Here at CareerCircle, our goal is to change the technology industry for the better by making it more diverse and inclusive. We get there by impacting individual lives like the ones below.
Here&rsquo;s what our members have been saying recently.
<h2 style="text-align: center;">What Our Members Are Saying</h2>
One of the services that we offer to members is the chance to have a 1-on-1 call with an experienced career coach to guide you through your job search. 

<img src="https://cdn.buttercms.com/voqPGV5mSDg5pNSkRuQQ" alt="undefined" width="145" height="145" class="butter-float-left">
<blockquote>

</blockquote>
 &ldquo;Lena [one of CareerCircle&rsquo;s career coaches] was very knowledgeable and professional, and fit many helpful tips into our call. Her upbeat tone and friendly manner opened our rapport immediately. I was grateful and excited to work on the action items from our call and appreciate having her as a resource for questions from now on.&rdquo; - Kathryn Deeks

 
<img src="https://cdn.buttercms.com/2gUgS9z0Q8u08f2QLhHW" alt="undefined" width="145" height="145" class="butter-float-right"> &ldquo;The career coach was wonderful and she helped me to make a very smart choice. I am so grateful for such an opportunity given to me to air out my issues and get the advice that she gave to address such a problem. Thanks a lot! I really do appreciate it!&rdquo; -&nbsp;Chizitere Izugo


 It&rsquo;s not just the career coaching we provide! We also partner with nonprofit organizations, like RISE, to support members throughout their career certificate program and then advocate for them as they begin their new career journey.
Many of our members move on to roles that dramatically change their lives, including better titles and pay. Jen and Curtis are two of those members! 
<img src="https://cdn.buttercms.com/HeKCvBADRHKYzBilokRo" alt="undefined" width="145" height="145" style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;" class="butter-float-left"> &ldquo;I felt that Data Analytics would be a nice certificate as a way to be a provider of the data rather than a receiver, and the base pay that was presented to be associated with the certificate was appealing. I had a job gap and I felt like upskilling was a way to leverage my career. I had about a 4-year job gap and my current company found me via LinkedIn because of my resume and skills. My pay has increased 13% since my previous job. Thank you for all of the support!&rdquo; -&nbsp;Jen Kober, RISE


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 &ldquo;Taking the certificate helped me refresh my knowledge and get back on a technical path. The resources you get from the certificate and from CareerCircle after completing are so helpful. Can't wait to start my new job!&rdquo; - Curtis Johnson 
It means the world to us to be able to be a resource and advocate for our members. To learn more about what we provide, <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/blog/post/what-is-careercircle">check out our recent blog post</a>.
To join CareerCircle and get access to tools like 1-on-1 career coaching, resume builders, and more,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.careercircle.com/candidates/signup">click here</a>.&nbsp;

Here at CareerCircle, our goal is to change the technology industry for the better. We get there by impacting individual lives like these.

What Our Members Are Saying

Here at CareerCircle, our goal is to change the technology industry for the better by making it more diverse and inclusive. We get there by impacting individual lives like the ones in this post.

An impactful experience summary can help your CareerCircle profile show up to hiring managers and make sure that your resume highlights the most important experience for a role.&nbsp;But it can be difficult to get started trying to condense all of your skills and experience into a couple of sentences.
In this blog post, we&rsquo;re going to take you through what makes an effective experience summary and the 3 step framework you can follow to write your own. 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">What Is an Experience Summary?</h2>
 Sometimes called a <a href="https://novoresume.com/career-blog/resume-summary" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">resume summary</a> or executive summary, an experience summary is a 2 - 5 sentence synopsis of your work experience, achievements, and top skills. It is a paragraph at the top of your resume to help recruiters and hiring managers contextualize your experience.&nbsp;It is often responsible for piquing the interest of the recruiter/hiring manager enough to get them to continue reading.
Talent platforms, like CareerCircle, also use experience summaries as part of your candidate profile which helps hiring managers find you on the platform. 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">What Makes an Effective Experience Summary?</h2>
<h3> Keep It Short</h3>
Keep your summary around 2 - 3 sentences. If you have a lot of experience, you can go up to 5 short sentences. Remember, you don&rsquo;t need to follow particular grammar rules so feel free to edit the sentences down to their bare essentials.
<h3> Embrace Keywords</h3>
Keywords are the words or phrases that people use to search a database (like Google or an ATS).&nbsp;Using <a href="https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/resumes-cover-letters/resume-keywords-and-phrases" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">keywords in your experience summary</a>, and throughout your resume, helps your resume show up better when a recruiter is searching an Applicant Tracking System (ATS).&nbsp;
To brainstorm the keywords you should use, look at the requirements on the job posting. Chances are there are keywords hidden in plain sight like, &ldquo;budget management&rdquo; or &ldquo;digital marketing.&rdquo;
<h3> Tailored and Optimized</h3>
When you are working on tailoring your resume, make sure to optimize your resume summary for the particular role, too.&nbsp;You don't need to take a lot of time! Your summary should include things like 5 years of experience if the posting calls for 5 years of experience, any software tools that are specifically mentioned, languages, etc.
Remember: Your CareerCircle profile is the perfect place to house your experience summary. When you are applying for a new job you can simply copy, paste, and edit it onto your resume as needed! 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">How to Write Your Experience Summary</h2>
 Let&rsquo;s go step-by-step through writing your experience summary. In this example, we&rsquo;ll be building a summary for an implementation manager who has about almost 5 years of experience in the software-as-a-service industry, but you can apply the framework to any profession.
<h3> Start with the Basics</h3>
In the opening sentence, mention your job title or the one that&rsquo;s on the job posting, your years of experience, and a quick overview of what you do. 
<blockquote>
Resourceful implementation manager with 4+ years of experience onboarding SaaS users.
</blockquote>
<h3> Highlight Certificates and Skills</h3>
Move on to sharing any appropriate education and certificates you have (especially if the job posting calls for something specific) and showcase a technical skill or two. 
<blockquote>
Resourceful implementation manager with 4+ years of experience onboarding SaaS users. Bachelor&rsquo;s degree in Computer Science and a Google Career Certificate in IT Support with extensive experience in Microsoft Office and SQL.
</blockquote>
<h3> Wrap Up with Achievements</h3>
Pull the most impressive achievements from your resume to close out your summary. 
<blockquote>
Resourceful implementation manager with 4+ years of experience onboarding SaaS users. Bachelor&rsquo;s degree in Computer Science and a Google Career Certificate in IT Support with extensive experience in Microsoft Office and SQL. Career highlights include building an automation process to track and organize support requests resulting in a 95% customer satisfaction rate and improving retention by 54% YoY.
</blockquote>
 Don't have quantifiable data? Applying for an entry-level position? Focus more on some extra skills you can bring to the role. This can be a great time to mention softer skills like time management or communication. 
<blockquote>
Resourceful implementation manager with 4+ years of experience onboarding SaaS users. Bachelor&rsquo;s degree in Computer Science and a Google Career Certificate in IT Support with extensive experience in Microsoft Office and SQL. Skilled at managing multiple competing priorities at one time and bringing strategy to ambiguous situations.
</blockquote>
 Remember: If you find yourself at a loss, you can always start by using a tool like Bard AI. Feed in the prompt, &ldquo;Create a 3-sentence summary of this resume:&rdquo; and then copy in your resume. For more tips on how to use AI in your job search, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/careercircle/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">check out our LinkedIn</a>.
 Ultimately, your experience summary is another opportunity to highlight what you&rsquo;ve done in the past and how it relates to what you can bring to the role.&nbsp;
By taking the time to create an impactful summary, you can feel confident that you are proving your worth to every job you apply for!

In this blog post, we’re going to take you through the 3 step framework to write your own experience summary.

How to Write an Impactful Experience Summary

In this blog post, we’re going to take you through what makes an effective experience summary and the 3 step framework you can follow to write your own.

No matter how skilled you are, one day you will find a job that you want to apply for and you think you&rsquo;ll be good at it, but for a split second your brain will say, &ldquo;Well, you&rsquo;re not really qualified for that one. Why bother?&rdquo;
If you&rsquo;ve ever thought that, this blog post is for you. 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">The Role of Qualifications in Job Postings</h2>
Most job postings follow a familiar format that includes:
<ul>
<li>An introductory paragraph that shares the job title and summarizes the role</li>
<li>A small section that shares more about the company</li>
<li>Details about the role itself, like what the successful hire will need to do on a day-to-day basis and what the role&rsquo;s responsibilities are</li>
<li>Qualifications which are often broken down into &ldquo;required&rdquo; or &ldquo;minimum qualifications&rdquo; and &ldquo;preferred&rdquo;</li>
<li>Contact details and any application steps to follow</li>
</ul>
While the sections may move around, most job postings include all of these sections, but qualifications are often the section that stick out.
Qualifications are skills, traits, experience, and training that the company is requiring of the person who gets the role. They often include things like software proficiency, college degrees or relevant experience, particular soft skills, like &ldquo;attention to detail&rdquo; and &ldquo;communication,&rdquo; and more.
Qualifications are used to sort through the people who apply for a role in order to hire the one most qualified in the context of the needs of the team. 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Required, Preferred, and How Qualifications Scare Applicants Off</h2>
Qualifications are a critical part of any job posting. After all, if a company is looking to hire someone who will manage a team of 15 while also managing a budget and providing mentorship, that&rsquo;s not the role for a person fresh out of college with no experience in an office environment.
But qualifications are also what result in applicants being less-than-willing to apply&hellip;even if they would be a good fit for the role.
And this often comes at the expense of more diverse applicants. According to <a href="https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/business/en-us/talent-solutions-lodestone/body/pdf/Gender-Insights-Report.pdf" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">a 2014 study</a>, women only apply for roles if they meet 100% of the listed requirements, whereas men apply if they meet 60% of the requirements. While that is changing slightly in current times, <a href="https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless-theyre-100-qualified" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">women still often feel more likely that they will be rejected for a job than men</a>.
When job postings say that <a href="https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/compensation/pages/college-degree-requirements-hinder-black-workers-earnings-advancement.aspx" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">the role requires a college degree that can end up dissuading Black applicants from applying</a>, even if they have the skills needed for the role.&nbsp;
But in reality, these qualifications are often a wish list of their perfect applicant. They aren&rsquo;t always expecting people to check off every box. In fact, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/18/how-to-land-a-job-if-you-feel-underqualified.html" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">in a 2019 study, 84% of employers said that they are open to hiring someone who doesn&rsquo;t have all of the requirements for a role</a>.&nbsp; 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">When To Apply Anyways</h2>
It&rsquo;s worthwhile to still apply if:
<ul>
<li>You have most of the requirements - If you&rsquo;re at 60 - 75% of the requirements, apply!</li>
<li>You have transferable skills that would make learning the qualifications simple, apply!</li>
<li>You are in the process of attaining the qualifications (i.e. nearly done with your Google Career Certificate), apply!</li>
</ul>
It&rsquo;s important to not waste your own or the hiring team&rsquo;s time so make sure you&rsquo;re only applying for roles that you truly can do (for example, if you are a marketer, you shouldn&rsquo;t be applying for a senior accountant position).
But if you are simply concerned about hitting all of the qualifications, it can be worth giving it a try. The worst that can happen is you get told, &ldquo;No, thanks!&rdquo; 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">How to Apply for a Job You Feel Unqualified For</h2>
There are a few things you can do to <a href="https://www.themuse.com/advice/should-you-apply-for-a-job-youre-not-qualified-for" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">put your best foot forward</a> when it comes to applying for a job you may not be 100% qualified for.
<h3> Tailor Your Resume</h3>
While you are more than your resume, it&rsquo;s the simplest way for hiring teams to get to know you. Make sure your resume <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/blog/post/the-5-resume-tips-recruiters-want-you-to-know" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">highlights your transferable skills and the qualifications that you do meet</a> on the job posting.
<h3> Use Your Cover Letter To Tell Your Story</h3>
While not all companies require cover letters anymore, they can be a great tool when you&rsquo;re applying for a role that you may not 100% qualify for. You can expand the story around the skills you do have, while highlighting what you&rsquo;re doing to achieve the rest of the job&rsquo;s needs.
<h3> Be Ready To Face the Questions</h3>
If you move through to the interview stage, you&rsquo;ll likely be asked about the skills that you don&rsquo;t have. There&rsquo;s no need to lie, but it&rsquo;s important to reframe the question into how you are gaining those skills now or how you hope to gain them, just like you did in the cover letter.
You&rsquo;ll also be up against people who do meet more of the qualifications for the role, so remember to be enthusiastic and prepared for the interview so you can stand out!
Remember: You can use our&nbsp;<a href="https://www.careercircle.com/quizzes/interview-prep" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Interview Prep tool</a> to get ready!
 While qualifications are important to make sure that companies are getting the skills they need into roles they need to fill, don&rsquo;t underestimate the power of passion for the position and dedication to learning.
For daily job search tips including how to use AI tools to personalize your resume and how to build a job search schedule, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/careercircle/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">follow us on LinkedIn</a>!

Here's what you can do if you feel unqualified for a role, but still think you have what it takes to be successful in the position!

So You Feel Unqualified for the Role...

While qualifications are important to make sure that companies are getting the skills they need into roles they need to fill, don’t underestimate the power of passion for the position and dedication to learning.

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What Our Members Are Saying

How to Write an Impactful Experience Summary

So You Feel Unqualified for the Role...

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