- [Narrator] Live from your Public Media Studios, WVIA presents "Keystone Edition Business."

A public affairs program that goes beyond the headlines to address issues in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania.

This is "Keystone Edition Business.

And now, moderator Kris Jones.

- Hello, I'm Kris Jones.

Unemployment numbers dropped last month as people began to head back to work, as the COVID crisis starts to ease.

If you have to leave a job due to the pandemic, you may be looking to get back into the workforce, or a recent or upcoming college graduate or teen in your life may be looking for their first job, but where do they start?

Having the right resume is only a piece of the puzzle that leads to finding a job.

We have experts ready to fill in the rest of the blanks.

Call us at 1-800-326-9842.

Email us at keystone@wvia.org.

Tag us on social with the hashtag #keystonebusiness, with your questions on how to land your dream job.

But first WVIA's Paul Lazar takes a look at why some people may have trouble getting hired.

(upbeat guitar music) - [Paul Lazar] Unemployment numbers have dropped, but many companies are still claiming they need more workers.

However, according to a recent article in the "Washington Post", many people are still having trouble getting hired.

So where is the disconnect?

The use of automatic application screening software is part of the problem.

The days of a hiring manager sifting through hundreds of applications are over.

Now, software scans an application or online resume, looking for key words, and if there aren't enough matches, that applicant is discarded.

So a human may never see that resume, even if the applicant is qualified.

The automation software is making things difficult for another group, the longterm unemployed.

That is anyone who's been out of work for six months or more.

A Harvard Business School study shows that nearly half of employers make early cuts of candidates who haven't worked in more than six months, which may make things harder for a parent who's had to leave a job for childcare reasons, or someone who's been sick.

One thing job seekers can do to improve their chances of getting an interview is tailoring their application and resume to the job and company they're applying for.

For "Keystone Edition Business", I'm Paul Lazar.

- Now, let's meet our panel of experts, here to answer your questions on how to get your first job, and hopefully your dream job.

Bob Courtright is the president of Courtright & Associates, a consulting firm in Moosic.

John Gorel is the director of corporate relations at Keystone College in La Plume.

Gary Wentz joins us on Zoom, and he's the executive director of the Pocono County's Workforce Development Board.

Gentlemen, welcome.

- Thank you.

- Bob, we're gonna start with you.

Most people would perceive the existing job market as white hot, but in the intro you heard Paul Lazar reference that a lot of people are not getting a job so easily.

In fact, 7.4 million of them are still unemployed.

What is going on, can you set the stage for us?

- Sure, there's a bit of a disconnect, in that if you look at the overall numbers and what maybe the number of positions employers have, a lot of those are maybe entry level or tech entry level.

And some of those people that are unemployed, it's just not a fit, they may be a head of marketing, or accounting or something like that.

In the positions that are open, and really what I'm seeing is that it's a lot of entry-level.

The employers are looking to keep their head above water, and just keep rolling.

And there haven't been as many middle or senior level management positions open.

So the positions open are usually entry-level, and a lot of these people mid or senior level, the recruiting market has not been robust for them.

But they hear everyone saying, "Oh, the job market is white hot," and they think there's something wrong with them, and there will always be a disconnect, you'll never have it perfect.

Where there's X amount of jobs open, and the right people are going to fit them.

It's gonna be not quite lining up all the time, and that's what's going on now that I see.

- There's really three kind of, if you will, groups of people who seem to be getting missed, if you will, or struggling to get employed.

People that have been in the same job for a long period of time, they're hearing their friends get these great jobs, so they're thinking about a career change.

Also, the longterm unemployed.

These are folks that have been out of the job market for six months or more, and then in just a minute or two, we're gonna talk more with John about recent college graduates.

So we're gonna dive more into that tonight, but let me ask you another question before I go to John.

So this idea that 90% of employers are using job screening software, right?

Algorithmic based, tell me more about that.

Does it concern you or can you learn how to kind of play along and get noticed?

- It does concern me, and the reason for those are to eliminate people, not to hire anyone.

And I have told people for years, and I've wrote articles.

If you want a job, don't send a resume.

Now, what does that mean?

I'm a big believer in networking, anyone who knows me knows that.

I don't believe in sending what I call a cold resume.

You see an ad, you see a job somewhere, you send a resume, I don't believe in that.

And it's a waste of time, and it frustrates people, and it's counterproductive because the more you send out, you're not hearing back, you think there's something wrong with you.

So my approach, and part of what we do is outplacement too.

We do help people transition out of one company, and hopefully into another.

So part of what we do is, I have this big whiteboard, and I'll say, here's the particular jobs you're looking for, over on this side are the companies that will employ you.

That thing in the middle, that's your network.

That's how you're gonna get your job.

You're gonna utilize the people in that network to make a connection in those companies where you wanna work.

It's a simple thing to say, it takes a lot of work, and it's not what people are used to doing.

But I come from a numbers background, I'm a numbers guy, and if most people think about how they land at least one of their jobs, it's through networking, and that's been proven many times over.

70% chance of finding a job through networking.

- I agree, John, let's come over to you.

In addition to heading the corporate relations team, you're the interim head of career placement and career services at Keystone College.

What are you saying?

How is the job market these days for college graduates?

- Coming new into the position, I believe it's pretty good.

We talked earlier, we had a career fair just recently, a couple of weeks ago at Keystone.

And we had close to 60 employers coming there, looking for new graduates in various positions.

From law enforcement, health care, manufacturing, digital marketing, as many facets as we can find.

As you were just saying, in regards to resumes with the college students, there's not a lot of experience there, as they graduate.

So we're working through on how to build their resume on the skills that they learned at Keystone community service, and how we could do that.

One of the interesting things you've talked about was the document processing systems.

When you send your resume into Indeed, they're looking for different things.

So as the interim career services person, I've kind of spent a lot of time recently studying and reading about these, and trying to inform the students on keywords.

One of the suggestions I give students is, hypothetically speaking, you wanna be a digital marketing specialist for, we'll say Facebook, and then here's your resume.

Print that out and look at the words, the key words that they're asking for, and how can we correlate that into your studies that you did at Keystone if you don't have the job experience.

And let's make that work when we're building your resume and your cover letter to send off through these systems.

- Perfect, and a quick follow-up.

Where are you recommending they go to find these jobs?

- One of the things is Indeed, online, LinkedIn is huge.

I try to teach them now, or help them with their LinkedIn profiles.

LinkedIn is very big, and especially, they have a great job board on there.

Networking, these career fairs for the students.

We had freshmen and sophomores coming to the career fair who aren't ready or weren't graduating and moving in.

But my suggestion was then when I talked to these students and some of the other faculty members who teach first seminar, Have your students come talk to these companies.

find out what they're looking for, shake their hand, and then you know what you need if that's a career you're looking to move into.

- Excellent, excellent, you said you guys recently hosted a job fair, and I'm sure you encourage them to attend those.

- Yeah, we enter all students.

- Perfect, perfect, Gary, thank you so much for joining us virtually.

So you are involved in workforce development in the Pocono region.

What are you seeing there, as it relates to the job market, and particularly some of the people that are still unemployed?

- Well, everything your two other panelists talked about is important.

The personal connection, I agree.

Whenever possible, if you know somebody that works for the company, has any connections at all, because employers trust their current employees, and they are always asking, do you have any ideas, or do you know anyone that might be right for this position?

So that's good, you can't always find that, and one of the things we're seeing across the board in all kinds of industries though, is no matter how employers are recruiting, whether it's online, job fairs, or things like that, the response they're getting is still limited.

They're not getting a lot of people.

And so we encourage people, if you have anything, you still have to make a connection.

Obviously, you still have to have something that's of interest to the employer.

So that's where the research comes in, find out what their needs are in advance before you send out a resume or apply.

Finding out what skills they're having a hard time, and seeing if you match up with those.

But over the years, we've had a lot of people that they see a help wanted ad or posting, and most employers, that's their ideal candidate.

And if they don't match up across the board with all of the needs of the employer, they're reluctant to apply because they think they're going to be screened out.

And that might very well happen, but we've always encouraged people.

Is if you have, not everything, but some of the things they're looking for, to still concentrate on those, focus on that, and still apply if that's a company or an organization that you're interested in trying to make a connection with.

Because if you don't apply, you're basically ruling yourself out.

I know it's frustrating for a lot of people to fill out a lot of applications or send in resumes, and you don't get a response, an acknowledgement or anything like that.

But if you don't play you can't win.

- What industries are you seeing the biggest discrepancy?

So employers struggling to find employees.

and then maybe on the other side, the opposite, where you have employees that can't find the jobs that they want.

- Well, it really is unique, and it's across the board, and a lot of it's because of the big disruptions because of COVID and everything else.

Obviously, in our region the hospitality and resort industry is really having difficult times getting people back engaged with them for a lot of reasons.

A lot of people are having second thoughts about those industries because of the demands, because of the uncertain schedules, those types of things.

So a lot of those individuals that left those positions could go back if they wanted to, but they're considering other options.

And obviously, even in the manufacturing, even though the job opportunities aren't as numerous, there are still skilled positions.

And so you can't just walk in and just expect that, without any kind of related training or experience, that employer is gonna seriously look at you for a highly skilled position in that industry.

- Perfect, well, listen, if someone's looking for a job, part of the challenge is getting noticed, right?

So Bob, I want to come to you, and let's talk a little bit more about a resume for a long-term unemployed.

So that gap on their resume that inevitably whoever's looking at the resume is gonna wanna ask a question, and then later on in an interview, they're gonna have to address it.

So what kind of coaching could you give them for how to handle the gap?

- Well, the first thing is you tell people that, that's the first thing anyone looking at a resume will look for, and they'll see it.

So to try to ignore, to try to massage it is wrong, and you'll look bad doing that.

So I encourage people to list whatever that gap is, and list what you were doing.

Looking for a job, going for training, whatever that might be, explain it, because they're gonna wanna know.

And why not put it in there.

And there's nothing wrong with saying I went for training, or there's nothing wrong with saying looking for a job, and this is what I was doing looking for a job.

So the other thing too, is it shows some professionalism.

So we brand ourselves in whatever we do, and if someone's seeing your resume before they know anything about you, that's part of your branding.

And if you're doing something like that, like explain a gap.

That's telling me, "Oh, this person, they researched this, "they're taking this seriously "and they know what they're doing."

So that tells me something about 'em, if they explain the gap.

- So you're almost positioning it as an opportunity?

- Oh, I tell everyone that.

You're going into a situation, you're not apologizing for anything, you're explaining what you're good at and what you can do, and you're confident about that.

- Perfect, John, so with regard to recent college graduates, right, they don't have much experience.

So what are some of the tips you're giving them on how to best position their resume?

- Like I said before, let's focus on what you're learning, what you're studying in school, and the skills that you're gaining through your classwork.

And then we can build upon those skills.

Project management, team building, and right there, if they don't have an extensive work history or haven't had an internship yet, those are the kinds of things that I focus on with them.

- So educational outcomes, so skills that their, or particular areas of expertise, I guess, that they've developed, extracurricular.

- [John Gorel] Yes.

- Is that something that would be important?

- I believe it's important, if they're a baseball player, a football player, they've learned time management, they've learned working in teams, in various organizational skills that will work, correlate with they had to do their studies, and they had to make their practice.

Especially when you're in a collegiate athletic program.

Or it doesn't have to be athletics, it could be if they're part of the music or other clubs.

At Keystone we have a lot of clubs, like environmental and stuff, focus on what you're learning through those in correlation with your studies.

- Perfect, well, we have a caller, so caller, are you there?

Caller are you there?

- [Ron Drums] Yes, I am.

Yes, I have a question, my question is this; my grandson graduated from Penn State University in State Park, in cyber technology, with a 3.7 grade point average.

He sent out in excess of a dozen resumes, and he's had two internships during the course of his education.

And everybody he has interviewed with said that he doesn't have enough experience.

What do you do in a case like that?

- I'm gonna let John take that one, since you're the career services guy.

So how would you address that?

By the way, sir, congratulations.

You have a brilliant grandson, great, great university.

A bit biased, 'cause that's where I graduated from as well.

But John, to his question, recent college graduate, definitely has some things to highlight, but what kind of advice would you give him?

- What was his major, I'm sorry, I didn't hear that.

- Was it cyber, I didn't-- - [Bob Courtright] Cybersecurity.

- Cybersecurity.

- Cybersecurity, he sent out a dozen resumes, or whatever the gentleman said, build off those internships.

And I'm not sure where he applied to or what, but as you're coming out as a new college graduate, all those kids want to hit the home right out of the gate.

We still want to hit the home run right out of the gate, but we have to learn to build those skills.

So maybe, I don't want to say notch it back a little bit, but get the experience and then build upon that.

You might have to scale back to a more of an entry level.

I'm not sure where he's applied or anything like that.

So go into that entry-level that's not requiring experience, and there's companies I think we've discussed that have training programs.

Because if you're coming out of college, there's gonna be companies that are gonna wanna train you the way that they're doing cybersecurity.

So maybe look for that, focus on that, and then go for the home run, build your resume.

- [Bob Courtright] Can I add one thing?

- Sure Bob.

- One thing I just thought of is Penn State has a huge alumni base, which you know, and one of the things I would say, being a Penn Stater, is that you wanna look, do it through LinkedIn, or however you can, look to find those people that might hire you.

If a Penn State person sees a Penn State resume, I like to say you wanna be in the look and filed, you will get in that looked and filed.

- [Kris Jones] Yeah.

- So it amazed me because what he said about his grandson is what I would say, that the student did exactly what he should have done.

So that's just one little tidbit.

I'd search out those Penn Staters.

- That's great, and the thing about Penn State as well is that it's very national and global.

And so if your grandson is localizing it, sometimes those specialty careers aren't as plentiful.

And so broaden the search, get the experience, like you said, John.

- I agree with Bob 100% there.

I didn't even think about alumni associations.

Reach out, have your grandson reach out to alumni associations.

- It's great advice, and really appreciate the caller calling in.

Have a great holiday, if you're still listening.

Gary, we're gonna come to you, and we're gonna ask you a question about resumes.

The person that has been in the same job, the same career for say 10 or 20 years, they've been there forever, and they decide to make a career change.

What kind of advice would you give them, as it relates to their resume?

What should they prioritize, what shouldn't they include?

- Well, they're gonna have to reformat their resume.

They're not going to be going with a standard where they just go down the list of their most recent jobs and everything else.

If there are moving in a different direction, they might've gone through some retraining or something like that, some people took advantage of the gap in their work history, and retooled, went back to school for some other things, although that was disrupted as well because of COVID.

But bottom line is you still have to make a connection with the new skills, the new direction you want to go, so you're going to focus on that.

So if you just completed a training program, that's gonna take prominence in the resume.

You're gonna start out with a skills resume, where you're highlighting the most recent training you received, and how that relates to the jobs you're applying for.

That and later on in the resume, lower in that you're going to show your prior work history, but you're going to just summarize that.

The emphasis is not gonna be on your work history in a different occupation.

- Perfect, before we leave resume.

And of course, we could spend an hour just on this.

I did want to ask you, it seems like getting back to that algorithm question I asked you earlier, keywords, what does that mean?

How could they find the right keywords to put in their resume so that they don't get funneled out?

- Well, again, I try to explain to people, spend more of your time on networking.

Now, the simple answer to your question, and I think you may have indicated that before, John.

Look at what's in the job description, look at what's in the ad that you're reading, and put those words anywhere in the resume.

'Cause the computer doesn't care, it's just scanning.

So, again, we talk about digital marketing and the various buzzwords that might be in a job description.

Just make sure it shows up somewhere in your resume.

- [Kris Jones] Sure.

- My opinion is don't overstress about that.

You are who you are, find a format you like, plug it in, and network like crazy to get the job.

- All right, well, we're gonna come back to you now on the first question on interviews.

Your resume got noticed, probably a screen went well.

Now, you're going to meet with the employer or whoever else that might be.

Can you give some advice on how to really knock it out of the park?

- The first thing, I say interviewing is like anything else, just in general, interviewing.

Have a friend, put a camera in front of you, do mock interviews, I think that's very important.

And you'd be surprised at how you look and sound when you record it.

And if you can't, ask the questions to yourself, but you can go on the internet, pull out the most popular questions, have someone ask them to you.

And then you answer the question, and then take a look.

Now, that's just in general.

Specifically, as it relates to that particular job, obviously in this day and age it takes two seconds to research a company.

You should research the company, obviously.

But you should do a little background on the person that's interviewing you if you can, if you know who that is.

Again, are they a Penn State grad, anything you can find out maybe about their development, of new things that might be happening with the company.

So any kind of research you can do.

Then again, your branding again, to show that you're a professional.

And if you're researching the company, and the person interviewing you, and the new things that are coming up, I think most employers would be more apt to hire you 'cause you're showing you're branding yourself as a professional and a worker.

So it's research, research, research, practice, practice, practice.

- On your networking thing, one thing I try to advise younger people, is find commonality.

Find something that can strike up a conversation, that could make it not feel like an interview.

- [Bob Courtright] Right, good one.

- John, one or two of the things not to do that you would tell, as you're coaching recent college graduates.

Like, when you go into the interview don't do this.

- Oh boy, I didn't think about this.

I can think about what to do more of than what not to do.

One of the things not to do I think is don't go in sloppy, be presentable.

Like Bob said, you're branding yourself.

You're marketing yourself.

You're trying to sell yourself to that employer.

One thing is not to do, make sure that cell phones in the car with you.

Make good eye contact, don't be looking down.

I think there's another way to think about it.

There's a lot of things that you should not do when you go into an interview, but in today's day and age, technology, leave your cell phone.

Make sure you're having a good conversation.

Look your interviewer in the eye.

Handshakes, greetings, thank you's, and be prepared to ask them, as well as they're gonna ask you questions, make sure you have good questions to ask them as well.

Don't go in unprepared.

- Great, Gary, remembering our constituencies.

Long-term unemployed.

People who have been in the same career.

What happens when these issues come up in the job interview?

Maybe about 30 seconds, if you could just give me a response on what advice you would give them.

- Just be prepared, as your other panelists said, practice interviews, even people that are very sociable and everything else, there's a lot of pressure when you get into a situation, you only have a couple of minutes to make an impression.

So that's why you have to really do it as often as possible, go as many interviews, talk to your friends, do it in front of a mirror.

Whatever you need to get comfortable to the point where you can talk about yourself clearly and make your points as quickly as possible.

- Perfect, got about 30 seconds left, Bob.

Told you it was gonna go quick.

Virtual interview, what's different, nuanced about it, and is there something differently they should approach it?

- Yeah, just to make sure your background isn't too busy.

You don't want them staring at something over your shoulder, you want to focus on yourself.

And again, I would say the same thing, and practice.

Even more so maybe in a virtual, because you're not used to that.

So do it yourself, just set up a practice with someone before you do it.

And have a plain background, and make good eye contact, just like you would in a regular interview.

- Perfect, I would like to thank our panelists for participating, and thank you for joining us.

For more information on this topic and how you can land your dream job, please visit wvia.org/KeystoneBusiness.

And remember, you can rewatch this episode on demand any time online or on the WVIA app.

For "Keystone Edition", I'm Kris Jones.

Thank you for watching, happy holidays.

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