Caroline: 0:03

What if your next opportunity isn't waiting in another online application, but in how you tell your story. When your career is on paper, every word counts. It is not just about listing what you've done, it's about showing who you've become, what you deliver, and where you're going next, because clarity communicates confidence. If you've ever wondered how to stand out in a crowded market or how to translate years of experience into one clear, compelling message, this conversation is for you. This is the Your Next Success podcast, and I'm your host, Dr. Caroline Sangal. I'm a life first career coach and strategist on a mission to normalize questioning your career because I believe each of us is made on purpose for a purpose only we can fulfill. The longer we live out of alignment with who we are, what we do best, and why we're here, the more we miss out. And the more the world misses out on what only we can give. The Your Next Success Podcast is where we explore how to build a career that truly fuels your life. We talk about self-discovery, smart job, search strategies, professional growth, and you'll hear stories from people who've navigated big career transitions themselves so you can see what it's really like to make bold changes and feel inspired to create your own version of authentic success, one that is aligned, meaningful, and truly yours. Today I'm joined by Amy l Adler, president of Five Strengths Career Transition Experts, a firm specializing in resume writing for executives and their teams. Since launching her business in 2009, Amy has worked with hundreds of leaders to help them tell their stories with clarity and power. Amy is one of the most credentialed professionals in her field holding the Certified Executive Resume Master, Certified Master Resume Writer, and Nationally Certified Online profile Expert designations. She's a past TORI award winner, current judge, An MBA graduate from Boston College and the author of Courageous Career Change, Fearlessly Earn the Executive Role You Deserve. Her approach combines strategy, psychology, and storytelling to help executives earn roles aligned with both their expertise and their purpose. In this episode, Amy and I talk about how to make job search more human, how to move beyond generic bullet points and into real stories of impact. She shares what makes a resume work, how to use data to prove value, and why the best resumes don't just describe, they differentiate. We also explore the emotional side of transition, the fear, the uncertainty, and the surprising piece that comes when your story finally fits. Amy gives practical, compassionate advice for job seekers navigating change, and her insight will remind you that career storytelling is not self-promotion, it is self clarity. If you've been applying and hearing silence this episode will help you determine why and what to do next. Welcome, Amy, to Your Next Success. I am so thrilled to have you here today.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 3:39

Oh, thank you so much for having me.

Caroline: 3:40

Absolutely. So as you know, one of the things I love talking about is careers, career transitions, and so we are gonna get to that you are an amazing resume writer, that you do phenomenal work with people to really help tell their story better. We'll get to that, but I'd love to kind of dial it back and rewind and talk about your story of how you got to be doing this wonderful, helpful thing. So, as you think back to your childhood, tell me a little bit about it. Like where did you grow up? What did you like to do?

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 4:13

I grew up in the eastern part of Pennsylvania, just north of Philadelphia, in a town that at that time I think had two traffic lights and it was a lot of farmland. My elementary school, abutted a cornfield and a dairy. It was very quiet and very peaceful. When I was in fifth grade, somebody asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up.'cause I guess you have to ask every fifth grader what they want to be when they grow up. I said, is there this some job where all I could do all day is just read books because that's how I spend all my free time.

Caroline: 4:41

Oh wow.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 4:42

Literally, if I didn't have to go out to recess and I got to spend, you know, when there was ever indoor recess'cause of the weather or something, I was like, great, I could just sit and read a book and No, don't talk to me. I loved it and, and people were like, no, that's not a job. Ha ha. That's really funny. But many years later, my first career and actually my first academic experience post college, was in book publishing. So I did in fact get a job where I was reading books all day. Um, not the really cool, fun fiction ones, but I worked in medical publishing for the most part.

Caroline: 5:09

Well, it's still cool though.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 5:11

It was fun. If there was a red pencil, I was holding it. I got to work really closely with the authors and it was amazing. And then, so I did that for a long time and then I went to business school had to figure out kind of what I wanted to do, this sort of new education. So I did, and I worked, in project management at a big website, with medical content for a long time. And, and then I stopped working and I was a stay-at-home parent, to two amazing humans who are now adults.

Caroline: 5:39

Congratulations, right? Like that's

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 5:42

They made it to adulthood. I feel like we won.

Caroline: 5:43

Right? I can't keep plants alive, but I have two humans that are still living. So,

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 5:48

I honestly, I think humans are a little bit easier to keep alive. But they demand all kinds of attention that plants just don't. So anyway, after giving them all this attention, I was like, now that my kids are in school, I wanna get back to being me and what am I gonna do? And I didn't know if I wanted to go back into publishing, I wanted to use my education and I wanted to do something that fit my self perception of being the person behind the scenes, doing what it takes to make somebody else look really, really good. And by happenstance, I wound up writing a resume for a friend of mine. I was a great salesperson, not a great writer. So she said, I don't know if that's really true. That's what she said. And she's like, oh, I know you come from this background. mostly'cause people conflate editing and writing, which is, I guess reasonable, but I wasn't really writing up until that point, I was just editing. And I wrote a resume and she got this interview and then she got an offer for the job. And I felt like, Hey, I did something I didn't know was even a thing and cast about for a while to figure out how to put this into action and got a job writing resumes, working for another company, writing resumes. And that's honestly how most people get into resume writing, who don't come through HR, who don't come through some like talent acquisition or whatever it might be. I just came up through editorial, wrote a lot of resumes those first couple of years. Wrote a lot of resumes, on my free time, some free time I didn't have,'cause I still had little kids who were in school part of the time. Right? And a couple years into it, I started doing my own. And that was probably 13, 14 years ago now.

Caroline: 7:18

wow.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 7:18

I've been running my own show ever since. It was hard to part ways with this person. I considered a mentor and a friend and we stayed friends and there was no hard feelings. I wanted to test my metal.

Caroline: 7:28

There's very few pieces of content that I latched onto as helpful as far as resumes. But as I was preparing for our episode, I was like, oh my gosh. Of course, of course Amy worked for this place because I thought that place has some really great content and absolutely helpful. So, but how did you find that job? So you did a resume for a friend, it worked out well, and then you thought, let's see if there's companies and that one just popped up, or, how did that work out?

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 7:57

Pretty much she was advertising to hire somebody

Caroline: 7:59

Wow.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 8:00

I was perusing, I guess Indeed or Craigslist or something like that, trying to figure out what can I do with the time that I have.

Caroline: 8:09

Yeah.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 8:10

At that point my time was, you know, bracketed by what my kids were requiring of me.'Cause I wanted to be a parent to them too. And I guessed I gave it a shot and she took a chance she was so supportive. And encourage me to get certified, initially and encouraged me to go to my first resume writing conference. And I guess that must have been in 2010. And she also encouraged me in my sort of newness to the industry to put a submission into the TORI Awards.

Caroline: 8:38

What are the TORI awards?

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 8:40

So the TORI Awards, the toast of the resume industry, is sponsored by Career Directors International, which is where I have my most of my certifications through. And it's I think, one of the oldest, competitions for resume writers. And so of course I found the best one I'd worked on and submitted it and got all excited. And of course I was heartbroken when in my very first time I didn't even get a nod. I didn't even get a nomination. I don't know what I was thinking. Of course, I didn't. But the weird thing is, I probably submitted something the following year or two as well. I have here, I can tell you 2012, I framed my award.

Caroline: 9:14

Oh, that's awesome. Yeah.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 9:15

Yeah. I submitted for the Executive Resume Writing Category, which is pretty substantive. There's nine categories usually. Some number of categories, but, I won first place that year out of never having won anything before, and I did not know what to make of that. I didn't know what to think. I didn't know how to handle it. couldn't believe it. still can't believe it. It was amazing. And, I won, I placed again the following year, and then I took a year or so off and I've been judging ever since. And the thing about judging is knowing how life changing it is to be nominated is what drives me because I want people to feel that magic. I don't know how it happened for me, I can't even tell you, but I'm so glad to be part of people's successes now. I guess it's the same thing. I guess anybody hearing this now is gonna know that I'm a judge, but it's not exactly a secret, but it's also, um, mostly double blind. I don't know who I'm reading and they don't know me particularly until the whole thing comes out.

Caroline: 10:15

Do they have a conference or a ceremony or you just find out in the mail, like how does that work out?

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 10:19

Let's see. The first time that I didn't win was at a conference, so I had to just like, sit there.

Caroline: 10:24

I would've been like, don't cry, don't cry, don't cry. Be happy for somebody.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 10:29

But I'll tell you what happened. When I won the first time they send an email out. But I was busy doing whatever I was doing. And then the president, I don't know if she remembers this, the president of the society, called me on the phone and I'd been doing some volunteer work so it wasn't all together weird that she would've reached out. I'm like, Hey, what's going on? Tell me, you know what I can I do to help you? And she's like, are you kidding me? And I was like, what? Have you seen your email? Uh, no, no, no, I haven't. And yeah, so that's how I found out.

Caroline: 10:56

Oh, that's cool though.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 10:57

They just do it in email. The conferences for that particular society haven't happened I think for a while. I think COVID made a mess of a lot of things. The conference that that I've been participating in quite heavily, is the National Resume Writers Association, which is different because it's a nonprofit kind of member run organization. And my colleague and I presented together last year and we're presenting together again in a month. I like to be with my people, whether it's through this organization or through the other one. The idea that there are other people doing this thing that most people don't even know as a business or a service,

Caroline: 11:31

Yes.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 11:32

Means we get to hang out for two, three days once a year and remember why we all do this and support each other and teach each other and learn from each other. It's awesome.

Caroline: 11:43

How many official resume writers do you think there are, like in those organizations and all that like. You know, but everybody needs a resume at some point in their life. Everybody realizes that they need help. Not everyone realizes that there are indeed certified professionals genuinely loving doing this and helping other people. But how many is this a, like a 10 or is it like hundreds, you know?

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 12:12

Yeah, probably hundreds. So there's a couple of professional societies that confer certifications, which I promise are hard won. They're not you just write a check and they send you something. It's not like that at all. It's tests and portfolio reviews and continuing education and all the things you have to do. So I don't know how many there are, but I can say that the people who commit to the industry by putting in the time. Getting continuing education, whether it's in conferences or other ways.'cause there's plenty of ways to do it, going the extra mile to get certified, paying attention to what the societies are doing, these are head and shoulders above the scam artists. There's no other way to say it that exist on social media platforms that are really giving resume writing a bad name.

Caroline: 12:55

Mm-hmm.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 12:55

And I think if this is what people hear all the time, they're going to understandably tar everyone with the same brush.

Caroline: 13:03

Yeah.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 13:04

But I have not met a legitimate resume writer yet who I thought was out to scam.

Caroline: 13:08

Mm-hmm.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 13:09

I think people care so much about doing right by the people who place their trust in us.

Caroline: 13:17

Yeah.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 13:17

I can't speak for every single resume writer anywhere but I also haven't met a resume writer worth their salt who is pitching their services left, right, and center in a, sort of in your face, kind of obnoxious way. Everybody talks about what they do because this is what we do, it's our job.

Caroline: 13:32

Yeah.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 13:32

But the ones who are spamming up your inbox with, hire my person at,

Caroline: 13:39

Yeah.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 13:39

Fiverr or whatever, not to slam Fiverr I think Fiverr is great. Just people should check what they're getting themselves into and make sure they're talking to a legitimate person, and that person's gonna do right by them.

Caroline: 13:49

Mm-hmm. And so what does the process look like if somebody wants to have help writing their resume? How does that even work? You know, one of the maybe wrong ways to go about it that many people do is take out the last version of their resume and just try to quickly modify a tiny bit and give the new version. But if, even if that last version hadn't been written. Amazingly, or from the ground up professionally, it could be a little bit limiting. So it, let's say it's me and I come to you and I'm like, Amy, here's the deal. I now want to go find a job working for somebody else. I've got all these experiences that may or may not align with what I'm trying to do. How do you help people sort that out? What's the process?

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 14:37

So there's all kinds of ways to do this, right? All kinds of ways. The one way to do this wrong is to not engage with the individual. For me not to ask you as many questions as I could think of about what you've done And how well you've done it and what you want to do next to refrain or avoid those hard questions. Makes the work very easy. It's easy to rearrange words on the page.

Caroline: 15:04

Yeah.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 15:04

It's also not resume writing. I don't know what it is actually. Maybe that falls somewhere into the unsavory side

Caroline: 15:10

Hmm.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 15:11

of kind of what I was talking about before. I want, as a resume writer, I would want to know every last thing about you. certainly enough for me to be able to say, I know what she knows how to do. Here's the proof as to how well she has done this in all of these situations over these many years. And I also know where she's going

Caroline: 15:32

Yeah.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 15:32

I can take that body of knowledge that is her experience and frame it for the next thing that the future audience understand why she's standing in front of them, They shouldn't know I exist, right? As a resume writer, I am completely invisible. I should be. Although I think probably smart recruiters and hiring teams know when a resume's been professionally done.

Caroline: 15:54

Well, I could definitely tell when, when ones were getting my attention when I was doing recruiting versus the ones that just straight didn't. Right? the ones that were listing every single thing somebody had ever done. Without actually relating to the job at hand or why they wanted it. Ones that didn't say, you know, an objective of what they were actually looking for, if they had a varied experience or hadn't kind of tied it together. Those ones didn't get my or the ones that read like, a CV with everybody's publications. And it was a job that didn't require publications, so it just. Those were my standouts. But hey, who knows? Perhaps I helped somebody that did have a professionally written resume. But as you look at resumes, you know, the, maybe the first version somebody gives you what stands out to you as far as these are criteria that make a great one in your eyes, and these are criteria that are not so great.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 16:52

I would say people hire me because they know they need help. So I am judgment free about what crosses my desk. Mostly because maybe once a year this isn't true, but the 99 point whatever percent of the time, rest of the time these people know that they need something different. They know that they need something new. So I ask for their existing resume, not to point a finger at them,

Caroline: 17:18

Yeah.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 17:18

But to help them understand why there's so much more. This is, this is almost universally the case, why there's so much more. To who they are and what they stand for and what they're good at than their resume. The typical things that I would see normally are not enough detail. Too much of this is what HR thinks my job is, which is plus or minus the truth, right? It could be close to it, but it's not always the truth. And no objective measurement of how well they did that thing. So a salesperson might talk about number of outreaches per day, and these might be across various modalities. it's phone calls, or maybe it's meeting people face to face or whatever it's going to be, or emails. Then what kind of presentations are they giving? What kind of conversions are they, uh, yielding? And these are all things that can be measured. So not every job in every case has something that can be measured, but probably 80 to 85% of jobs have stuff that can be measured. One notable thing that I learned very on isn't very measurable is audits. Audits are either you pass or you pass.

Caroline: 18:20

Right, right.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 18:21

Of course if you don't pass, you can have remediations and that kind of a thing, but it's, it's on or off, yes or no. Whereas most jobs are not quite that black and white, and they have that measure output or yield or deliverables or dollars, and these are incontrovertible facts the person has delivered this many sales dollars or, hired this many people, whatever it might be. So the person who's the end user of this resume, the hiring team can say that they don't want somebody who's sold this much stuff or hired this many people, but they can't say what that person did or the, the, the information that that person's report reporting about what they did. They can't say that's wrong or that's false information. They can just make an evaluation as to whether they want that thing or not.

Caroline: 19:05

Yeah. When people put in a bullet point what they were supposed to do, but not actually talking about what they actually did in some sort of quantifiable way, it's hard, right? Because everybody may have been supposed to with uphold safety standards, right? But if they helped develop five new SOPs for safety or something, that's a really helpful. Quantification as far as like if, if anybody looks at their resume and you first pull your job description and you copy a lot of that, not the way to go, but maybe tell me about a time when you had to do that responsibility. How, well, how much, how many, all of those things. I, I agree, agree a hundred percent with that. What are some other tips that you have as far as like how somebody can, I mean, obviously how somebody can get a great resume would be to work with a professional such as yourself. And in the world of AI, when so many people now think that whether they have the free version of ChatGPT or they pay 20 bucks a month, they think, ah, this is gonna be just fine. Help them understand what's limiting in that respect, and how a real professional can elevate that.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 20:22

If we start from the premise, I'm so glad you asked this question. If we start from the premise that every person is inherently interesting, thoughtful, and probably good at their job in the unique, unique way, that they are good at their job. So I'm good at my job in a certain way. You're good at your job in a certain way, and other people who do similar things to us are good at their jobs their own way. And just because we show up our way, doesn't mean everybody else will show up our way. So if we, if we own that share that kind of a story, the resume can be about no other person the individual for whom it's written. And it's of course, like I said, my job to learn as much as possible about that person so I can put on their thoughts and their perceptions and their wins and, and the way they feel about stuff and, and be them on paper so they can, they can own this document that is uniquely about them. ChatGPT is not quite as insightful. I was speaking with a hiring manager some time ago who I saw this post on LinkedIn and I had to reach out'cause it was, it was the craziest story that she was hiring for a writer, a marketing job. So was writing involved, and was getting identical cover letters for the role from various people. And apparently it's just a thing. You take that job posting, throw it into some large language model and you get something spit out. But anyone else who does, that's gonna get the same thing because the ChatGPT or what have you, doesn't know any more about you. At that point it knows nothing about you but doesn't know any more than what you tell it. So of course it's gonna give just what it can interpolate from all the data that's out there, which is the same access that everybody else has. So nothing sounds unique. And the same is true. I imagine if somebody threw a job posting and their says, write me a resume, except now we are in a world of hurt because the language model will start pulling things that might not be true, or guessing or making stuff up, they call hallucinating, right?

Caroline: 22:13

yes.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 22:14

it might say, oh, speaks French fluently. And you're like, I don't speak French. I don't understand where this came from. And then you get called on that in your interview or in the first round of of conversations. Then you have to come clean that you don't in fact speak French, even though your resume says so. So this has this enormous impact of making it really hard for the job seekers because they're trying to do something on the quick and trying to save time or whatever, but they look silly and, and it's ineffective for them and the whole process gets gummed up because there's these dozens of AI driven resumes and cover letters that are so perfect that they can't possibly be real. And then, when the hiring team tries to call the people behind these documents to corroborate all this data, it's just not there. So really nobody wins. I mean, zero people are winning when ChatGPT is offered free reign.

Caroline: 23:05

Right. That's amazing that the job as the example was marketing related, where writing was a key component. And you'd think those people have amazing skills, education, knowledge, experience, but for a quick shortcut to then have their cover letters be nearly the same as other people's, like, oh my goodness. How terrifying is that, oh. so now an interesting thing that I thought was Imagine what your life would be like if your career aligned with who you are, what you do best, and actually fueled the life you want. At Next Success, we support all ages and stages through career transitions from students exploring majors or careers to job seekers actively searching or re-imagining their next move to professionals committed to self-awareness and leadership growth. Stay connected and explore what's possible at nextsuccesscareers.com and follow@nextsuccessmethod on LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. also kind of cool about your story in your career is after a while of having, advanced degrees doing all this work, you then went back to school. Tell us about that. Like what kind of prompted that and. How does, I think it's amazing. I think it's an amazing skillset, but not a well outed in a great way. But you are more than just a resume person. You also have amazing diversity of skills and assets and in a wonderful computer world, I who wouldn't want to have that. So, but

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 24:47

you're so kind.

Caroline: 24:48

yeah.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 24:48

But you're right. Yes, I did do this. So I have a graduate work, but I always also, when I was in fifth grade, thought the coolest thing was computers were just becoming available to the point where they could be in our classrooms occasionally. And I thought this was the most fascinating thing ever. And I didn't know anything about how to program. I knew nothing about how they worked, but I thought this was like, I saw something really interesting. But of course I was eased into languages. So, of course English,'cause this is what I do every day. But also Spanish and then in college, I studied Russian for a little while.

Caroline: 25:24

Oh wow.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 25:24

it was just like this thing that I knew how to do. Like I, I, I loved it. but for whatever reason, um. I chose to do computer science as a science class in, in high school, and no one ever said, even then, this is language. You were learning a language. And I think if I had made that connection, would've, I would've gone to college for computer programming. But people were like, you have to study language, but language and computer science, just somehow, like there was the Venn diagram didn't overlap. So I always had this idea that I wanted to learn and, I started at the community college, just before actually, right as COVID hit. Our first semester was, cut short and we had to do everything virtually. I guess it was in March or something. and I, I luckily didn't have to repeat, you know, freshman.

Caroline: 26:06

Oh, thank God. Yeah, exactly. That's a great thing about college credit. They stay forever, which is so good.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 26:13

But I was like, well, if you want me to, I will. I got to do a full associate of science and computer science just'cause I wanted to just'cause I wanted to learn. And I have used that work. I don't do it professionally, but in the way that I do what I do with my resume writing clients is heavily based on this sort of technology backbone that I never would've been able to do without having had that experience. So I don't regret it for a second. It was more like a hobby than a career path. I am, I'm so glad I did'cause I get to use it in ways that I think my colleagues probably don't.

Caroline: 26:48

Yeah.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 26:48

I found ways to simplify my life. I like the operations aspect of it.

Caroline: 26:52

Oh, that's nice. So what are, what are some ways that you simplify your life? Do tell, do tell. What are these background processes?

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 27:00

Okay, so here's one. I use the Google Workspace ecosystem, for reasons it don't matter here, but I am heavily invested in this now. I pay my monthly fee and I get all this access to stuff. I wanted to be able to, download my Google calendar to a spreadsheet so I had copies of everything and then I could do something with the data that came out of that. So every night I have Aron job that runs and I download the days prior, appointments, and they get all sorted into different types, and then I can keep track of who I talked to, what the purpose of the call was other stuff like, you know, dentist appointments and stuff that, that gets filtered into, you know, other mess of things. And I have an ongoing spreadsheet that captures everything and I don't have to do it by hand.

Caroline: 27:42

Oh, that's so amazing. Oh, that's so amazing. And plus even I guess, for trying to figure out what was work time versus not work time, you know? Yeah.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 27:51

Goodness if I did that

Caroline: 27:53

How has your definition of what you thought success. Was like changed throughout the ebbs and flows of your career, like when you were little, what did you think it was to be successful? What were examples of that? And then as you kind of grew and, and had a family, and even now, like how is this definition changing for you over time?

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 28:14

So when I was that 11-year-old kid, This was in the eighties, and God bless the women who came before us and set up a situation or an environment or culture in which they could. They told us young girls that we could do anything. I don't know if that was still a hundred percent true when I was a young kid in the eighties. I think, as I said, I wasn't ushered into computer science even though I had absolutely perfect grades computer programming. I don't know. I don't know whether, I just didn't think of it or people didn't tell me or whatever, but when we were all children, the the standard answers to what do you wanna be when you grow up? Were mostly like, you know, nurse, teacher, whatever. Like, we didn't know. And I think because our parents didn't know. So for me to be able to do what I do like this every single day and, and be exactly what. In the chair that I think I was meant to be in professionally. And then to have the privilege, the absolute privilege of telling my daughters who are now young adults, that they literally can do anything

Caroline: 29:13

Yeah.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 29:13

and mean it. Because there has been enough time for generational I don't know, whatever it is, the gears, the works have moved forward sufficiently that there was no question that they could do anything they wanted. I actually once asked my older one who was a, a science major in college, did you ever think like, did anyone ever tell you you couldn't do this? And she looked at me like I had nine heads. She's like, why would anybody tell me that? And I was like, this is the definition of success. This is the definition of success in which we can do whatever we want, however we want. I actually also asked her, this is, this is embarrassing in a way, but also emblematic, I think of what's possible. So I've always worked at home, because I can work wherever I want and I love my desktop and I don't wanna, I don't wanna move it

Caroline: 29:58

Yeah.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 29:59

And I once said to her, do you think I have a job? And again, she looked at me like I had nine heads. She's like, of course you have a job as if to say like, did you hit your head because did you just not come from your office where you do work things all day? But I wanted to see what her perception was and to know that whatever choices either of them make, on their terms

Caroline: 30:20

Yeah.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 30:20

and they get to be as successful as they decide they want to be with nobody holding them back. To me that's miraculous. And this is, you know, a generation and a half, from mom who was a social worker, my mother-in-law who was a teacher. Like these were our role models, but things have really changed.

Caroline: 30:35

Yeah, they have, that's one of the components I like to try to help people when they're trying to figure out what they wanna do with their career first. I'm like, okay, well we have to talk about what would you love to do with your life first, and then how can your career fuel that? And so I kind of go through eight different factors and family is one of them. So the family you came from shapes a lot about what you think is even possible from work, what you know is available, and then the family as it evolves, the family that you end up having. That shapes a lot because I too was a stay at home mom for a while. I needed to drop off and pick up my kids, right? And then when I came back, I needed to have something that fit into that instead of detracted from it. So, but a lot of times people don't know and they don't understand what else is even out there. If it was, I mean, my mom was a nurse, my dad was a teacher, principal, superintendent. How did I get into science? I don't know. He told me to do it. Girl, you should. I don't think teaching's gonna support the lifestyle. I think you wanna be accustomed to. So you should do something with math and science related items. Now it's also so cool because there are so many interconnected databases to suggest to people, right? So you can look at the, your interests and your interest profile, and that will show up a bunch of jobs that align with your interests. I have an assessment that people can look at their natural abilities, how are they hardwired? Take that plus your interest and tie it into a whole government database of over 600 jobs for people who've gone to college. So it's like. So cool. But we were, I don't know about you, but I mean, I would look the, the, the career survey or whatever that came out, the guidance counselors, maybe a couple encyclopedias, but there was just not the ability back then to know more than our lens showed. So even that you had computer programming in high school. I think that's pretty amazing. Were you still in the smaller town at that point?

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 32:31

Yeah, I, I lived there up until I was, well, like my twenties I guess. But, yeah, it was a regional high school, so it was a good 25 minute drive So the bus ride was ridiculously long. But

Caroline: 32:43

Yeah.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 32:43

yeah, so it was a pretty large catchment area. We had a mainframe, this was, must have been 1980 something.

Caroline: 32:49

Yeah.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 32:50

and so not, they looked like desktops, but they didn't really function that way.

Caroline: 32:53

That's cool though. Yeah, I remember those, the separate rooms like nobody went into and they were hot, you know, so it's just,

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 32:59

exactly.

Caroline: 32:59

try to keep'em cold. So, of all the people that you've worked with, is there a particular success story or transformation story that really sticks out that one of your favorites for whatever reason.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 33:11

You know, I have such a roster of clients and I don't say that lightly or, or to toot my own horn. I am constantly astonished as to how many people I know by first name, that sometimes people, I can't even fathom how they would get access to them

Caroline: 33:28

Mm-hmm

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 33:28

It's amazing and people are so interesting and so incredible, and I recognize that a certain type of person is gonna be the kind of person that look for a resume writer, and then a certain person is gonna be attracted to the way I do things versus the way somebody else does. So the the end gets very diminished as you know, the circles sort of, get tighter. So, I think a story that is pervasive across a lot of people without calling any single person out is that they don't know that applying for a thousand jobs is a terrible idea.

Caroline: 33:57

Yes.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 33:58

and they don't know what to do, but this, you know, sort of hamster on a wheel kind of process seems to feel like work. And I think the biggest transformation happens in that mindset when they start to triangulate on just the things they wanna do based on the things that they're interested or the things that they're good at, or stuff that they feel like doing, or stuff they never want to do again. They leave that out and then all of a sudden they start to experience this kind of success that they didn't know was possible. They might not take every job they're offered, and I hope they are selected, but now at least they're getting past the gatekeepers and they're getting the kinds of conversations they ought to be having, And they can make more personal decisions about where they wanna go next. And I think the mental health cost of doing this over and over and over and again and not getting different results is so painful. And I get a front row seat to adults calling me and genuinely crying on the phone because they're on their at their wits end. They have no idea what to do. Finally, somebody is just letting them talk and I know this whole show is about me talking and you asking questions, but my MO is just to let people say what they wanna say

Caroline: 35:06

Yeah.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 35:06

And meet them where they are and help them feel like they are being well cared for in this absolutely chaotic sort of job search economy. Rose really quickly after it crashed in COVID, then it grew, and now we're experiencing the fallout.

Caroline: 35:23

Yeah, and it's depersonalized because when people are only doing the, you know, online application that gets to an applicant tracking system that maybe rejects them and they don't ever talk to a human and they don't understand why they're not getting that results. Yes. To give that space. And just listen, like, well, what would they love to do next? How? How can you help them? How can you, because also the thing, sometimes when people are pivoting by choice or by force, they feel like they need to keep doing what they just did. And you know, as well as I, but they might not have liked it. They might, they might have come home drained. And even though they could do it and do it really well, that might not be the version that they wanna carry forward. So I love that. Giving them the space to just. Be heard, be seen, be known, be valued, so that they could launch into that, to that next, next version. Now, you also wrote a book. Tell a little bit about that. You've got, I mean, like, you are just an amazing example of doing many, many things well and finding your sweet spot of how you wanna serve the world. But you at one point recently wrote a book. What is the book about? Tell us.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 36:32

So the book is Courageous Career Change: Fearlessly Earn the Executive Role You Deserve And it's on Amazon and it came out of the job search podcast, which, was active. I was active on that for quite some time. And so there's a series of instructions on how to do this part well or how to think about this aspect of job search. So putting them all together to address the one thing that, since I started resume writing has been so clear to me. The biggest, most pervasive emotion that people feel is fear. So if they can get past. Or own the fact that they're afraid and that this is completely chaotic and they've never been in this situation before. They've been loyal employees and all of a sudden, for whatever reason, they're not in an employment situation, they have to figure out what to do. Being okay with taking the next step what I hope is pretty good advice. And also the express invitation as I would offer to anybody listening, I live on the phone and I'm glad when people call. I'm glad when people ask me questions, and I'm glad when I can be that support structure. Maybe I am a blend of my mother-in-law and my mom. Maybe I am a teacher and a social worker, although I'm not qualified for either. But I want to be ready to care for people wherever they are, whatever they need, help them not feel so afraid. Give them the sense that somebody's been doing this a long time and does it every day can take up the reins and let them be their amazing selves doing the thing that they do that I don't do. And I think nobody loses and everybody wins because I get to keep doing the thing I love. I get that privilege day after day and they get to return to the thing that they wanna be doing.

Caroline: 38:10

Hmm.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 38:10

So I hope the book captures that sentiment of like how to get out of the mess, how to get out of being afraid and take some concrete action with stuff that actually works.

Caroline: 38:19

Oh, sounds amazing. Can't wait to read it. Now, what about what is next for you? What's coming as you envision what you'd love to be doing in the foreseeable future? What's on your horizon?

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 38:31

Well, in the immediate horizon, I'll be at the National Resume Writers Association, like I said with my colleague in October. And we're going to be presenting together on working, helping clients tell. Helping them to help you by telling their stories. Well, that's, that's the gist of the story. So we get to stand up in front of all of our colleagues and, and tell what we've learned and then of course, learn from them as well. Professionally speaking, the area that I'm expanding into that I've already dipped a toe in over a couple of years is to build more relationships with recruiters, because I would love to break down the barriers between resume writers and recruiters and to help us all understand that there doesn't have to be friction that we could be on the same side and we can work to the benefit of the recruiter's clients, which are companies are respective my clients, their job seekers and build a structure that when it works and everybody contributes appropriately, the job seeker who's in the middle, they succeed. They get what they want. The company now has an amazing employee. The recruiter has a great reputation and I get to, you know, hang out in the background where I always was and say, yeah, look what I did.

Caroline: 39:35

That's amazing. That's amazing. Yeah. I, for me, as now career coach, career strategist, if somebody's like, oh, do you write resumes? I'm like, no, no, no, I don't. I can read a resume and I can tell you what I liked and what I didn't like, but I am just not the person to be modifying that resume. So I'm so glad that now I know you as somebody who's like, okay, you need somebody to be able to get detailed help on a resume. Amy, Amy is an amazing person that you need to talk to, you need to, to reach out to. And if you're not sure what you wanna do next, what you love, who you are, what you do best, all of those things, I'm helpful. You know, happy to help on that side. Where can listeners connect with you?

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 40:21

So I am most often on LinkedIn. My handle is Amy L. Adler. So first name, middle, initial last name. My website is fivestrengths.com And if you wanna talk to me about your resume or your LinkedIn profile, or anything else that's on your mind. You can find me at fivestrengths.com/letschat

Caroline: 40:42

Oh, I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story and also about how your definition of success has changed. You absolutely are authentically successful living in the things that you love to do and how you help and support people, and it's just been such an honor to have you on our show.

Amy Adler, Executive Resume Writer: 41:00

Well, it has been an honor to be here. I'm so grateful.

Caroline: 41:03

Thank you so much. Amy. Thank you for bringing such grounded wisdom to this conversation and for showing us that clarity really is confidence. You can connect with Amy at fivestrengths.com or find her on LinkedIn. If you've enjoyed this episode, please follow rate and review the show and share it with someone who's ready to write their next chapter with intention.

Tara: 41:28

Thanks for listening to Your Next Success with Dr. Caroline Sangal. Remember, authentic success is yours to define and includes aligning your career to support the life you want.