Today’s class – January 26, 2018

Today’s guest was Nan Quinlan.

Nan is the former Training and Development Manager at TACO, Inc in Cranston, Rhode Island and presently a senior career consultant at Transitions Solutions, a private company which helps individuals with their career choices and opportunities.

Today’s host was Nayely Furcal.

Nayely (left) greets Nan Quinlan before class for Nan’s second appearance to the Hope Life Skills class this year. Nan visited our class on November 3rd for a presentation on job interviewing skills.

Nayely introduces Nan to her classmates prior to the beginning of today’s class.

Following Nayely’s introduction, David Ojekunle welcomes Nan to the Life Skills class as other students wait to do the same.

Before Nan began her presentation on building a great resume, she shared the conversation she had with Nayely before class. “After Nayely told me she was interested in an interior design career, I spoke to her about the possibilities of owning her own interior design company. Using artificial intelligence and today’s software, Nayely could help people relocate to different parts of the country by presenting them with designs for the inside of their new homes. Her clients could ask Nayely to either buy new furniture or use furniture from their previous home to create a design for the inside of their new home: the placement of furniture, where to hang pictures and the placement of other art or knickknacks, carpeting alternatives and lighting fixtures. Nayely could create her designs using architectural software and then send her designs digitally to her clients. Clients could review Nayely’s designs on their phones or laptops. Nayely’s office could be anywhere, from her Rhode Island home or from her Paris, France condominium” Nan said. Sounds pretty good to me, Nayely.

Nan begins her description of a great job resume.

” Your resume needs to use words that identify skills you have that a company wants”

Nan said. “You should also be aware that your resume may be initially reviewed by software and not a human being. This makes the words you use even more important. The software will search for specific words identifying specific skills or talents the company is looking for in a new hire. If you list these words in your resume, you have a better chance of the software selecting your resume and getting you the next step, an interview with a real person.”

Nan handed out a template for students to use when creating their resume.

Resume template

Nan then identified a number of web sites for students to visit to get more information on different kinds of jobs (indeed.com and dice.com specifically for jobs in IT) and employee opinions (glassdoor.com) of the companies they work for.

“Use a separate piece of paper to list your references“

Nan advised students. “Make sure you when you list your references, identify the person’s name, where they work, their address, phone number and email address and your relationship with the person you list as a reference. In other words, is the reference your teacher, job supervisor, coach, etc.?”

Ms Nuri asks Nan if students can use teachers as their references. Nan’s response was “most definitely. Teachers are very credible references for students to use.”