities."
And I ended up loving the program so much that I served as
the VISTA leader  for the program afterwards.
And so last January,
my nonprofit offered me the dream job of serving as program coordinator for
one of our larger VISTA initiatives with the Department of the Interior.
So I now support 65 onsite VISTA supervisors located all across the country,
including Guam and Puerto Rico.
So three years ago I would have never imagined having this
opportunity, but AmeriCorps really prepared me
and provoked me to reach beyond my limit,
and continually strive to branch outside of my comfort zone.
So, you know, this journey really involves a lot of dedication, networking
and strengths, and I wouldn't trade my AmeriCorps service for anything else.
When I started thinking about where I wanted to go after my VISTA year
at United Tribes,
I started examining what aspects of my VISTA service were the parts that I
loved the most, and in order to understand that question,
I had to look into my sustainability binder that I was able to create
during my service.
So this binder really included my completed projects, uncompleted projects,
partnerships, past events, donations, and advice for serving at my site.
You know, a lot really goes on during your year of service,
and so I also used, you know, my quarterly reports, my work calendar,
previous e-mails,
and desktop folders to really capture all that took place during that past
year and translated that over to my resume.
While looking through my state ability binder I asked myself, you know,
what did I enjoy the most?
Was it forming partnerships?
Was it bringing awareness through social media,
taking part in cultural practices or recruiting volunteers?
And for myself personally, it was kind of basically all of that.
I was very fortunate to serve with an inspiring team of Tribal College
educators that welcomed me with open arms
and allowed me to take part in actually making a real different on campus,
which was why I decided to apply for the VISTA leader position.
So once I knew that the leader position was something I was really pumped up
for, I examined the position's qualifications
and started to look over my past
and current work experience to begin building up a case for why I would be
qualified for that position.
So once I had a solid framework,
I started to dig deeper into what exactly it was I accomplished during my
AmeriCorps service, you know, especially the VISTA,
like what kind of skills
and educational occasions did I partake in that will qualify me to
lead other VISTAs.
Not only just for the approval of those accepting my position but also for
myself, like was this something I was prepared for?
Would it best for the program to have me as a leader?
Sometimes, you know, these kind of questions can be difficult to answer.
But, you know, I find it really beneficial to attempt to step outside of my
own mindset and see things from other perspectives,
and my sustainability binder really helped with that process.
You know, the same would be applicable for other job positions as well.
Once you understand what the position entails
and you know that it's something that you put your heart into, you know,
you can frame your VISTA experience around what that employer is looking for,
as long as it's applicable.
Taking on a year of volunteer service is a beautiful thing,
and effectively expresses what you accomplished during those 12 months to a
future employer is crucial.
Not only for them to understand what you took part in,
but to also bring forth a better awareness of VISTA service in this country.
Before I took part in the interview for the VISTA leader position I made sure
to discuss this opportunity with as many people as I could.
You know, I talked to my mom, to my best friends, my coworkers.
I really wanted to work on articulating what made me love this program
and organize my thoughts from my head into comprehendible speech.
That way during my interview, you know,
I could feel more confident in my answers
and also have my list of experiences in front of me for additional resources.
So after understanding the position and realizing that I wanted it so badly,
and coming up with qualifying examples for my VISTA service, I felt confident,
not that I would get the position but that I had put a great amount of time
and energy into this process.
So a few weeks after the interview I was offered the position,
and not only was it an immense honor,
but I was also ready to fully accept that position.
And the same can be said for my current position as
program coordinator as well.
You know, your VISTA service builds so much for your resume.
It involves a lot of skills development that employers all over the country
are seeking in an applicant.
One of our VISTA alumni members recently shared that every introduction you
make is a potential first interview.
So be proud of the work that you're doing
and use that to your advantage when talking with employers.
Make connections as often as possible,
especially if you're serving with a VISTA project that involves some sort of
component for what you want to pursue as a career.
Now of course even if we take all of these steps into practice,
we won't always be offered a position.
You know, my talk isn't the golden ticket to getting you your dream job,
but I do hope it was worth your time to hear from my own experiences.
Be proud of your service and your commitment to helping others
and know that eventually you'll find your dream job too,
whether that's through a second year with VISTA, through Peace Corps,
grad school, or through your professional career.
So I just want to thank all of you for your time and attention,
and I want to thank you all for your service.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Jordan.
I really appreciate you sharing your perspectives and your experience,
particularly talking about the idea of dream job.
I wanted to add just a quick two cents here on the idea of a dream job;
that many of us are lucky to find our dream jobs relatively quickly,
and many of us, it takes a little while,
so I want to encourage people not to be discouraged
and always look at each potential professional opportunity as a stepping stone
where you can learn new things, make new connections,
and prepare for when that dream job opportunity opens up,
you'll be an even stronger candidate for it.
So I appreciate you especially talking about the idea of the dream job
and being open to it and recognizing that AmeriCorps VISTA is
and can be an extraordinary place for you to develop those skills
and be ready for that type of opportunity when it presents itself.
So what we're going to talk about now is crafting a compelling resume.
Specifically, I have some tips here I want to give you.
The first one is to be specific.
Share details.
Break your service down into skills, experiences, paths, and responsibilities.
Make sure you name the organizations and communities in which you served.
So we just put on -- we're going to show you some not-so-good examples
and better examples in a moment, but don't just say,
"Oh, I was a VISTA member and I worked with a non-profit organization."
That doesn't tell anyone exactly what you did.
So break everything down into small pieces and to very specific details.
What did you actually do?
What were you responsible for?
Who did you work with?
Who did you report to?
Make sure you have those details in there so the person reading it
can really get a full set of what you did in that position.
Be confident.
Don't undersell yourself.
As a society we certainly spend a lot of time making sure that we don't
toot our own horn.
We make sure we're humble.
We don't want to come across as egotistical.
And certainly that's still true, but this is not the place to be humble.
This is the place to strongly and confidently explain what you are great at,
how you will be an asset to a particular organization
and what your particular strengths are.
So make sure that shines in your resume.
Wherever possible, seek to quantify your achievements and successes.
And what I mean by that is, if you manage the volunteer program,
don't just say I manage volunteers, say I managed 300 volunteers.
I created five new positions.
I engaged people at 12 events.
Give numbers wherever possible.
Not everyone but a lot of people respond to quantifiable outcomes.
They want to know sizes and scale
and they want to be able to visualize what it is that you did.
So wherever possible, quantify those successes.
A great tip that was given to me by my former boss/mentor that I still use is
create what they call a master resume,
which is one document that captures literally everything about your
professional experiences in one place.
And this thing can be pages and pages long.
Because what you're going to do with it is use it to customize a specific
audience -- or, sorry, a specific resume rather, for each audience
or position for which you apply.
And it gives you the opportunity to go through all of the things you've listed
on that resume and say, "Okay, yeah,
I had that job where I did specifically as a coordination,
but this job that I'm applying for is more about community outreach,: so maybe
I don't need to go into detail on that."
It's an opportunity for you to pick and choose what particular skills,
responsibilities, and experiences are most relevant, and, again,
that's what matters most to the hiring manager,
is understanding how you are the right fit for their job.
So use a master resume to capture everything,
and then you can create specific resumes as you go.
And then lastly here, again,
tailor your resume so that you can make the best case for you being a great
fit for what they need.
That's effectively what you're doing with a resume,
is sharing what your strengths are and, again,
helping to convince the person reading it that you are right person
for that job.
So let's look at a couple of examples here, a not-so-good example
and a better example.
So here's the not-so-good example.
It's pretty bland, not very effective.
It's a really general vague description.
It says you were a volunteer with AmeriCorps VISTA in Portland.
"I volunteered with Rose City Youth,
an organization that runs after-school programs for at-risk youth.
I managed volunteers.
I helped create new ones, and I helped with fundraising and grant writing."
Okay, so it talks a little bit about what you did.
If I were reading this I would know that you had some
volunteer management experience.
I'd know that you had some resource development experience.
But the word help isn't terribly descriptive.
I don't know how big or small the program was that you worked with,
and AmeriCorps VISTA, I may not know what VISTA is,
and I don't understand -- by volunteer, I may think, oh,
so you did this two hours a week, you did this ten hours a week.
I may not understand it's full time.
So it's pretty general and vague.
It's also not targeted for any specific field or job.
I can't tell from this what kind of role you might be trying to seek.
Now let's look at a better example.
This one is still your VISTA experience but now it's going to
give a lot more detail.
It's much more effective example because it's going to give us specifics of
your VISTA service that are explained and highlights.
So this time we're going to say you were the AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer
manager and you work with Rose City Youth.
Okay, now Rose City Youth is the organization you work for.
Now, as a resume reader, I understand where you were.
The first bullet point here,
committed one year of full-time national service to non-profit organization
serving at-risk youth in Portland, Oregon, northeast neighborhoods.
Much bet per example and description of what VISTA is,
full time national service with a non-profit.
Okay, I get it.
Contributed to significant expansion of organizational capacity via increased
volunteer engagement, fundraising, and grant writing.
There's that capacity building discussion.
I want to understand what you did for the organization.
Recruited, screened,
and managed volunteers for Rose City Youth after School programs.
Okay, now I know what your responsibilities were.
It wasn't necessarily that you just helped,
you were responsible for recruiting, screening, and managing them.
Here's quantifiable result;
increased the size of the volunteer program from 25 to 35 active volunteers.
Now on the surface you may think, yeah, I only grew it by ten people.
That's probably not worth highlighting.
It's absolutely worth highlighting,
and when you think about it in percentages, that's a significant growth.
Make sure that you share that information.
You grew that volunteer program,
and it was your work that helped it to increase.
Designed and led recruitment
and outreach efforts for three new volunteer positions;
social media coordinator, book club facilitator, and fundraising assistant.
Again, shows leadership, shows that you have design skills,
and shows that you managed a recruitment and outreach process.
It also shows that you know something about social media,
you know something about facilitation,
and you know something about fundraising because you designed
and found the people for those positions.
Again, it's a little glimpse into your skill base.
And then you participated in internal grant writing
and annual fundraising drive.
And "participated in" may mean, yeah, you know what,
I didn't lead it but I played a role in it.
But the person reading this is going to say, okay,
they didn't lead this but they have experience in this area as well.
This is a much more detailed example.
It's translated.
It's targeted specifically towards a desired position.
It talks about your specific skill sets.
It talks about them in detailed ways and quantifiable ways,
and as someone reading this,
I have a much better idea of what you actually did in your role with VISTA
than I did on the previous example.
One thing I do want to mention is on the website for this webinar,
we're going to include a couple examples of resumes so that you can take a
look at a couple to see how others have described their VISTA service.
So keep in mind, this particular example, of course,
you can see your recording of this webinar after the fact.
But I highly recommend that you take a look at those two examples again,
and then take a look at your own resume
and spend some time thinking about how can I make this more detailed,
more targeted, and make sure I'm translating it so that it makes sense, again,
for that audience.
So at this time, I want to pass the mic again.
This time to Erin Pringle.
Erin is also a VISTA alumna.
She served with campus Compact for New Hampshire from 2007 to 2010.
She stayed in the CNCS family after her VISTA service as a program coordinator
for the RSVP and Foster Grandparents Program,
and she is now serving as program director for RSVP in
Bismarck, North Dakota.
Erin.
Thanks, Erin.
Hi everybody.
Thanks so much allowing me an opportunity to talk and share with you today.
As mentioned, my name is Erin Pringle.
And for my VISTA years I spent time in New Hampshire with Campus Compact in
New Hampshire.
The first couple years were at Southern New Hampshire University.
And then I was invited to be the Campus Compact for New Hampshire VISTA leader
for my third year.
Since then, like Erin said, I stayed in the AmeriCorps --
not AmeriCorps family -- the CNCS family as
program coordinator for RCP and Foster Grandparent,
and now I'm the program director for RSVP.
I thoroughly enjoyed my three years as a VISTA.
I managed the Community Service Work Study Program that placed college
students at nonprofit organizations to earn their work study funds,
and then helped develop
and manage a computer literacy program for immigrants
and refugees that were recently resettled within the Manchester,
New Hampshire, community.
And I also organized one-time service projects for southern New Hampshire
university students, faculty, and staff.
So, in my time as a VISTA, like so many of us,
I would spend time building relationships with other organizations
in the community
and then developing sustainable programs to address critical community needs
that would last beyond my service years.
I was asked to send in monthly progress reports,
keeping track of the number of volunteers I recruited,
the number of organizations I built or strengthened partnerships with,
as well as any anecdotal information
or stories to share about my successes and struggles.
I then used that data for my monthly reports to write my
semiannual progress reports.
And towards the end of my VISTA service I attended a presentation very much
like this one, and you're told to use numbers and action words,
kind of like Erin has already talked about,
to describe our work during our year of service.
My VISTA assignment description, or VAD, as well as my progress reports,
came in handy when I had to sit down
and add my VISTA experience to my resume.
I honestly could not remember every little detail about my service,
but I could pull numbers and accomplishments from my progress reports
and use my VAD to find action words to describe the responsibilities
of my position.
So instead of a bullet point saying managed community work study program,
I could now say recruited
and placed 25 college work city students in 12 community partner
organizations, focused on addressing critical community needs.
So once my resume was written, I asked several friends
and colleagues to review it.
I wanted to make sure that all spelling and grammar errors were identified
and that the message I was trying to convey was clear and understandable.
Once it was ready,
I used my resume to update my LinkedIn page with my VISTA experience.
VISTA's a great tool that not everyone thinks about.
Organizations can search through LinkedIn profiles to recruit candidates they
think would be a good fit for their open positions.
I also sent a message out to my contacts to let them know I was job searching.
I received a couple referrals to job openings friends thought I might be a
good fit for.
I wish I could say that I was offered
and accepted the first job that I applied for, but I can't.
The job searching process can be incredibly stressful sometimes,
so to prepare for interviews I found it helpful to talk about my career goals
and what I wanted out of a job with my fellow VISTAs, my friends,
and colleagues.
I also researched common interview questions and brainstormed my answers.
I didn't want to sound like I had a canned answer,
but as someone who needs time to think and process questions,
the extra time to think ahead and practice my responses was helpful.
The practice also helped me see where I had skills that could be transferable
to other positions.
For example, I had experience advising students as they
planned community service projects.
While advising isn't exactly like supervising,
I could make the case in an interview that the skills I gained as an advisor
are similar to the skills required to supervise staff.
I found out as I was interviewing that not everyone is familiar with the
AmeriCorps or VISTA,
so I had to take some time to think about how to describe it to people.
I ended up saying, VISTA stands for volunteer and service to America.
I was a full-time volunteer working behind the scenes to develop sustainable
programming to address poverty in the United States.
I would then go on to explain what I did during my service year.
I am sure that you're doing
and accomplishing some extraordinary things during you VISTA year.
If I could share any nuggets of advice it's this.
Use your VAD
and progress reports to help you describe your VISTA service on your resume?
Utilize your network or resume and cover letter feedback and proofing,
as well as interview preparation.
And find a way to describe VISTA that is natural and comes easy to you.
All of these step also help you to better share your national service
story during your job search.
So thanks again for all you do to make our country a better place to live,
and good luck.
Back to you, Erin.
Thank you so much, Erin.
Again, you know, I loved hearing your perspective
and hearing what you're up to these days,
but also thank you for sharing what your process looked like,
what your journey has looked like,
as well as offering some encouraging words that, yeah,
this can take a little while, and you may not get the first job you apply for,
but that's okay.
That's pretty normal, so keep at it,
make sure you talk about your VISTA service, share what you did,
and you're going to position yourself well for finding the right role that's
going to be a good fit for you.
So thank you so much, Erin, and thank you again, Jordan, as well.
So before we move on to resources, next steps, and questions,
I want to very briefly touch on cover letters and interviews.
Cover letters are your opportunity to introduce yourself
and briefly make the case for you why you are the right hire for them.
So to help make the case, plan to briefly introduce what VISTA is
and what your role is and/or was within it.
In addition to the experience you bring to the position,
remember that active language we used for your resume
and use similar strategies here.
Make sure you talk about what your strengths were,
what your responsibilities were, what your skills are.
Use those action terms that aren't vague bull rather specific and focused.
Be sure to highlight your most relevant skills
and strengths as they relate to the specific position
for which you're applying.
And I'd say your most relevant on purpose,
because one of the things that can be tricky about a cover letter is the rule
of thumb is that it really should be only one page,
and to keep it to one page, we need to be very spare
and focused with our language,
and sometimes it means we can't tell the entire story.
And, honestly, in most cases we really shouldn't tell the
entire story in the cover letter.
One of the biggest mistakes I see with cover letters is applicants using that
limited space to explain why they want to job
and why it would be a good fit for their personal and professional goals
and aspirations.
And while that's certainly important,
you need to remember that the reader is most interested in learning how you
would be a good fit for them.
They want to know why you're the right person for their goals and aspirations,
their organization's needs.
So make sure the tone and content of your letter makes this case
first and foremost.
Talk about what you're great at but relevance is the key there.
Make sure that it's connected to the specific position.
What skills and experiences you have that are most relevant for them.
Why you are the right fit for them.
That's the case you really want to make with your one page that you have.
For interviews, I recommend choosing a few examples of
relevant experiences in advance.
Pick some stories from your VISTA experience,
as well as other professional experiences that are most relevant for the
position at hand and then practice how you might tell them briefly
and professionally.
You can try that out with friends, with colleagues, with fellow VISTAs.
You can potentially even do that with an informational interview,
depending on how informal or comfortable you are with that person.
Similarly, pick a few talking points; for example,
that elevator pitch of how to explain VISTA and your role within it,
and practice those in advance so that you can answer questions succinctly
and with confidence,
the old idiom that practice makes perfect is true here as well.
Unless you're really good on your feet --
and most of us aren't as good on our feet as we think we are -- spend a little
time practicing.
How would you describe your VISTA experience,
how would you describe your strengths
and how you are the right fit for that role?
Interviews are oftentimes our first
and perhaps only opportunity to really make the case for
why we are a good fit,
and it's a chance for you to explain further what you wrote in your cover
letter and your resume.
So practice, be ready, have those talking points on hand,
have some stories chosen in advance, and, again,
just the opportunity to really shine and show them how your strengths
and your VISTA experience in particular has amplified what you are capable of
and how you are the right fit for that role.
So I'm going to talk briefly now about resources.
We've talked about many different types of resources on the call today,
so we're giving you a list here.
You will also find this list on VISTA Campus recording page for this webinar.
So if you're ready to start looking for jobs
or even start doing that research for identifying potential jobs of interest,
you can start with sites like the VISTA job board.
Depending on the sector of interest,
you also might want to explore sites like idealist.org for nonprofit careers,
usajobs.gov for public careers.
In the for-profit world there are sites like indeed.com, simplyhired.com,
monster.com.
These are just a few of many in all cases.
One resource I especially recommend if you plan to pursue work in the
non-profit sector, idealist.org has a sister site or a sub-site, I guess,
called idealistcareers.org,
and they have a free downloadable guide on their site called the "Idealist's
Guide to Nonprofit careers for First-Time Jobseekers."
You're going to find that.
I believe it's still on the homepage of idealist.org.
And this is a really terrific resource.
I'm admittedly biased.
I used to work at idealist.org, and two good friends of mine,
who were good friends of mine, were my colleagues that wrote this guide.
But it has a ton of really useful information in there on resumes,
cover letters, informational interviews, how to look for jobs,
activities like the one I described earlier, and it's free
and downloadable online.
You can download just specific chapters or the entire online.
For those of you on the call who had significant professional experience
before you came to VISTA,
there is another version of this guide called the "Idealist's Guide to
Nonprofit Careers for Sector Switchers,"
and we can make sure to get that link to you as well.
I believe there is a downloadable version online for that as well.
If not, it will be available in libraries and/or bookstores.
But it's worth looking for,
because it's about how to translate existing experience into nonprofit speak.
So those are both really terrific resources if you're specifically looking at
nonprofit careers.
But, honestly, even if you aren't,
I would still check them out for the chapters on cover letters, interviews,
informational interviews, resumes.
There's some really great tips, suggestions,
and activities in there to help you prepare.
I use it myself still to this day.
If you are thinking about education next,
one of the resources I would recommend is, again, on Idealist,
they have a list of grad fairs that they host around the country.
The programs that participate in these fairs specifically have careers
or are focused on a career path that benefits from the public,
from international affairs to social work to environmental sciences.
You might also explore the listings on Princeton Review,
where you are search by specific type of program, specific schools,
specific regions.
There's going to be a lot of information for you there,
to research what potential programs might be a best fit for you.
And then lastly,
I'd like to draw your attention to some of the previous webinars hosted by
VISTA, all of which you can access online
and you can see the link there on the screen under transitioning from VISTA.
VISTA has hosted several webinars on topics related to today's discussion,
including how to apply for federal jobs, how to use your education award,
and preparing for life post-VISTA.
So all of those, there are recordings of them on the VISTA Campus site,
and I highly recommend you check some of those out.
Those could be some additional tools, resources
and suggestions that I think you're going to find really useful.
So, next steps, depending on your answer to that poll at the very beginning,
if you are still in service,
what you can do right now is start building your portfolio,
think about whether you want it to be something that's like a paper
or a like in a binder for example, something you want to host online
and start collecting and building that information now.
Start researching jobs and degrees of interest,
some of the activities I talked about earlier, like collecting them
and then going through them and seeing what comes out, talking to people,
what they see your strengths are, asking them what they would like to do.
And start doing informational interviews now.
It is never too early or too late to do informational interviews.
And I cannot say enough good things about doing these.
I have made so many friends
and colleagues just by reaching out to people saying, hey,
can I have 30 minutes to 60 minutes of your time to ask a couple questions
about your role.
There are people I met through informational interviews that, years later,
I still count as colleagues and peers.
So do those now.
And, honestly, most people will say, yes.
Most of the time when they say, no, it's because they're just too busy,
not because they don't want to talk to you about what their work is.
So you're just beginning, work on that portfolio, research jobs
and start with the informational interviews.
If you're close to finishing already, do all of the above,
plus start requesting letters of recommendation.
We saw a question earlier that someone was asking about should you just get
letters from your supervisors or should you get them from professors
or previous supervisors or other people.
I would say ask for letters of recommendation from anyone who can speak to
your strengths and abilities.
You may not use them all but it can't hurt to have them on hand.
The other thing to keep in mind is that a lot of places may not need a letter
so much as they just need a reference they can contact.
So anyone who you know who is going to be able to speak to your abilities,
make sure you ask them, "Hey,
would you mind serving as a reference for me should I apply for a position
that makes sense."
So ask those questions now.
You can do that while still in service as well, but collecting letters,
I would probably wait until close to finishing,
because they're going to be able to speak the most to your ability.
Now those of you who are on the call who have already finished your VISTA
or just as the finish line now, do all of the above.
It really is not too late to start now.
Go back and ask for examples of things for you portfolio,
start the researching job piece now.
Considering degrees, do that now.
Informational interviews, again, that's an always type of thing,
and then asking about letters of recommendation and serving as references,
you can do those now as well.
So not too late.
Go ahead and get started, and try to have fun with this process.
This is about identifying what you love and what you're great at
and where you're going to be a good fit.
And your VISTA service should have prepared you, and the skills
and experience you've had a VISTA really are transferable.
I can't say that enough.
Everything you guys are doing as VISTA members now is needed in pretty much
every field I can think of.
So what you need to do is just help them make that connection.
So with that, I'm going to transition the Microphone back to my colleague,
Calvin, and I believe we're going to move into the Q&A session, so Calvin.
Yeah, thanks.
Yeah, so you're right, we are going to move into the Q&A, but before we do,
we really want to take a second to know everyone's thought who is on this
webinar today.
On the right side of your screen you're going to find a quick poll where you
can share your feedback about this webinar.
So if you would, please take a moment to answer the questions.
We really like to be able to improve on these webinars, and your input really,
really helps us.
We take a lot of time going over all these reviews,
looking at them so that we can, you know,
be constantly improving the quality of our webinars.
You know we do this all for you guys,
so we really want to know what you think and what would make this better.
So we've given you a lot of think about, and now it's time for your questions.
So you can ask questions using the Q&A panel located on the
right side of your screen.
And I'll also, now, ask Operator Dory to let you know
how to ask questions by phone.
Thank you.
At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press "*" then "1."
You will be prompted to record your first and last name.
To withdrawal your request, press "*2."
Once again, if you would like to ask a question, press "*" then "1" now.
All right.
And while we're waiting on people to join us on the phone, I'll go ahead
and we can take a couple questions from the Q&A.
Let's see, we have a question from Kristin Keys.
It says, "Requesting letters of recommendation, do we keep them
or are they sent directly to a school or organization?"
It's an excellent question, Kristin.
And, really, it kind of depends on where you're applying.
You know, think about when you applied for AmeriCorps.
Those are reference requests sent to the person, you know, that you chose.
Some places will ask you to send them the letter of recommendation,
which means it goings through you first.
It may not be a bad idea to ask someone for just a general letter of
recommendation, so you can always have it on deck whenever you might need it.
I don't think there's really one way to answer that question.
So it's going to vary position to position.
Let's see, we have Jazelle asked, "Do we have access to sample resumes
and cover letters?"
So this entire presentation is going to be posted on the VISTA campus with
these examples, and I believe we also will be posting the resume.
I believe Erin,
I think she gave that to us to pose ton VISTA campus also so
you guys can take a look at that.
Let's see, oh, I have a question for you, Erin B.
I know you've taken a look at people's resumes and things.
We seem to get a lot questions about people wanting to know,
"Oh, I've always heard that my resume should only be one page
or never over three bull let points."
How do you balance -- we have a question from Shaloney that says,
"How do you balance being detailed and descriptive while also being concise?"
Erin, do you have any advice for that?
I do, yeah.
That's always a challenge and it's something I've struggled with myself.
So I glanced up at the queue while I was talking
and I saw someone who had a great response who said, "Yeah,
the rule of thumb is one page for most people,
two if it's a really senior position," and that is the pretty normal,
that it can be a little longer when you've had years and years experience,
but particularly early in your career, it should be one page,
whenever possible.
And part of that is simply because especially where people are applying for a
position where lots of people are applying you don't want to give the person
reading them a reason to say, "Nope, too long, forget it."
You want them to read and you want them to read
and you want them to be concise.
So this is where being specific
and choosing the most relevant details is important.
So create that master resume, which will probably be more than one page,
and then when you're applying for specific jobs,
go through all of the bullet points under each row
and pick out the ones that matter most.
Now if you spend most of your time doing something that isn't as relevant,
still give it a bullet point so that it's clear what your role was,
but then focus the rest of the bullet points -- tailor them, rather,
to the role that you applied for.
So it takes a lot of editing.
It takes a lot of practice.
Play with the margins a little,
not so much that all of a sudden the margins are up against the walls
and the ceiling, because they'll notice that too.
Make sure it's a font that's still readable.
So work within the confines of what it should look like,
but you really do want to get it down to one page.
But that detail is really important.
And hopefully what you saw in that example we shared,
the better resume example, is that you're able to give a lot of detail,
still pretty briefly.
Now that one I built out specifically because I wanted to make sure that you
could see every possible way to describe what a role should look like.
But you could still get it down to three or four bullet points,
but each one of those instead of "Help with volunteer management," can say
"Recruited, led, and managed 52 volunteers."
That's one line on your resume
and it gives a lot more information than saying "Helped manage volunteers."
So error on the side of detail.
Error on the side of relevance.
Do try to stick to what is a U.S. cultural rule of thumb,
which is a one-page resume.
Yeah, definitely.
And I'll speak a little bit, you know, add on that.
I have a really hard time keeping my resume short,
because I really like to talk about myself, as I'm sure most people do.
You know, I like to give the all the full details,
and I also have a master resume that is about three or four pages long.
I mean, it's got every single job I've ever had on there.
If not for, you know, applying purposes, just for reference purposes.
I know I'm sure people out there have applied to jobs where they ask you to
input every job you've ever had over the last five years, or, you know,
list every job that you've had.
It got brought up in the chat about applying for USA Jobs and those resumes,
they are really long.
It's great to list every single job you've ever had on USA Job,
you know, when you're going in and building that resume
and really spelling out everything that you did in that position,
kind of no matter how small you may think it might be,
that could be the one thing that they're looking for that really
lands you that job.
So, yeah, I'm really bad at taking that advice and keeping it down to one page.
But it can be done with some careful editing.
I'm going to go ask Dory if we have anyone on the phone with questions.
At this time, we have no questions.
Once again, though, if you would like to ask a question,
please press "*" then "1" and record your name.
All right, thanks.
So while we're waiting, if anyone wants to join in on the phone,
please give us a call.
But we'll answer a couple more from the Q&A and see what we've got in here.
Let's see, "If we are in our second term of service as a VISTA,
do we already have non-competitive eligibility from completing our first term
of service, or does it not start until after we finish our second term?"
I saw a couple other questions about noncompetitive eligibility.
And just as a reminder,
we have a full webinar that is all about noncompetitive eligibility.
It tells you everything that you need to know about that
and goes into way more detail than I can give you right now,
so do check that out.
What I can tell you briefly is that noncompetitive eligibility,
it's a little tricky, because it's a little subjective.
You're able to.
So your noncompetitive eligibility starts at the end of your
first year of service.
You can apply for jobs, you know, after that.
Let's say you did two years in service.
You're able to apply after your second year and say that you still have it.
It's up to your employer to determine whether they would like to extend that
noncompetitive eligibility or not.
Again, like I said, it's kind of subjective.
There's a little bit of flexibility in it to say, hey, you know,
I did two years of service, this eligibility was good for one year,
will you count this for after my second year?
You know, it can be a little tricky.
It's explained very well in that webinar that we had,
so definitely please take a chance or take a second to go look at that one.
Let's see, someone asked if this will be posted?
It will.
This presentation will be posted here in about a week on the VISTA Campus,
along with all the resources that we have mentioned.
Let's see,
I know a couple of our speakers here today have gone to graduate school.
They want to know,
do you have any tips on how to use VISTA to get into graduate schools?
I'm interested in hearing if Erin P or Jordan, or even you, Erin Barnhart,
you've got a lot of education,
so maybe how did you guys translate your VISTA service?
How did that help you with school and getting in?
Well this is Jordan.
I can take that one.
Actually, I'm in my role now,
but I applied for grad school in the early part of spring,
and I applied to the University of Oregon, and I was accepted.
And I began school this fall.
But it's interesting because my VISTA service is actually what helped me
decide what I wanted to pursue for school.
You know, I kept thinking about going to the academic realm
and seeing what that would look like.
But the more I invested myself in national service,
the more I realized the community development was really my biggest passion.
And so when I was applying I kind of looked for a program that was very
similar to the VISTA model in and of itself very hands on experiential,
and so when I applied, I really just highlighted on, you know,
why did I want to go to that school
and what did I think that degree would help with after graduation.
And so, you know,
tying in the experiences that you had with VISTA even if what you did during
your service doesn't exactly align with what you want to pursue for grad
schools, there's so many skills
and opportunities that you experience through your service that can help you
kind of tie in with where you want to go professionally in school.
And so that's kind of how I did it.
Anybody else?
The two Erins have any inputs too?
Thank you.
That was a great response.
Yeah, I would just second that,
that talking about highlighting what you did in your VISTA service,
making the connection to the particular program
or the field that you want to study, helping them to understand that, yes,
this is the work that I did, this is how it prepared me.
Actually, let me reframe that.
There's sort of two ways to approach it.
One is, this is how it prepared me to do the work of graduate school;
that I can demonstrate independence and strength and patience and flexibility,
all of which, I can tell you, are needed in grad school,
but also just content specific if you can make the case that, yes,
I worked with this particular community,
which helps me to understand that I need to know more about XYZ.
So I would agree with everything you said.
Talk about your VISTA service and it really does, in many ways,
prepare you for what you're going to do in grad school as well.
Well thank you, guys, for answering that.
I appreciate it.
So we have another -- well, actually I'll ask Dory if we anyone on the phone.
We have no questions at this time.
All right.
Cool.
So we have another question in the Q&A.
Tina foster asked us, "How do you organize your master resume?"
And the good thing about that is it's completely up to you.
I can tell you that my master resume, I go in, I just throw things on there.
If I go, oh, I forgot I did that, I go
and I add it under one of the jobs I have.
Mine's just listed in chronological order from most recent all the way down to
the oldest job that I have.
You know, and I just keep one master kind of word document that
I just throw things on.
It's kind of ugly at this point.
All the formatting is messed up.
But it doesn't really matter, because it's not really for anyone else to see.
It's just for you and it's for your personal reference.
And just so you have a really great document that you can pull lives from
and you pool all the date and the supervisor information.
I mean, how many times have you guys been filling out an application
asking for your supervisor's contact info?
I'm like I have no idea.
I don't remember what that person's phone number was from eight years ago.
But if you find it once, you can put it on your master resume,
and you always have it on there.
So that is totally up to you how you organize it.
It's really just a tool for your reference, yeah.
Bridget Reynolds says, "How far back did you go on your resume with jobs?"
Again, I think it's going to depend on the job
and what is relevant to that position.
If you did a job two years ago, you know,
that is going to be relevant to whatever you're applying to,
I would add it on there.
If it's no not relevant,
I usually don't add the things that aren't relevant to the experience
or to whatever position I'm applying for.
Again, my master resume has most jobs that I've ever done,
so if I did some things all the way back in 2008
and it's directly applicable to whatever I'm applying to,
I'm going to put that on there and I'm going to say, I did this, this, this,
and this is how it ties into the position that I'm applying for
and into the position that I'm trying to get to.
Calvin, this is Erin.
One thing I would add is I have actually heard a guideline that in addition to
-- so I agree,
totally agree with your answer that it should be about what's relevant.
But I've also heard a guideline before that if it's more than ten years back,
you may not need to include it.
Most employers are interested in the ten-most recent years of your resume.
So take that with a grain of salt, because I've heard it as a guideline.
It's not a rule of thumb.
But I have heard that a couple places before as well.
Oh, excellent, excellent piece of advice there.
And I think I would agree with that.
It's like, you know, think about where you worked ten years ago
and is that really -- you know, maybe you were just getting started
and it maybe didn't have too much responsibility, you know,
and for most people working on their VISTA project,
if it's a small organization, you have way more responsibility, you know,
you are really having to be independent on tasks and projects.
And these are all great things that you can play up and say, you know, yeah,
I did this on my own, you know, I managed this entire project.
I coordinated this.
I led this team, and yada-yada-yada.
All right, so I think we are just about out of questions.
I'm not seeing any more here that we haven't covered.
Let's see, Emily Aird says,
"I've been getting interviews but struggling with landing a job."
Any words of advice or encouragement?
I'm going to ask this question of all three of our speakers.
So Erin B, you got any words of advice
or encourage for your VISTAs out there struggling with landing a job?
I absolutely do.
First and foremost, hang in there.
I know it's hard.
I know it's discouraging.
But everyone has been through it.
It's not just you.
It's not you, it's them situation.
Everyone's been there.
There's a couple of ways that I talk about when I work with students
and VISTA folks, or anyone, really, when I talk about looking for a position,
there is sort of two pieces to the puzzle.
One of them is the window of opportunity,
and one of them is being ready when that window opens.
The window of opportunity, we can't control for the most part.
We can keep our eyes open at all times.
We can build our network through things like informational interviews
and going to networking events
and trying to build our connections so that other people have their
eyes open for us too.
But that's pretty much the most we can do.
Otherwise the right opening up when we're look for one, a lot of that is luck.
But what we can control is that when we see that job open up,
we can control out ready we are to apply for it.
And that's where I highly advice folks that if there's a particular field that
you want to work in, do everything that you can to be ready for it.
Read what you need to read.
Consider what you need to study.
Make the connections that you need to make.
Look at every role in between you and whatever your dream job might be,
as the opportunity to become an even stronger candidate for it,
especially if you're early in your career.
I work with so many students who are coming straight out of school saying,
"I have to land my dream job first
or I'm just not going to make my career," like what's the point if I don't
land the dream job right away.
And the thing I try to advise with that is to recognize that dream jobs are --
again, you can't always control when they show up.
But also, you may need more experience before you're ready for that.
So don't be discouraged by the fact that I might be needing to apply for
different types of jobs first.
I once had a student who really wanted to work in international development,
working with youth.
And she had an awesome resume.
She spent time abroad.
She just finished her Master's degree.
But what she didn't have was in-person contact time working in a youth
development program.
So she ended up taking a job with Boys and Girls Clubs on the East Coast,
and what she ended up doing was doing that for a couple -- I believe she's
still at that job, and she realized, oh, I have a gap on my resume.
I need to get a job where I fill that gap so that when the next job opens up
for international youth development,
I'm the stellar candidate instead of the pretty good candidate.
So think about the types of jobs you're applying for.
Is there a way for you to rethink where you're applying
and maybe something where you're like, yeah, this isn't the sexiest career,
this isn't exactly what I wanted to do, but, you know what,
it's going to help me develop skills, fill a gap on my resume.
I'm going to build my network, and it's going to prepare me for the next one.
And also, you know, don't give up in the meantime.
Try not to be so hard on yourself,
that it really is a tough process for everyone.
And just keep plugging away at building your strengths as a candidate.
The other thing I would say is I know it takes a lot of work to apply for
stuff and it can be a little soul crushing, but do it anyway.
You never know who is reading your resume
and who is paying attention to what your strengths and skills are.
The job that really launched my career for me was working with idealist.org,
and I got that job because I applied for a job at Portland State University,
and someone on the hiring committee said,
"You're not the perfect fit for what we're hiring,
but I know someone at Idealist who is hiring, can I pass your resume along?"
And I thought, oh, sure, and I secretly thought, no one ever does that.
Why on earth would they try to help me out?
They don't know me.
They sent my resume along, and I got hired and it launched my career,
and it ended up being one of the best jobs I've ever had.
So do it anyway.
Apply, spend the time.
You know, you may be thinking, oh, I can't do another one.
Go for it.
It's great practice.
You never know who's reading it,
and every opportunity is a potential opportunity to open another door.
Oh, thank you so much.
Excellent advice.
What about you, Erin P?
Oh, yeah, I was going to say, I totally echo everything Erin already said.
But one thing that was helpful for me when I was going through,
because applying and interviewing is so, so sucky,
but a lot of places will offer feedback after your interview,
and I found that helpful to learn about why they chose someone else,
because that always was found out, like, you were our second choice.
So that's really great, except I wanted that job.
And so they were able to give me some feedback about,
okay this is where we were kind of hoping you'd have more skills
or more experience.
And so if they offer feedback on your interview, I would take them up on that,
because you can learn more.  And like Erin said,
you might find you have a gap somewhere
and how can you fill that gap so that the next time you apply for that job,
or something similar, you have it and you're the first choice next time.
Totally.
Thank you.
And, Jordan?
Yeah, absolutely, both of those responses were great.
You know, I had a fellow VISTA leader that ended up applying for
so many positions in her last few months, and she was really stressed out
and just kept getting more rejections.
But, you know, eventually she ended up getting this really incredible position.
And I think it really comes down to not beating yourself every time you
get a rejection,
but just understanding that you have the ability to perhaps get feedback for
that position, like Erin was saying,
and you just have more of an opportunity to figure out, you know,
what are you qualified for.
And like Erin Barnhart was saying, you know, having that preparation,
like as soon as you find a position that you think would be beneficial for you
and that organization, put as much research into as possible
and just give it 100% every time.
And it can be exhausting.
If you keep getting rejections and you're like, this sucks, it will be okay.
And eventually you will get to a position where it is the right fit,
both for you and for that organization.
Definitely.
Definitely.
Definitely.
All excellent advice.
Thank you, Emily, for this question.
What a wonderful way to end this webinar.
And I guess my advice/words of encourage are, you know, again,
that window of opportunity.
You know, I can speak from personal experience that I've always -- you know,
and I realize it's also a very privileged statement to make,
but I've always been able to move at the drop of a hat.
So I started working here in D.C. with one program.
A job opened up in Austin.
Someone said, "Hey, Calvin, are you interested?"
I said, "Yeah, sure."
So, you know, I moved to Austin.
And then six months later, you know, my job opened up here, you know,
and I was able to move -- I had to move to D.C.,
so I moved across the country two times in one year.
But I landed in a position that I'm really happy in, and, honestly,
I can say this is one of my dream jobs.
I really love what I do.
So it's really taking those opportunities and just going for it.
One thing, you know, my mother always told me is, you know, jump
and the net will follow.
And I really try to take that to heart.
And if I'm feeling nervous or scared about something that I want to go after,
you know, just kind of go for it and you'll figure it out,
because you don't really have any other choice but to figure it out.
And my other word of advice is to kind of be shameless.
I have no shame when it comes to asking people for advice or to read things,
asking people for a job, saying, "Hey, do you know if you're hiring.
I heard this position is opening up, you know, how can I be considered for it?
You know, what are you looking for in this job?
Do you think I'm qualified?"
I mean, really, just have no shame.
I'm sure people might say, "No, you're not qualified.
No we're not interested in your as a candidate.
Sorry I don't have time," but that's fine.
Recognize that that's them and not a reflection of yourself.
So really just be, like, shameless and go for it.
And, yeah, that's my advice.
So thank you all so much for being here, and thank you to our guest speakers.
We really, really, really appreciate it.
Before we leave for good,
we do want to give you some information about our
next webinar that's coming up.
It is "Creating Group Volunteer Opportunities that Engage and Inspire."
This webinar is going to be on June 29th, 2016.
If that sounds like something you're interested in,
if you enjoyed this webinar, please attend.
It's going to be, again, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern.
Yeah, so we'll see you there, and thank you everyone so much for joining.
Have a great day.
