Breaking into the sports industry is extremely difficult. Connections are key in this industry, as it is all about who you know. Therefore, the majority of my summer has been focused on grabbing coffee, lunch, and drinks with sports professionals for two reasons: (1) to hear about their experience and company, and (2) to gain another connection within the sports industry. It is crazy how everyone knows everyone in the sports industry. However, these professionals can only help get your resume an actual look – longer than the 6-10 seconds typically spent looking at a resume. Therefore, it is important that my resume exemplifies me and my personal brand.
It is weird to think that my personal brand should be on one single sheet of paper. How do I show the best me? How do I fit it all? These are the questions that I have been asking myself for a while. My whole life, it has been drilled into my head to keep my resume on one sheet, and Lorne and Bailey made sure to drill that in even harder. Today was the day: the resume workshop.
I have been looking forward to this day since April 30th, when I reached out to Lorne and Bailey about restructuring my resume. I was so concerned about fitting everything on my resume without leaving anything out, which unfortunately is not possible with having six internships, MSBA, and leadership/honors. Therefore, how do I know what to leave on and take off? Lorne and Bailey told me it is important to tailor my resume towards the position, but that we would discuss it more during the summer programming. Today was finally that day!
“MSBA has set me up perfectly. Not only am I gaining connections and strengthening my resume, but I am also building my personal brand.”
Today’s workshop was a tad different because Lorne and Bailey were leading it. Typically, we start off with introducing ourselves to the Speakers, but I would go out on a whim and say that no one knows our quick synopsis as well as them! Jokingly, we had Lorne and Bailey introduce themselves, as we wanted to put them in our shoes (which they have been in, as they were members of the Class of 2012 and 2015, respectively). After hearing their experience – even though I have already heard it and knew it well – I could only think about one thing: because I was given this amazing opportunity of being one of 25 in the MSBA Class of 2018, I have the opportunity to be as qualified and experienced as them.
Resumes are a tricky topic. Every employer has his or her own thoughts on what should be on your resume and a specific “look”. So, Lorne and Bailey told us two things: (1) tailor it to the qualifications of the position, and (2) tailor it to the person looking at it. If our resume is sent through an electronic application, it looks for any keywords related to the application and job description. It is crazy to think that a change of a word or two could give you a higher chance of success in getting an extra look. Also, it is important that your resume is tailored to the person. If you can create a connection, it gains you a higher possibility in getting your resume another look. A strong, properly structured resume goes a long way.
While at this workshop, we did an activity in which we were given anonymous resumes of people who had previously applied to MSBA and put in Lorne and Bailey’s shoes – it is funny to think we tried putting them in our shoes earlier and now they were doing the same. We were put in groups of four and given six different resumes. It was our job to determine if each resume moved on to round two or was thrown out. The twist was we only got eight seconds to look at each resume before having to move on to the next because again, an employer does not take longer than 6-10 seconds on the first glance at a resume. This exercise shows just how important it is to have a clean, crisp, and organized resume. The major things noticed at first glance were the non-consistent format throughout the resume and the difficulty in finding the university the person attends. Once we took a deeper look at each resume, we noticed the grammar mistakes, the wrong tenses being used, and the experiences not being in order from newest to oldest. Although this all might sound obvious, at least one mistake is typically found in every resume. Being in Lorne and Bailey’s shoes definitely taught each of us the importance of a perfect resume.
Although I have not taken the time yet to look over my resume and make changes, I look forward to applying this lesson. In addition, we learned about an exploded vs. targeted resume and the importance of each. An exploded resume is a word document with all the work experience and projects we did per internship in order to be able to change individual bullets on our targeted resume based on the position we are applying to; because let’s be honest, most people can’t even remember what they had for breakfast yesterday let alone what they did in an internship three years ago.
MSBA has set me up perfectly. Not only am I gaining connections and strengthening my resume, but I am also building my personal brand. I can’t believe we are only half way through the program, and I have already seen such an amazing change!