questions by Camille Perlman
Job searching is stressful enough in normal times. Now, though, as Shaun Crisler, vice president for residence life and housing at the State University of New York (SUNY), notes, “COVID-19 has hit professionals in the job market hard as some institutions have paused their search process and a number of candidates are still looking for jobs.” This means that those looking for new positions will have to work even harder to stand out from the crowd and demonstrate what they would bring to an institution. “We need to support candidates at all levels. We need to show them how to articulate their value during the job search.”
Crisler, along with three other student affairs professionals, recently shared their insights into ways job seekers can show their value. They offer suggestions directly to candidates who are in the midst of the job search process. (In a future issue they will share how they themselves prepare for and move through the hiring process.) Participants in this conversation are Shaun Crisler; Karess Gillespie, interim director of apartment and off-campus living for the office of student living at Syracuse University in New York; Dave Eng, adjunct instructor at New York University and student affairs job coach; and Kirby Gibson, assistant director of residence education for the East Neighborhood at Michigan State University in East Lansing.
Shaun Crisler: Before you begin the job search process, I think it helps to go back through your past résumés and cover letters. Think about how you have grown since the last position and how your current position has helped you to grow for the next opportunity. This should position you to notice the growth within you, and it is here that you can begin the steps to share this growth in your résumé and cover letters. Your cover letter is a great opportunity to shine. Think of it as a short essay on how your experiences align with the new role. The cover letter is not a regurgitation of your résumé. A great cover letter that highlights the skills and experiences that are most applicable to the job will help increase your response rate. Avoid using the same cover letter for each job; always take the time to align and articulate your skills and experiences to that specific job.
Beyond the cover letter and your résumé, each interview is an opportunity to share your experiences. I notice that candidates will spend hours studying an institutional website, and they will memorize facts and programs to prepare for the interview. Understanding the institution and department is important, but it is just that: an understanding. Memorizing an institution’s information will not win you the job. In addition to studying the institution, you must study you. I have interviewed a lot of candidates that knew us but did not know themselves. This meant that when I wanted to go deeper and have them expand on their thoughts and experiences, they could not dig past the surface of themselves. Part of articulating your value at each level is working through your personal and professional experiences to make the connection and see the alignment within yourself. It is here that you will be able to articulate it to others at all stages of the process. You have to show them your story, which shows them who you are!
Karess Gillespie: The first step is knowing what you bring, or think you bring, to the job, department, and institution. Create that tagline or message, and use it throughout the process. Ask intentional questions that support this idea or even help you learn what the job or department needs, and find references who can speak to those skills or qualities.
Dave Eng: One of the best ways to articulate your value in your job search is to always connect how your personal background, knowledge, skills, abilities, and experience fit what the institution needs in their posted role as well as how they fit into the institution’s vision and mission statement. An example of this would be to write a targeted cover letter that not only reiterates what is stated in the job description but also connects to how you fulfill those needs in line with the overall mission and vision of the college or university.
Kirby Gibson: Before I begin any job search, I reflect on what I am hoping to accomplish and what I believe are the experiences and skills I can bring to any table. While my résumé and cover letter represent a more polished version of my experiences, I open a Word doc to complete a mental dump of all of the experiences, accomplishments, and skills I’ve developed over the previous one to three years. As practitioners, we get in the habit of doing the work, not pausing to recognize or reflect on what took place, and then forget what happened. The mental dump initiates the process of articulating your value, knowing who you are, and it primes you to understand where you’ve been, where you are, and where you want to go.
Gillespie: Start with the basics: What is your why? What was your reason for getting into the profession? What helped to define or direct your journey? Or what keeps you coming back to the work? Looking at these ideas as a foundation can help you connect to what you want and articulate who you are in the process.
Gibson: Narratives are extremely powerful, and it is important for practitioners to unabashedly own who they are. Sometimes aspiring and current practitioners think they have to become someone they are not in order to obtain a job; however, your life experiences should not be a litmus test for someone’s journey. We are multifaceted individuals, and we do not exist in silos despite the challenges that society imposes on people to do so. It is not your job to manage other people’s experience of you, so show up authentically and unapologetically. Be bold, be kind, be loving, be generous, be empathetic, take risks, and care about the things you care about. Be the author of your own narrative and share as you are able. When crafting your narrative, reflect on your social and personal identities and address the following prompts: Who are you? How do your identities inform your beliefs, morals, and values? What does this look like in practice? How have your identities influenced how you navigate the job search? What kind of practitioner do you want to be? What impact do you want to have?
Crisler: Each question in an interview is an opportunity to share a micro-story about the positive impact of your work, the people you have helped, the students you have served, and the programs you have created and how they benefit the department and institution. If you go into the interview with a focus on just answering the question, you will miss the opportunity to provide context. I ask candidates to think about the context in which they have worked: the actors, the setting/location, the drama (issue, problem, challenge), and the end result. You should think through your work and your answers as micro-stories and use them to capture the interests and attention of the interviewer. Let’s face it, a good story is hard to forget, and one that is authentic to you and helps to highlight your knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as articulating your values, makes you a memorable candidate.
Eng: Stories are much more effective than recounting your past experiences and abilities. One of the best ways of sharing your past experiences during the job search is to follow the S.T.A.R. method of responding to questions. It begins with “S,” which stands for situation. In this section you discuss a specific situation that you encountered in your work in the past. “T” indicates the task that you gave yourself to address and fix the situation. “A” stands for the action that you took given the task that you created for yourself. Lastly, “R” stands for the response that you received from your peers and supervisor given the steps that you took to resolve the situation.
Eng: References are often an underrated part of the student affairs job search. Most student affairs professionals are just content to send a hiring manager a list of people that they’ve worked for in the past. But what they should really do is to work with and curate their list of references for individuals who can provide a strong and positive professional reference for them. This is key because you want your references to really convince the hiring manager why you are the right person for the job. In this vein, your references really act like another interview for the position. However, it is your reference who is interviewing for you.
Gibson: Before applying to a position, candidates should identify references who can positively, strongly, and accurately articulate their qualities and experiences. This should not come as a surprise as references should have an adequate amount of time to reflect and prepare. I make it a habit to have a conversation with my references about the role I’m applying for and what I’m currently doing and provide suggestions on things that I would like them to focus on. Additionally, I share updated materials, position descriptions, and examples of recent projects/tasks.
Crisler: Before you select a reference, you should consider why you have selected this person to represent you and speak on your behalf. Some professionals see the reference as simply answering questions about your work. A professional reference is much more than a source for addressing your work. A professional reference can be the difference between you and the next candidate. First, select a professional reference who can provide examples and fill in the gaps that you or the employer may have missed. Spend time with your professional references to go over your materials and the job for which you have applied. Make sure they have a sense of which examples they might share and how they will help show that your knowledge, skills, and abilities align with the needs and goals of the job. Lastly, always ask someone to serve as your professional reference; do not let them find out via the employer as it could backfire.
Gillespie: It is important to keep each relationship personal and individual to the reference. Some enjoy status updates along the way, and some want to help process and reflect during the journey. I like to think about reference relationships being similar to mentoring ones; they are both reciprocal, and the relationship is not one-sided. It is helpful to engage with potential references before you need them and after so they are best able to speak to who you are holistically as a professional and not just at a certain point in your career.
TS: How should candidates use their résumé to communicate their experiences?
Crisler: Your résumé is not just a historical account of your accomplishments. It represents your area(s) of professional focus. Most of us design our résumés by listing our roles and our responsibilities. But if you only write your responsibilities and you leave out action verbs, then employers will miss your accomplishments. Use action verbs to communicate how your ability to lead, communicate, supervise, and research (for example) fits within your responsibility. This helps to communicate competency within your roles.
Your résumé should pull the reader into your work and how your work could translate into experience that can be beneficial to the organization and their goals. For example, I like to use a formula to help candidates demonstrate the impact of their work: action verb + responsibility + result of your action. Instead of saying “Led the family and parent initiatives,” you could, using the formula, say “Provided leadership and oversight for the family and parent initiatives and expanded family orientation to impact more than 600 parents and family members.”
Eng: Your résumé is a summative overview of your experiences as they relate to the position that you’ve applied for as well as your written record of why you fit the needs of the position. A résumé is only valuable to the hiring manager when it answers their question: “Can this person do this job?” If the answer is yes, then the student affairs candidate moves onto the next stage, which is a first-round interview. Your résumé is a bridge document. As such, it should be used as a way to accurately summarize your experiences in bullet points and to show how your actions and activities have affected your colleagues, your office, and the institution for the better. For more information on crafting a student affairs-specific résumé, check out this article.
TS: Everyone is online now. How should candidates manage their social media presence?
Crisler: Your social media will be one of the first places that people search to learn about you and your background. You may want to adjust your privacy settings based on the level at which you use your social media. For example, I use Facebook for personal use to communicate with friends and family, share pictures, and follow the lives of those around me. It would not give you a sense of me professionally, and it is not designed to be professional-facing. The key word here is designed. My LinkedIn profile is professional-facing and has been designed to be my social media ambassador for those who want to know more about my professional background. Make sure that you take the time to design your social media outlets to fit your professional needs.
Gillespie: It is important to know what is posted about you: not only what you post but what others post. I like to Google myself to generally see what is broadly accessible to anyone. Social media can be helpful but also harmful depending on how you engage. Engaging about your job search should be managed delicately, being mindful of how you may portray a potential employer or institution, as that may be a factor in your search.
Eng: Social media can be a huge positive or huge negative for any job seeker. I suggest using social media such as LinkedIn as a way of providing future employers a positive representation of your work online. This doesn’t mean that you can’t have accounts on other platforms. Instead, just realize that the internet doesn’t prevent everything that is supposed to be private from becoming public. So I always abide by the rule that I don’t post anything online that I wouldn’t feel comfortable becoming public.
Camille Perlman is the managing editor of the Talking Stick.