What blows my mind is how many people schedule an interview and they don't even show up. No show, no follow-up, no call, no text, no email. I'm like what the heck? No wonder why you don't have a job. Good luck.

This podcast, boosting your Financial IQ, is about business, financial literacy, strategies for profitability and the principles taught at byfiqcom. My hope is that you'll apply the lessons learned and that we can work together soon in my mastery program. Enjoy the show and don't forget to subscribe. If you are currently looking for a job, it doesn't matter if you're right out of school or you're 90 years old. Okay, this applies to you. And the reason why I'm doing this episode is because I just hired two new employees at Coltivar, my company, and during the process I was blown away by a few things. So, since I care so much about you, I'm gonna share this counsel with you in a very direct and blunt manner, just like I would with one of my kids, because obviously I love my kids and I want them to be successful, and I want the same thing for you. All right? So just know that this is coming from a place of love, and I'm kind of coming in hot because I'm just like I said, I was blown away in the process and I'm like, oh my gosh, I cannot believe that this is so pervasive out there in the world.

So, number one, let's get into the resume. Your resume should be formatted professionally. Now, I know this may sound basic, but it's like choose the right font, choose a professional font, make sure the margins look good, make sure the spacing looks good on the page, and then you have solid bullet points. They all align. You have different size fonts, whatever it is Like. Trust me, I've seen it all and it's crazy to me. But if I look at your resume and right off the bat there's formatting issues, it's going in the trash or I'm just deleting it right, right out of my inbox. You're not even going to get a second look.

The next thing is when you go down your bullet points, like your experience, every single bullet point should start with an action verb. If you're currently working in a position, then you're going to use present tense verbs. So, for example, manage, lead, analyze everything in present tense and they should all be consistent. So don't have one bullet point that says analyze and then the next one says I'm a hard worker, right? That doesn't start with a verb. Every single bullet point should start with an action verb. Okay For experience, that is, in the past. You should use a past tense verb managed, led, analyzed, reconciled, whatever it is. You're using the past tense version of the verb and make sure every single bullet point starts with a verb. Don't start one with a noun or an adjective or an adverb. They should all start with a verb. Okay, all right. The next thing you should quantify your experience. Don't just say I led a team and we did some great things. Say I led a team of five and we reduced costs by 38% or $250,000 in 24 months. Right, when you quantify your bullet points in your experience, it just makes your resume that much stronger.

The next thing is when it comes to your job history, if you have switched jobs like every single, like six months or every year, that's gonna be like a no-go for me. Maybe you're early on in your career and you've done some internships, or maybe you've just had a string of bad luck working for bad companies and you've hopped around. Okay, you got some explaining to do. Maybe you want to leave off some experience, I don't know. But when I look at somebody's resume and they've been at like five jobs over the last three years. Yeah, it's a no, no go, because I'm looking for stability and people who commit. And this is just straight up advice for you, like, if you are constantly looking for the next shiny thing in life, like you go to a job and you're like, ah, this is terrible, you don't have to build spreadsheets all day. Well, guess what? Suck it up. Do the hard work, because sometimes it sucks, but you have to put in the hard work and you have to have grit and you have to stick it out, because that's going to say a lot to a future employer.

I can tell you the grass is not always greener on the other side, and what I look for in employees is this attitude of I will do whatever it takes to make your company successful. That may mean taking out the trash. That may mean learning how to code a website or build a financial model. The can-do resourcefulness attitude goes a long way with me, and I think too many of you are just switching from one thing to the next, or maybe you're getting fired from jobs because your attitude's terrible and nobody wants to work with you, so you might need to check yourself, okay. So that's what I want to share with you. As far as the resume, like I said, I'm coming in hot, I'm coming in out of a place of love, just being direct, you may be doing a lot of great things. So if you're like Steve, whatever then hopefully I'm not offending you too much, all right.

Number two what I want to talk about is do your homework Seriously. Like I would get on a zoom call with an applicant and they wouldn't even know what the heck Coltivar is and what we do. So before you interview with a company, go to their website. At a minimum, read through all the copy on the pages and get an understanding of the business. The last thing you want to do is have your first question to be so what does Coltivar do? I mean? That'd be terrible. So do your homework Seriously. It could take five minutes, but the more you put in, the more prep you put in, like, the more it's going to show. So that's the second thing I want to talk about.

Number three I'm just going to say this just as a general phrase brush your hair. This is coming from a guy who's bald, right. So I say brush your hair. I kind of of chuckle, but what I mean by. That is like present yourself well. I just did an interview with a guy. I was pretty excited about him. He had a solid resume, really good background. I get on the zoom call and his hair is like a foot tall. It's going in all different directions and I'm like what the heck did this guy seriously just get out of bed and in his background he had like christ tree lights, like tape to the wall. He had a bunch of crap everywhere and I was like wow, if this is how you live and manage your place, like how are you going to manage my business and this important role where attention to detail is critical?

So brushing your hair is just a general phrase that I use to like show up and look presentable. Ladies. Like brush your hair as well. Like wear something nice, be professional. I did this other interview with this girl and she was in like a t-shirt and it looked like she just got out of bed. And I get it, you're doing it over Zoom, but that doesn't mean you can't present yourself well. Sit up straight, take a shower, shave your face, comb your hair, whatever it is but look presentable, because that's really important. How you carry yourself is going to be a big indicator for how you're going to perform in the role, at least in Steve's world and in my opinion.

All right, and the last thing that I'll say is send a thank you email, follow up with a thank you email. Like, how many people don't send thank you emails? I interview with them, I spend my time telling them about the company I'm offering them a potential position with my business, and after the interview, I would say like one out of 10 people send a thank you email. And whenever I come across a really good candidate, I'm like please, please, send a follow-up email, send a follow-up email, because if not, I may not hire you. And so one of the employees I just interviewed she was awesome, a rock star, she was on it, she presented really well, she touched on all these points. And then, at the very end, I was saying a little prayer and I'm like okay, please just send in a thank you email. And she did and I was like you crushed it. Now you get the offer letter and she's joining Coltivar here soon.

So that's what I want to share with you today, just some tips. And, like I said, I'm coming from a place of love, so hopefully I didn't offend you too much, but this is what I would tell you if you were like Steve, can I hop on a call and just learn more about how I can work with you one day? This is exactly what I'd tell you. If you can't touch on these four things and cover these basics, yeah, I think you're going to struggle out there in the professional world, especially when it comes to getting the job that you want. And the last thing I'll say is what blows my mind is how many people schedule an interview and we do our first rounds over Zoom.

A ton of people schedule an interview and they don't even show up. No show, no follow up, no call, no text, no email. I'm like what the heck? No wonder why you don't even show up. No show, no follow up, no call, no text, no email. I'm like what the heck? No wonder why you don't have a job. Good luck, so go out there and crush it. I believe in you. You got this. You're listening to this podcast, you're learning. You want better things in your life, and the best way to do that is to present yourself well. Follow all these steps and go out there and get the job that you want, or go start the business that you want and you will do very well. All right, until next episode, take care of yourself. Cheers.