Maximizing Your Resume

In this episode of the Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about writing our resumes. I’ve never met anyone who looks forward to updating their resume. But it’s an important part of the career management process. My guest this week, Fatemah Mirza, a certified resume master, shares strategies to help us move past self-doubt and humility to craft a resume that best reflects our strengths and orients us towards our ideal roles. She also offers tips for how to talk with your manager about promotions.

About My Guest

Fatemah Mirza is a Certified Resume Master who has been helping job seekers with their resumes for the past 13 years. She owns a company named CareerTuners. CareerTuners is a small team of skilled professionals from various industries who specialize in providing professional resumes, cover letters, LinkedIn profiles, and much more career-related services to help ambitious people land their dream jobs and achieve career goals.

~

Connect with Fatemah:

Podcast: https://careertuners.com/podcast/ Blog: https://careertuners.com/blog

~

Connect with Kim and The Impostor Syndrome Files:

Join the free Impostor Syndrome Challenge.

Learn more about the Leading Humans discussion group

Join the Slack channel to learn from, connect with and support other professionals.

Join the Facebook group.

Schedule time to speak with Kim Meninger directly about your questions/challenges.

Connect on LinkedIn

Websites: https://yourcareersuccess.com | https://impostorsyndromefiles.com

Transcript:

Kim Meninger Welcome, Fatemah, it is so wonderful to meet you today. And I’m excited to have this conversation with you. Before we jump in, I’d love for you to introduce yourself.

Fatemah Mirza Of course. So my name is Fatemah, and I am a certified resume master with over 13 years of experience helping job seekers achieve their career goals. Sometimes that means finding you a new job. Sometimes that means helping you navigate those difficult conversations with your boss so that you can get the promotion and salary that you’ve been waiting for.

Kim Meninger And what brought you to this work? Were you doing something else before?

Fatemah Mirza Yeah, I was in the world of environmental engineering. And I started doing this just kind of randomly like for friends. And I found out that I was quite good at it. I built a team of about 30. It’s 30 of us now. And this is what we do every day. Yeah.

Kim Meninger Oh my goodness. Did you ever envision being a business owner? Like how does how was that transition for you?

Fatemah Mirza That’s a really good question. Like, I don’t know if I’m that much of like, I don’t know, like I do plan. Don’t get me wrong, I do plan. I’m very, like, I create dashboards, I create five-year goals, like this is the project I’m working on. This is where I wanted to be in five years. But as like from my life, no, like, I really, like planned my life in that way. If that makes sense. It’s more like, Okay, this is the path that I’m going on. Let’s plan this path, as opposed to like, let’s look at which path I want to pick. If that makes any sense.

Kim Meninger It does because I’m like that, too. I’m definitely not a long-term planner. And I never had visions of starting my own business when I was working in corporate, either. And then I can, I wouldn’t call myself necessarily impulsive. But…

Fatemah Mirza Yeah, exactly. I don’t know.

Kim Meninger Action-oriented.

Fatemah Mirza Maybe we aren’t impulsive, we’re in denial.

Kim Meninger That’s very possible too, that could very well be it. So what do you think are some of the, let’s call them challenges or opportunities depending on how you want to frame them? When it comes to writing a resume? What do you think people most struggle with? Why? Why is it that everyone hates doing their resume?

Fatemah Mirza Because I think we’ve been taught that, like talking about yourself is boasting and that it’s icky. And you know, it’s not, it’s not something that we encourage as a society. So, I can talk on and on about my friend, and how great they are, and all their achievements and everything, and no one will bat an eye. But our, you know, this is where the impostor syndrome kicks in where we think like, if we do the same for ourselves, we’re going to be seen as bragging and self-obsessed, and all of that. So this is like this very ingrained mindset that when we start writing about our accomplishments, like that creative part that just wants to write and share our ideas, and the part that’s like responsible for kind of editing, what we’re putting out there, they come into conflict. So that makes writing a resume really difficult. Sometimes this is like your imposter syndrome kicking in where you’re like, I don’t know, I can’t take credit for doing that. That was my team. Or like, I can’t, I just talked to this woman the other day, and she was like, I was doing a lot of my boss’s work, but I didn’t want to put that on my resume, because I didn’t think people would believe me, you know, it’s like, it’s like, things like that, where like, a lot of that self-doubt comes in. And then there’s another part of it, where we’re like, this sounds really stupid. Like, I don’t want to write that. And you know, the way we talk to ourselves, like, really negative compared to like, I would never say these kinds of things to my little sister, for example, you know, and like, this is this. It’s like, oh, it’s just a resume. It’s just like, for jobs and professional, but no, it’s you, it’s you’re putting yourself on a piece of paper. And it’s so challenging, and it’s very difficult to do. So. I think that’s a lot of where, like, the mental hesitation comes from. But in terms of like, where people actually mess up, I think people are not speaking enough to who’s on the other side of that table. They’re kind of putting too much of themselves on there, instead of kind of looking at, okay, these are their hiring needs and I need to speak to that.

Kim Meninger Ooh, those are such important things I want to, I want to split them up for a second, because I think you make a really good point about feeling like we’re boasting, and I think part of it is humility. Part of it is, you know, just sort of internal wiring messaging that we’ve been given that it’s not appropriate to brag or that, you know, we shouldn’t think so highly of ourselves. I think sometimes for women in particular, we tend to be overly precise in how we think about ourselves. And so I see people all the time saying, well, would other people agree than this? Right? And they don’t want to overstate or to your point, take credit for something that was a group effort. And so there’s a lot of overthinking that goes into it, as opposed to just sort of claiming ownership of different things that we’ve done. and throughout our careers. And so I want you to stick with that one for a moment and get your thoughts on what is lost. If we aren’t willing to embrace that, even though it can be hard, even though it may require stepping outside of our comfort zones or reframing our mindset, what happens if we stay too humble or not are not willing to flame? What we have done in the past?

Fatemah Mirza Well, like most tangibly, you’re losing out on financial opportunities, right? Like you’re losing out on promotions, you’re losing out on high-paid jobs, if you take a minute to really flex and brag on your resume, it becomes so much easier in the interview, and that becomes so much easier in the salary negotiation process. So you might get the same job, but it might be paying less, because you haven’t done a good enough job, being like, you know what this is me and like owning that, you know, so definitely the financial side of things. And then long term, like your satisfaction, like if you know, you’re a highly creative and capable individual, you’re not, you’re gonna get spiritually burnt out, if you’re doing a job, that’s not taking advantage of everything you have to offer. If you’re doing kind of those, you know, I mean, there’s nothing wrong with doing a mundane job, if that’s what you like, like, that’s, that’s good for you, that’s gonna make you feel spiritually fulfilled. But if that’s not and, you know, you’re you can do more creatively. And in terms of making a bigger impact on the world, you’re gonna miss out on those opportunities, if you’re not taking the time to be like, You know what, yeah, I’m awesome. And people deserve to know that you’re doing a disservice to people who could benefit from you by not showing off, quite frankly.

Kim Meninger I love that point. That’s what I make all the time to is that even though we think of this as self-serving, we’re actually doing a service to others when we share this because then they can bring this set of strengths and expertise into the organization and make it available to other people, right? When I know something, well, then I can be a resource to the people on my team and support others in the skills and strengths that I have. So it’s not just about looking at how wonderful I am, right? But it’s about how can I make the greatest contribution and, and I think that leads to what you were talking about before to of how we frame what we’ve done, to best connect with the audience. Because if we make it about ourselves, we may miss an opportunity to really help them understand what we can do for them. Right?

Fatemah Mirza Exactly. Yeah, the first step to you know, having a great job search or having a great job is to ask lots of questions. What’s the problem? What opportunities are you trying to capitalize on? These questions can be asked when you’re reading the job description all the way to when you are interviewing and trying to understand how to frame your interview answers. If you do that you can speak according to those that framework that you’ve created. And this helps you command a lot more because you’re coming in more as a consultant. Rather than you know that defensive like, please hire me. I know I can do a good job kind of vibe.

Kim Meninger Yeah. So can you say a little bit more about the kinds of questions that we should be asking ourselves during this process? And then where? Where do we get the answers? Especially, I think the interview feels like an obvious place. But a lot of times we’re afraid to ask certain questions in the interview itself, like what are some resources we can access?

Fatemah Mirza First of all, you should access your own guts and ask those questions like I know, it’s hard. And I know it feels weird to be like, Why are you hiring for this position? You know, why? Why was this position advertised to begin with? But these are the tough questions that you have to ask to first and foremost, figure out how to sell yourself within those needs. And second, to see if that job is even a good fit for you. You know, I mean, you it’s a two-way street, you have to see what, what why they’re hiring and why that last person was let go. But if you want to come to the interview, extra prepared and do a bit more research before you even begin the interview. You should be looking up what’s going on with your industry. Like how are economic trends impacting it? How are movements and like the supply chain? How are social movements impacting your industry, all those things you shouldn’t be aware of best way to stay at the forefront of this would be to join a professional association, because then you’re going to kind of be on the cutting edge, especially if you’re a senior professional. reading up on scholarly journals in your space might be a great way to stay updated. So coming in with that, you know, like hey, not only do I know what is going on with your company, I know how this industry is being impacted as a whole and I know how to stay on top of that. That’s a great vibe to be giving off.

Kim Meninger I really liked that too, of just kind of getting the bigger picture and I want to go back to what you said about asking the question, why are you hiring? I think that’s a really important one, I always recommend that too, because you want to know was the person who was in this role before you fired. Was the person in this role before you like this really admired person whose shoes are going to be really huge? Is the person still around for you to learn from? Or have they left the company? And so that does have lots of implications for what your transition process will look like. And to your point, whether you want to do it at all?

Fatemah Mirza Right, right. Yeah, it’s a two-way street.

Kim Meninger Yeah, so anything else that you think is really important for us to be thinking about as part of the strategy around preparing for either writing the resume or using the resume?

Fatemah Mirza Your resume should focus on the job that you’re trying to look for. So if this is very common, now, a lot more common than it was back in the day, but a lot of you are probably listening have had careers that have taken some transitions, like you’ve gone from one field to another, maybe you’re not doing what you studied. Maybe you have to take kind of like almost a demotion due to some personal circumstance, like, like our resumes are not the cookie cutter, you know, one step in front of the other type of resumes that are that our ancestors had. So making sure that your resume speaks to that job and only includes content that is related, related to the job that you’re looking for is really critical. If you’ve done kind of a little bit of everything, you can still mention your work history, but within each experience, make sure that it’s customized to what you’re looking for now.

Kim Meninger That’s a really important point. And I think for, for me, for my personal experience, people generally come to me because they want to make a change of some sort. And so there’s often confusion or anxiety around how to tell that story because they are often competing with people who have very particular experience that maps so closely to the job description that they feel like, Oh, no one’s ever going to even see that it’s not going to get through the applicant tracking system, or it’s going to be really hard for people to make the connection between what I was doing before and what I want to be doing now. I wonder, and feel free to come at this question from whatever angle makes sense to you because I know it’s kind of a big topic, but I’m just thinking about, how do you effectively tell that story, if, let’s say, the bulk of my work was either in a different industry or in a different functional role, I feel confident that I can do this role. But I also feel like I’m not necessarily able to tell the story in writing in that way, like, what’s the most effective way to tackle that problem? So that I get, I’m adequately given the opportunity to convey that I’m a fit.

Fatemah Mirza You have to, I think, get a second person’s perspective, because our work is so close to what we do that I think we get lost in the day-to-day like, we have a really hard time looking at the bigger picture and seeing how things translate to different industries. So having like your spouse, or your partner or a friend, kind of read through your resume, and help you connect the dots between what you’ve done, and what you’d like to do, is really important because you’re gonna be stuck in that, you know, like, Okay, I’ve been doing this daily, daily, daily, and, you know, a second person’s perspective is gonna be really important. If you want to do this yourself, I do have a blog, on my resume, on my blog, on my resume, blog on resumes on my website, it’s called to company descriptions go on your resume, I believe it’s something like that. If you Google for it, you’ll find it. in it. I talked about the different components that make up the description under each experience, right, who you worked with what you did, which department you worked for, who you reported to, and how to whether to include that and how to tweak it depending on if you’re transitioning or not. So let’s say for example, I mean, every situation is very, very different. So let’s just throw some examples out there. Let’s say you’re going from sales to marketing, you were in sales and you’re transitioning into marketing. Your experience should say like, yeah, I was, you know, I was a sales leader, whatever, but the actual content of what you’re putting on there should focus as much on marketing as possible. So you can say I overachieved on quota, but talk about how I overachieved on quota by creating relationships with the marketing team so that our sales collateral was really powerful, or I delivered customer insights to the marketing team so that they can change the way we brand ourselves, you know, that kind of thing where you’re really showing that I am familiar with this world, I know how to speak this language, I have relationships with people in the space, maybe stick in a recommendation from the marketing manager of your company, you know, on your resume, like a couple lines that’ll show that you, you know that you’re respected. And in that space, it really depends, I think, from person to person. So having someone objectively look at your resume and having someone objectively look at the kind of job that you’re trying to get into can really help.

Kim Meninger Yeah, I think that’s a really good point, I think we have very fixed rules in our mind for how a resume should be structured and what it should say. And sometimes I think people think it feels like cheating if I spend my, my position as a sales leader talking about the work I’ve done in marketing, but I think that’s, that’s a mindset shift that we really need to make. Because to your point, you want to be conveying the experience that best maps to what you will be doing, not necessarily what you’ve done in the past, right? That just kind of reinforces, if you’re only talking about your sales experience, that doesn’t bridge the gap between where you are today and where you want to be.

Fatemah Mirza You were saying something earlier about helping people you know, like, it’s your job, basically, to help people understand how you can serve them. And this is one of those things if someone who needs something in marketing is looking at all of your sales accomplishments, you’re not helping them, they’re not able to understand and bridge that gap by helping connect those dots, you are doing them a disservice by saying yes, this was my job title, and that connotates everything associated with a sales job title, however, I am showing you why this is still relevant, and really helpful information for you to have, and you are helping them understand why you would be a great person to have on their team. That’s first. The second thing is I think a lot of us are fed resume advice, that’s really outdated. That made sense when everybody would work at one company for like 30 years and retire with a pension and all of those things that are just not the reality anymore. Especially considering, you know, the crises that we’ve had in the past three decades with the.com bubble with the great recession with COVID. All of these things have put big bumps on our resumes, they have, you know, made upheaval out of our resume. So people when they look at resumes from the other side of the table, they understand like, okay, you’ve had to had this transition, you’ve had to take maternity leave, you’ve had to take care of your spouse, like whatever it is. The other side of the table is also a lot more empathetic adults. So a lot of this outdated, very structured and rigid resume advice that we’re seeing. It probably doesn’t apply. And you should be looking at things from that 2023 lens.

Kim Meninger Yeah, I’m glad you said that. Because I do think that there are a lot of outdated beliefs. And that leads me to a couple of other questions. Number one is chronology. Right? So let’s imagine that I, let’s take this example of sales and marketing. Let’s imagine that I was doing more marketing in a role like held 15 years ago, and then I went into sales. And now I want to go back to marketing. How do I bring that past experience more front and center? So people know? Oh, yes, she has done this before. Is there? Like, I guess, how important is it that your resume be chronological? And what opportunity is there to kind of re-focus some of the older activity so that it’s more visible?

Fatemah Mirza I think it would be very difficult to make a believable case, that experience that is 15 years old is still relevant and sharp, especially in the world of marketing, where things have evolved so dramatically. I mean, what were we doing 15 years ago, for Allstate? But I mean, it’s it, what you want to do, like you can try lifting some of those accomplishments to like, say, your summary section. But that’s not enough. And it’s not believable as okay, you know, Kim has what it takes to be a leader in this space. What you need to do is what I was mentioning earlier, is look at your most recent history and try to draw connections there. And if you absolutely cannot, you have to show your potential employer that your skill set is not stale. It’s not out of date. It’s still up to date, by taking courses or by signing up for special projects at your current work that helps you demonstrate that skill. So if you’re, if you’re, you know, taking the earlier example, if you’re just doing sales, you’re not doing anything with them. Marketing at all. But you did marketing like 15 years ago, talking about just that will make you run into the biggest bias that there is in the, in the job, job world today, which is ageism, this person is too old, and they’re too outdated. And this is harsh, but it’s the reality of what some of the older job seekers are facing. And it’s also illegal. But it’s very difficult to prove that you’re, you’re running into age-related discrimination. So before making a jump, and you know, quitting your job and looking for your next job, talk to your boss, candidly about your goals to transition into marketing, ask for projects that help support your goal in your resume, so that you have something to talk about so that you have more recent experience. So you’re not talking about, you know, what were you doing in 2005? Imagine you’re in like, I don’t know, the, the mortgage sector, and you’re talking about mortgage experience from 2008? Like, no. You have to talk about the new codes and laws and everything and how you can navigate that it’s just really important to show that relevant experience from recent times.

Kim Meninger I think that’s such a good point. And you touched on this a little bit about how times have changed. But I’m curious, what do you do with a resume gap? Right? Like, do you actually account for that time? Do you? You know, like, do you just keep the, the dates, you know, I maybe I took two years off. And so I’ve got one position, that’s up until 2020. And then, you know, my next position started in 2022. And just hope that no one asks me about it, or like, what, what do I do with that? Is it better to name it on the resume or to just gloss over it?

Fatemah Mirza So with a gap, the concern that an employer has is I’m concerned that she left on bad terms, and was unemployable for some reason. Maybe she went to jail, you know, like, there’s all kinds of situations that a pessimistic employer would be thinking. The second concern is, I’m concerned that in this time, her skills deteriorated. Right, so you have to address both of those in that gap, especially if that gap is one you’re currently experiencing. If this gap was back in 2008, no big deal, because everyone knows that like, okay, unemployment was really high in that period, whatever, that that’s no longer relevant to your capabilities today. But if this is something that you’re experiencing right now, how you talk about it depends a lot on what was going on. If you just took a gap to go to school, you can put your you know, schooling there, if you took a gap, because someone in your family died, and you were doing all of their asset management, how you talk about that. It’s also different, and it depends on the industry that you’re going into, I have two detailed blogs on this topic. If you just Google employment gap career tuners, you’ll find both. One is on how to talk about gaps on your resume. And the other is interviews. And we I break down pretty much every scenario that I’ve seen in my 13 years in this space, from going through divorce. And, you know, needing time off in order to engage in custody disputes, all the way to having depressive episodes that lasted several years and needing time off to recover from that to cancer. Like, there’s so many things that I’ve seen with job seekers that dictated that they need to take a gap. I’ve talked about all of them, how do you discuss each interview on the resume, depending on what your scenario was, and your level of comfort?

Kim Meninger That’s wonderful. Thank you. And we’ll put a link to your blog in the show notes as well. This is, you know, maybe, maybe another thing that you’ve addressed in your blog, but I’d love to get your thoughts on this. Because I’ve been hearing this more and more lately. We know that people have been leaving their jobs because they’re no longer willing to tolerate some of the cultural factors that are part of their work experience. So they’re leaving because they don’t have a good relationship with their boss, or they don’t like some of the things that are going on in their company. And they’re not quite sure how to tell the story of why they’re leaving. Right. And we’ve all heard, don’t bad mouth, your employer don’t say anything bad. You know what, when people are leaving, they’re usually leaving because they’re not happy or they see a better opportunity somewhere else unless they’ve been recruited. And this just sort of opened their eyes to new opportunity. They’ve chosen to look for a new job because things aren’t, aren’t perfect where they are. Right. So what’s your advice for how to talk about leaving a job because you are unhappy without saying something that’s going to raise a red flag for the

Fatemah Mirza So you want to look at the job description that you’re targeting and draw some parallels between your experience. And you’re probably like, what you’ve done doesn’t answer the question at all, but it does. So let’s say I’m leaving my job because my boss sucks, which is, which would be funny because I’m the boss. I suppose I’m sick of my own self. Rather than talking about how awful Fatima is, what I would say is, you know, I’ve been doing a little bit of email marketing at work, and I really love it. However, I see that it’s a bigger portion of the job description that you guys are advertising for, I would say email marketing takes up 20% of my of my workload. Whereas if correct me if I’m wrong, but it looks like you guys are hiring someone to do this, like 80% of the time. And this is something I’m so passionate about this really drew me I really wanted to apply because this is something that I think it could really accelerate, if I was able to focus on more, something like that. Now you don’t talk about your boss, you don’t talk about anything, you just strictly positioning yourself as the ideal candidate. If the job that you’re leaving, like you’re just leaving, like, it’s just been like, three months, and you’re like, Oh, my God, my boss is awful, like I need to leave, then you need to show that you’re leaving on good terms, that has to be part of your answer. So some component of I achieved everything that I was hired to do, would be very, wouldn’t be wise, nothing like, oh, the boss is bad, or, you know, the job isn’t as advertised none of that. Because they’re not going to be able to relate to what you’re saying at all, they’re going to relate to your manager or to your boss, because that’s who they are right that they’re on the other side of the table. So, you know, something like I was initially hired to redo our Instagram presence, I was able to achieve that. And the company is now transitioning on to Facebook, I love Instagram. So I would like to continue doing that. That’s my plan for your job. Because I see Instagram marketing is a big part of your job, something like that. Obviously, it’s not going to be that specific. But you know, drawing parallels to that answer will really help you, if possible, achieving, you know, a letter of recommendation from someone at work, if it’s not your boss, a vendor, a client, a colleague, someone you mentored, you know, copying a line from that and putting it on your resume, can really show that you’re leaving behind good relationships, and you’re not burning that bridge.

Kim Meninger And I think that reinforces the theme of just using any doubts they might have, right? Yeah, they just, they don’t want to take a chance that they’re going to have, they’re going to hire you, and then you’re going to be a difficult employee, or you’re going to leave them or something bad’s gonna happen, right? Yeah, can we spend a couple minutes talking about because we’ve been talking about sort of moving outside of the company, but you also mentioned having the conversation with your boss about getting a promotion or, you know, kind of getting what you deserve? Can you talk a little bit more about what you see as some of the challenges they’re navigating the internal promotion? Process?

Fatemah Mirza Yeah. The worst case that I’ve seen is if someone is, you know, their boss is like, this person’s delusional, like, she thinks she deserves a promotion, when she’s like, barely, you know, pulling her weight, you don’t want that. So you want to make sure that your boss actually thinks that your performance is good. So before engaging in this kind of conversation, asking for a performance evaluation, to see where you might be lacking and working on that is the first step before anything else. If you’re sure you’re a star player, and you know, you do need, like you do, check off all of your boss’s boxes, then you can ask for a promotion, you can say like, you know, I’ve basically, you know, introducing that, okay, I’ve achieved all of this, you know, I’m really excited about the implications of the work that I’ve done already. I would like to continue excelling. But I would like to do a little bit more. So I’m wondering if there’s a potential for a promotion, where I can exercise X, Y, and Z leadership skill. So this again, should tie closely with the job description that you’re aiming for. You might not be able to find one if you’re looking for something internally, but quickly Googling, you know, whatever that job title is and what they do, and showing that you’re ready for that is the way to move forward. If you absolutely want to guarantee that you’re going to get a promotion or that you’re going to be making more. You can use a counteroffer. Sorry, you can use an offer to as leverage, like let’s say, you know, you love your job, but you, you know, someone reached out to you on LinkedIn and they’re like, hey, we’ll offer you the same job but with the 20% raise, so you can take that you can go to your boss and you can say, you know, I, I got This offer and I’m not that interested in it because I really love the culture here. However, the finances do dictate that I take this somewhat seriously. So I’m wondering if there’s any way that you can match this. So you’re not coming across as like, Hey, I’m gonna leave unless you’re gonna pay me 20% more, it’s more like a this is, this is the reality of my financial situation that it cannot ignore this, this is too large of ascending, nor is there, is there some way we can come closer to this if we can’t match it? If we can’t match it? If you can’t come closer to it? Can you extend me like a learning budget so that I can take some courses and stuff like that, like, negotiate for whatever you can, if you’re not getting what you want?

Kim Meninger I think that’s an reminder to yeah, there’s more to the negotiation than just the salary itself. Or excuse me, I like that you mentioned a learning budget. And I also think it’s important to your point to have this conversation sooner rather than later. So we can be on the same page, if I ask for a promotion, you know, at the very end of the promotion cycle, that doesn’t give me time to fill in any gaps. And if I have no idea what your expectations are, or your assessment of my work, then it’s almost too late at that point for me to do anything about it. Whereas if we start the conversation early, then we can be working together on a roadmap that gets us to that place over time.

Fatemah Mirza Definitely, definitely, because you don’t want you don’t know if your boss thinks your performance is lacking unless they explicitly spelled that out. So you want to be you want to make sure your i’s are dotted and your T’s are crossed.

Kim Meninger Yeah, absolutely. Any, anything that we haven’t covered that you think is important to share here?

Fatemah Mirza Um, I think it’s really important to look at your internal resources as well, before making an external move. I mean, you might think, Oh, I work at a really small company, or we don’t have the budget for that resources doesn’t always mean, you know, paid training and promotions and raises, sometimes it means being able to work on a really cool high visibility project that’s going to look amazing on your resume, that’s going to open a lot of doors for you into your next room. So really kind of network internally, a lot. Be aware of what people are working on. Why always ask why, you know, what’s the point of that? Why are we doing this? Why, why, why and you’ll be able to connect dots, potentially identify redundant processes and head projects to eliminate them and all kinds of good things can happen when you look internally. So that’s, that’s one big tip that I would like to leave you with.

Kim Meninger I think that’s a great one. I think, you know, a lot of times we come to the conclusion that we’re not getting what we need right now. And our immediate thought is, let me go outside, let me find something different, but it’s a lot easier if you’re already in a company where people know you to be able to just expand your options internally.

Fatemah Mirza Right, right. You have that credibility. People trust you people know your face, these things really help.

Kim Meninger You’re right. And this has been such a great conversation, I would love to ask you where other people can or where people can find you if they want to learn more about your work and the resources that you mentioned.

Fatemah Mirza Yeah, you should check me out at career tuners.com. That’s c-a-r-e-e-r-t-u-n-e-r-s.com. And you can also there on the free resources tab grew up what I like to call my salary doubling resume cheat sheet and I dissect a case of someone who was able to double their initial offer, just by showcasing their strengths on their resume. We you know, we think that negotiation is just something that happens after the interview process, but it actually starts way before, if you can show that the ROI for hiring you is going to be great from that very first impression that is going to trickle into all aspects of your job search process.

Kim Meninger Thank you so much, Fatima. It’s been great to talk to you. This has been such a powerful conversation.

Fatemah Mirza

It’s my pleasure. Thank you so much, Kim.