AMA: LinkedIn headlines, following up with recruiters, and salary negotiations

Yesterday, I shared my new Community number and the response has been wild. I got hundreds of texts from all of you within minutes. If you haven't reached out yet... text me at +1 615-667-8433. From time to time, I'll share my career strategies, mindsets, and tips—but I want to hear from you and how you're doing, so send me a text.

There were a lot of questions I received and I may not be able to reply to everyone, so I wanted to share answers here to the most common questions.

• What should I have in my LinkedIn headline?
• Should I use hashtags for skills in my About Me section?
• Are companies hiring contractors? Does this save employers money?
• How can I make sure an employer sees a slide presentation I made for them?
• How do I start a career in Process Improvement?
• What resources should I use if I'm pivoting careers?
• How do I learn new skills to help with my job transition?
• How do you keep your spirits up and avoid burnout in a job or job search?
• How do I answer recruiter questions about salary requirements? 

To ask a question for a future episode, leave a voicemail for Vincent at (866) VYTEN-60 or text your question to 615-667-8433.

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Automated Transcript

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Editor's Note: We provide a transcript of each episode to make it easy to search and read. Since robots are not ready to take over the world yet, the artificial intelligence isn't perfect. There may be some typos in the automated transcript.

Vincent Phamvan (00:01):
From Vyten career coaching. It's how I got a show about business leaders, resilience and the stories behind their career. I'm Vincent Phamvan, and I've interviewed thousands of job candidates over the years in both recruiting and as a former corporate executive. Now I'm on a mission to help you take the next step in your career.

A corporate job opening attracts an average of 250 resumes, and just one person is going to get hired. It wasn't all that long ago that I was nervous and frustrated by my job search, but it doesn't have to be this way. You can navigate your career with confidence, spend everyday learning and drive to better yourself. You can be excited about the future.

And in today's episode, we're going to be doing an ask me anything. Thanks everybody for submitting questions. We're going to be talking about career strategies, mindsets, and okay.

Yesterday was kind of a crazy day for me. I sent out a text message to everybody with my new number, and you may have seen the trend of folks online sharing their phone number. Ellen DeGeneres has been one of those people.

Ellen DeGeneres (01:11):
Hi, it's me, Ellen. Hey, I have a really cool new thing to tell you about. I am going to give you a phone number. So get a pen, I'll wait, seriously, go, go get a pen.

Now you need paper. Nevermind, just write this on your hand. Actually, I know you're holding your phone, so put it in your phone.

It's (310) 455-8858. Okay, great. There now text me seriously. That is my community number. So you can text me and then I can send all of you text updates, right? To your phone. It's the future? Weird. Okay. Text me. Bye.

Vincent Phamvan (01:49):
A lot of other people have also shared their community numbers. President Barack Obama recently tweeted out his phone number. Some of the other folks I connect with Tony Robbins, Mark Cuban, Ashton Kutcher all have, do you need any numbers?

Even Tony Hawk. Who's been surprising people with skateboards if you text them. And so I launched my community number yesterday and the response has been quite frankly overwhelming.

So thank you everybody who has, who have sent me a text, I'm overwhelmed, I'm grateful. I got hundreds of text messages like within minutes and I'm replying to as many of them as I possibly can, but I wanted to let everybody know who's listening to this podcast that I saw your text and you guys are all the best and I'm gonna try to respond to as many as I can, but there were a lot of questions and the text messages.

So I want to just take the time to respond to as many of those questions as I possibly can on today's ask me anything episode. And if you don't have my number yet, like Ellen says, grab a pen, or I know you're all listening to this podcast on your phone. So just put this number straight into your phone, shoot me a text. It's six one five six six seven eight three three.

Vincent Phamvan (03:00):
So that's my number six one five. That's a Nashville area code (615) 667-8433. So just open up by message or whatever it is on your Android phone and shoot me a text to that number.

All right, so the first one first question that we have here is from this is from Aaron in Las Vegas who left me a voicemail yesterday. And so here we go.

Aaron (Las Vegas) (03:26):
Hi, Vincent. This is Erin calling from Las Vegas. Nevada actually have a two part Lincoln question on the first part is what do we do if we currently don't have a true job title like myself, I've been unemployed since March to the COVID and the most recent title on my LinkedIn profile is my most recent job.

Is that the correct way to display things, or how should we go about that? And the second question has to do with, I just heard that recruiters are now searching via hashtags and with code to put keywords with hashtags towards the bottom of the about section on LinkedIn, just one of your feedback and thoughts about that as well. Thank you so much,

Vincent Phamvan (04:10):
Right? Thanks Erin. For the question, the first one is what do you do about your current job title? What do you do in your LinkedIn headline and looking at your LinkedIn profile, your headline starts with senior it project manager, which I think is perfect. There is one thing in the job market that really stands out right now.

And a lot of the recruiters that I've been talking to lately have reinforced this is that, you know, it's a, it's a very competitive job market for job seekers. There's a lot of very talented individuals and unfortunately less roles that are available on the employer side for obvious reasons with the pandemic.

And so during an M a quote unquote employers market, which is just a market, a job market, when there's a lot more job candidates out there, then the number of open positions and available positions, it becomes really important to be a more than average, better than average.

Vincent Phamvan (05:03):
And I might even say like top 1% job candidate. And so the job candidates who really stand out right now are the job candidates who are focused on upskilling. Their they've been focused on some type of a project they've been focused on something that either better betters themselves, betters their family or betters their community.

And so my recommendation would be that you pick up some type of side project, you pick up some type of side hobby, you pick up some type of like community endeavor. And you put that on the top of your LinkedIn, as what you're currently working on.

This creates an incredible story, especially in a crowded market where there might be other people with a PMP certification. There might be other people that are certified scrum masters. And when you have a lot of candidates who are equally qualified, these are the types of things that really separate the best candidates from the average.

Vincent Phamvan (05:57):
So that would be my recommendation right now is whether it's starting a blog, whether it's starting a, some type of websites starting a podcast, or, you know, giving back or being able to to gain a new type of certification, those are all the types of things that would make somebody stand out right now. The second part of your LinkedIn question is should you use hashtags in the bottom of your, about me section too, because recruiters are searching for hashtags.

I don't buy into this recruiters, definitely use bullying searches. So when they're in LinkedIn and I used to have a bunch of these algorithms and a bunch of these like searches saved as well, you know, I would do searches for specific skillsets, specific past job titles, specific certifications. And I would pop those into LinkedIn recruiter and it would generate a list of people whose profiles matched that attribute in terms of putting a hashtag before those skills though, I don't think that's necessary.

Vincent Phamvan (06:59):
So I do think in the about me section there should be some type of a skills section and you can just use a comma separated list no more than I would say two to three lines towards the bottom of your, about me section with those skills. And then of course, what you put in your headline as well will come up in that same search, but I don't think it's necessary to use hashtags in there because they're really searching for the words not necessarily the hashtags.

Thanks for the question, Aaron. And so if you want to leave me a voicemail for this show, if you want to ask a question, if you want to leave a voicemail I'm going to do the voicemail questions first, just because the audio is great for a podcast for obvious reasons. But that number is eight, six, six vitamin 60.

Vincent Phamvan (07:48):
So eight six six V Y T E N six D. And you can leave a voicemail there for a future, ask me anything. And typically I'll pull the voicemails first.

All right, let's move on to some of the questions that I got through text messages. And so to text a question in, you can text me, I gave the number earlier, but it's (615) 667-8433. That goes to my cell phone.

So if you want to ask a question on a future, ask me anything episode (615) 667-8433. The first question comes from Renee. And this question is it seems like companies frown on hiring contractors right now.

Why is this? I thought companies would be cutting costs by replacing employees with contractors, and this would be a good way to get experience in a new company. However, it's very hard to find these contract jobs.

Many companies say that they have contracts available, do not seem reputable and also contracting similar to the gig economy.

Vincent Phamvan (08:48):
I hear a lot about I just don't see getting people getting contract jobs. So this is kind of a myth that contract jobs are or more affordable or ended up company saving companies money. And the reason is because it doesn't necessarily save companies money on a month to month basis.

Cause a lot of the times when you hire a contract or you're paying a third party in between, and so there's actually an upcharge because your fee you're paying oftentimes a third party to go find a contractor. And then the third party is hiring the contractor. And then after that, that contract employee is, you know, a badged contractor for your company, but sometimes this could, you know, because there's a middle party or like an in between party.

A lot of the times, like through these staffing agencies, as an employer, you're actually paying about 20 to 35% more in order for the staffing agency sometimes to get their cut.

Vincent Phamvan (09:42):
Now on the employer side and Renee, I love this question because these are the types of things that I didn't know until I was an insider on the company side, on the employer side. And so as a job seeker, these are the types of things that I had no idea on the employers side. It is more flexible for an employer to have a six month contractor or a 12 month contractor, because it gives you flexibility.

You never know in the future, whether it's on a project, whether it's a new initiative or, you know, right now, you know, employers may or may not have an understanding of a forecast for how long the pandemic's going to last. And so there's less risk for them if they decide to go with something like a six month contract or when your contract versus a full you know, a full time employer employee.

Vincent Phamvan (10:30):
And so, you know, with the contracts there, you know, that ends up giving an employer more flexibility, but it doesn't always save them money just because that upcharge, especially if you're using a staffing agency and then, you know, on those contracts as well, when you do a conversion to hire, or you convert a contractor into a full time employee, you're also paying like a finder's fee to that staff staffing agency as well, to be able to convert that employee.

And that ends up costing a lot of money versus companies who go out directly to the job market and they hire directly versus through a staffing agency. So there are pros and cons at the same time. Right now, you know, it varies functioned by job industry, by industry.

But I am seeing a lot of companies who are leaning towards contract roles, just because they don't know when things are going to be going to resume back to normal.

Vincent Phamvan (11:24):
A lot of us all of us don't know necessarily when things are going to be re resuming back to normal. Just because a lot of that is based on a COVID vaccination and adoption of a COVID vaccination. So there's some uncertainty there, but Renee, thanks the question.

Next question comes from Chris, from Dallas, Texas. So Chris made a PowerPoint presentation for a startup and he asks I would love to work for this startup. It basically shows that I've my research and tells them why they should hire me. I already applied online, but I don't want to be another applicant in the pile.

The website doesn't show any phone numbers or emails. Some of the employees have ignored me, or they take a long time to answer back. How can I get this presentation into the hands of the hiring manager?

Vincent Phamvan (12:12):
And this is something that I love is creating a project, creating a power point to be able to show an employer why your, the best candidate. And this is something that Austin Belzec talks a lot about, and it's such a no brainer. But if you haven't heard of a VVP or a value validation project, it's a deliverable that benefits an influential contact at the company that you want to work for.

And so, you know, most candidates just apply on the company website and they stop there. And so Chris would, I love that you're doing is you're following exactly what I described in the fight and method where, you know, the job search doesn't stop when you put in your application. And that's part of like the fallacy and the trap of like the LinkedIn easy apply button.

Is that the easier it is to do the more people who are applying and being able to take the extra step of finding decision makers at those companies and finding the other people around the decision makers who can influence the decision maker and to make sure that your resume to make sure your application, to make sure that if you're doing a value validation project gets seen by somebody that gives you a leg up over all of the candidates who are just applying, whether it's through job boards like indeed, or whether it's on a career website and they're leaving it up for chance that their application is going to get reviewed.

Vincent Phamvan (13:41):
And so your question in terms of how to make sure people see that a decision maker ends up seeing your PowerPoint presentation is a really great one. You know, people are busy right now and you know, I have people that I'm very close with where I still owe them, whether it's an email response or a text message, a response. And the truth of the matter is, is you just don't know what ha what's happening in somebody else's life.

And so I always recommend following up with people. And I know it might sound, you know, pesky to be able to follow up with somebody. I know it sounds like you might be bothering somebody to follow up with them, but this is part of where Austin's value, validation. Project ends up being so important, right? Because it's a delivery verbal that benefits an influential contact at the company you want to work for.

Vincent Phamvan (14:38):
And the word benefits that is the key word there, because you're not reaching out to somebody to try to bother them. You're not trying to reach out to somebody to beg them for a referral to ask for a referral you're reaching out. You spent time to create something that benefits them. The purpose of it is to help the other person.

And that's a completely different reason to reach out. So that that completely changes things. You have a responsibility because you've created something that's going to be helpful to that person.

You have a responsibility to make sure that they see it so that you can help them. So after this quick break, let's talk about what that follow-up rhythm could look like.

Hey, there it's Vincent real quick. Before we continue with this episode of how I got here, how would you like to win a personal LinkedIn profile assessment personally completed by me to help with your job search?

Vincent Phamvan (15:33):
I know I'd love to be able to help you out. And I know that I would have loved to have had somebody look over my LinkedIn profile and show me how to make it irresistible to recruiters and hiring managers back when I was looking for a more fulfilling career. So let's make it happen.

Here's how all you have to do is rate my, how I got here podcast on Apple podcasts and share it in just a few easy steps. Start by writing a review on Apple podcasts. Then leave a rating.

Five stars would be even better next, take a screenshot of your review and share it on LinkedIn or Instagram using the hashtag Vite and podcast each week. Also like one random winner from the submissions to receive our 99 job search templates kit. This includes a job search organizer, email templates, LinkedIn templates, resume templates, cover letter templates, thank you notes.

And even salary negotiation templates, then monthly we'll select a random winner for a personal LinkedIn profile analysis completed by me. So again, write a review, rate the show, take a screenshot and share it on Instagram or LinkedIn with the hashtag Vite and podcast. Thanks for taking the time to leave me a review. It means the world to me,

Vincent Phamvan (16:49):
And this week's winner is Jessica says, who wrote in her review love hearing about the journey involved in how people arrived at where they are, can not wait to hear more. Thanks so much, Jessica for the review, just shoot us an email at [inaudible] dot com and we will send you your 99 job search templates kit. All right, and now back to this episode of how I got here.

Vincent Phamvan (17:18):
Okay, welcome back. So when you're following up in a job search, and these are strategies that I learned when I was in B2B enterprise sales, reaching out to key decision makers, to be able to show them the value of a solution that I was selling in a job search, that solution is you, right. You're showcasing yourself.

And so in answering this question about, you know, how to follow up, this is similar to another question that I got from Jabber who's from Toronto, Ontario. If I'm able to get the email, if somebody on the hiring team, after I've submitted my job application, is it okay to cold email them about why the company resonates with me so strongly and attached my resume and cover letter with it as well?

Yeah, absolutely. But you know, some of the things that you can do even before you reach out is to warm up that contact on LinkedIn.

Vincent Phamvan (18:04):
If they are posting on LinkedIn, if they're saying, Hey, we're hiring on LinkedIn. If they're posting content, you can engage with that content and then reach out and then it's not cold anymore. It's not a cold reach out anymore, and you know, people are busy.

So if you don't get a response in the first message that you send out, here's what the follow-up sequence looks like. The first thing that you should know about following up with folks is warming up your contacts is really important and warming up your contacts just means you don't have to be connected with somebody on LinkedIn to be following them.

That's something that a lot of people don't know, you can follow anybody on LinkedIn. And so when they're posting their posts after you press the follow button on their profile, those posts will show up on your newsfeed.

Vincent Phamvan (18:50):
And one of the best ways to warm up your contacts before you send somebody a cold message is to engage in their posts. Whether it's hitting that like button, whether it's hitting the heart button, whether it's leaving them a thoughtful comment in their post, those are some of the best ways to start building a connection, start building a rapport with somebody. Then after they respond to your comment, after they hit the light button on your comment, you know, this is then, you know, an invite to be able to connect with them and to be able to strengthen that relationship.

That's oftentimes where I would either send a connection request and then personalize the connection requests based off of the, you know, adding to the post, adding to your comment and kind of continuing on that conversation or sending them a LinkedIn InMail and or sending them an email.

Vincent Phamvan (19:36):
And so my typical cadence would be send a message, wait, two days, and then follow up on day three, then let three days pass and then send a follow-up on day like six or seven, let seven days past then send a follow up on around day 14, let 14 days pass and then lent then send a follow-up on roughly about day 28. So each time you're letting a number of days pass and then you're following up.

And if they still haven't responded at that point my follow-up sequence would be something like follow up every 30 days after that, just to say hello, but with each follow-up, your following up with the intention of helping other people, less focused on yourself, more focused on how you can add value or how you can help somebody else and engaging with somebody, content sharing, a podcast, episode, sharing a helpful article, or just furthering discussion, letting them know what you think about a question that they've asked in a LinkedIn post or responding to a poll that they might've put out.

Vincent Phamvan (20:40):
All of that is so that you're helping other people. And you know, the truth of the matter is, is then you don't also have to feel like you're bothering somebody. You don't have to feel like your being selfish by asking for help for yourself, because you're going out with the intention of helping other people.

And then karma will come back full circle and so focus on helping other people. And if you're truly focused on helping other people, then the follow-up becomes easier to do because you're not being selfish. You're not being, you're not trying to ask for something for yourself.

You're truly going out there with the intention of helping somebody else. And that's why Austin strategy here with the value validation project is really, really key because the intention of it is you're going out to create something that's helpful to somebody else.

Vincent Phamvan (21:29):
All right. The next question comes from Doyenne, who's from Calgary. I'm currently working as a call center agent, but I know this is not the destination I've worked for various customer experience improvement projects and initiatives, and really hope to get back to that.

But it doesn't seem like any of those are currently available in my current company or country. So I'm looking to get into process improvement.

Now, my question is, is how do I lodge my career in process improvement? Are there specific hints that you can offer me or directions that you can point me at?

Because I need to be able to make a move in the coming year. Thanks for all that you do, how is your daughter? I'm sure she'll be bigger since hope summit.

Thanks again. Yeah, thanks for asking. My daughter Lilly you know, we had our first birthday party a few months ago in June and she is getting big, real fast and she's walking now and starting to talk and all of it's just incredible.

Vincent Phamvan (22:23):
So thank you. Now on your question about process improvement you know, in the PI space there are certifications in this space. And so one of the first things that I would do is take a look at some of those certifications. And so six Sigma is a pretty common one.

And so if you're looking to start a career in process improvement, one of the first things that I would do is take a look at process improvement courses on Coursera. There's a lot of courses on Coursera that you can take for six Sigma yellow belt and just Kaizen in general.

And yeah, if you take a look on Coursera, that's a good place to get to get started as a beginner. However I would take a look at getting the six Sigma certification, if that is a space that you want to go into.

Vincent Phamvan (23:16):
And I think that's one of the first steps that you can take a look at and, you know, if there are not roles available in your specific country, I would then take a look at process improvement roles for, you know, the reality of it is, is that many call centers before the pandemic where large brick and mortar operations. And I think that's gonna change, you know having a thousand people all inside of the same building.

There's no business continuity there. And so when something like a pandemic happens when something like a hurricane happens it can have an adverse impact on that operations. And so I would take a look at potentially call centers that are remote call centers, where like work from home call centers are still going to have process improvement capabilities. So check out six Sigma and do a quick Google search.

Vincent Phamvan (24:04):
And I would get started on working towards your six Sigma yellow belt. All right, the next question comes from Gail, who is from Gary North Carolina, and Gail asks, what resources would you most recommend for somebody trying to figure out what direction to take next in their career? I'm at a point right now where I'm not sure if I should continue with my career path or make a change.

And then if so, what changes to make many things for suggestions? So Gail, there's a couple of different resources that I would recommend checking out. The first one is if you do a Google search, I'll include a link in the show notes as well. It's the Ibis world, COVID 19 special report.

So IBISWorld IB, I S world one word they have a COVID-19 special report. And one of the things that this report does is it categorizes country by country industry, by industry, what the impact of the pandemic has been on that industry, in that specific country.

Vincent Phamvan (25:02):
And so there's high, medium, and a low impact and a high impact could be good or bad. All it means is that there's been a big impact to that industry, but that impact could be actually accelerating that industry. So for instance, in healthcare, in you know, there are things like vaccination research or healthcare research in general, where the pandemic has had a positive impact, meaning that there are more roles available in that industry.

And then also obviously hospitality is one where also very high impact, but it's a negative impact. And so what this report will do, which is free, you can download the report for free. What it will tell you is industry by industry, as you're considering changes into future industries, it'll tell you whether the impact was high, medium, or low, and you can take a look at whether that industry is growing or shrinking.

Vincent Phamvan (25:59):
That's a number one. First thing that I would do, the second thing that I would do is to take a look at whether your skills and experiences are transferable into other passions. What I mean by this is if you are passionate in, in about interacting with other people, helping other people and your role and what you get energy out of is interacting with other people.

And that's what you've really enjoyed about your career. In the past, I would take a look at careers where you're able to transfer that passion. And so one example that I always give is sales and recruiting in both sales roles and in recruiting roles, which these are two completely different careers.

You're interacting with other people, meeting new people, you're hearing about their journey, you're building relationships. And then you're trying to help those people, whether it's help those people and a recruiter role in placing them into a new role, or whether it's in a sales capacity in trying to help them implement a new solution to improve their business, or something like that.

Vincent Phamvan (27:04):
And so I would take a look at, if you write down, you know, the attributes of your past experiences and the things that you've really enjoyed and not enjoyed, and then map those out to other different types of functions or industries, this will help you give you a sense of what companies and what industries are growing right now in hiring right now, as well as from a personal standpoint where your passions and what your life's work is and what you're going to get energy out of.

And I think the intersections there between companies that are currently hiring in that type of function and in that type of industry, as well as things that you are passionate about and get energy out of doing that cross section is going to be where you want to go in the future. All right, I hope that's helpful. And let's go to Susan from Westlake, Michigan.

Vincent Phamvan (27:59):
Susan says, Hey, last week and a half have been discouraging for me. I've had a phone interview that I was really hoping would go well. I like a lot of job postings. They want a graphic web designer and I'm a print designer.

So I'm thinking that I might need to go back to school looking into a coding boot camp as well. So I wanted to ask, you know, how do you lift your spirits and motivations when you get in these low periods, when you feel stuck with a job search? Susan, I think this is a great questions.

And I think the first one is knowing that you're not alone having a community around you. You know there's a lot of folks who say, you know, you're the average of the five people that you surround yourself by. And just being able to have support of others who are going through the same thing that you're going through and being able to share support with each other, being able to vent with each other, but also having an accountability buddy, to be able to go through this search with is really, really helpful.

Vincent Phamvan (28:54):
And so, you know, if you don't have that type of support, I would say first and foremost, find a partner, find somebody that where you can support them and they can support you in that way. That's number one. The second one is I would say, you know, the barrier between a designer for print and a designer for web design, there's an overlap there.

You know, if you were to draw a Venn diagram, there's overlap there. And so that is something where maybe one of the things that you do right now is you create a personal website for yourself, a per personal portfolio for yourself. And you show that you can, the adaptable and that, although your toolkit and what you focused in the past has been a lot of print design.

Perhaps you start expanding into graphic design and, you know, a lot of this as being able to create your own portfolio, but by launching a personal website and showing that you can design your own personal website, this could help get one foot in the door into that space.

Vincent Phamvan (30:03):
The coding boot camp, I think is a great idea. You know, UX is a growing area and getting a little bit technical there so that you can move into whether it's app design, like for mobile apps, desktop apps, or web design. And there's something called PWAs or progressive web apps.

Being able to sharpen your skill sets in the areas that employers have a, a desired skillset in the future, and being able to future proof, your skillset, I think, is something that's really smart to be doing. And you heard me at the top of this episode, talking about upskilling and what you're doing right now to improve your worth, improve yourself, and focus on creating a better future for yourself.

Sharpening your skillsets in areas that are desirable to employers, as you're seeing the market change, for instance, from print design to web design, I think it's really smart to take a look there.

Vincent Phamvan (30:57):
And I think it's a really smart investment to be able to make the second part of your question in terms of lifting your spirits. And motivation is actually a pretty similar to this question from Angie, from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who asks, you know, how can you avoid burning out, especially a perfectionist without our high achievers? How do you, how can people balance health issues like surgeries with your desire to be an overachiever at work?

Here's the thing, your health, your family, your faith comes first. And without having a solid foundation there, it's really hard, if not impossible, to be a top performer, to be a top achiever at work. And so that's something that you have to take care of first and foremost, and, you know, some structure there starts with how you're eating, how you're exercising or not exercising, how you're taking time for yourself, how you unplug when you're not working.

Vincent Phamvan (32:01):
You know, it's possible to be a perfectionist to be a workaholic, but it doesn't mean that you can do that forever. And whether it's in your job or whether it's in your job search, you can't do anything for a hundred hours a week and expect that to be sustainable. And so getting healthy balances in all of those areas end up being really, really important, and being able to build habits in those areas ends up being really, really important.

And it starts with just taking the first step and building a behavior. There, there is a mobile app that I installed recently. And for those of you who are on iOS 14 the latest version of iOS, if you have an iPhone or an iPad you may have noticed this new feature called dashboard widgets, where you can have like dashboard widgets on your home screen.

Vincent Phamvan (32:55):
Android has always had this, but it's new to iOS and there's an app that's called streaks and I'll put a link to it in the show notes. And streaks was an app that I downloaded recently and I have four different streaks. And, you know, it's basically like a reminder to myself that these are like the goals that I'm setting for myself, but my different streaks are taking my vitamins consistently am and PM.

So that's one of my, for drinking a hundred ounces of water every day. And so I have a 20 ounce Yeti and S a Yeti tumbler that I use. And so five times a day, my goal is to refill that Yeti and then you know, drink that water.

And then I have one for cycling. So I have an indoor cycling bike, and my goal is five times a week to spend at least 20 minutes cycling which is, you know, not a lot of time to be able to do.

Vincent Phamvan (33:50):
And, you know, I've found that those are the things that are important to me if I can get consistent with it. And so I really love the streaks app that I started using. I'm not an affiliate for streaks or anything like that.

It's just an app that I started using a few weeks ago that I thought was pertinent here, Angie and Susan, like these are the things that are, have been able to help me stay consistent with the things that I know I need to do in order to be mentally fit.

And the last one that I have in the streaks is there's a thing called a Pomodoro timer, but the about Pomodoro timer is basically, you know, a productivity hack or a productivity style where you set up a, to do list, but you work on the things on your, to do list in 25 minute increments.

Vincent Phamvan (34:37):
And so you start upon Madormo Pomodoro timer, which is just a 25 minute timer. And then at the end of that, you take a five minute break where you just stand up, you walk around, you take a quick break. In my instance, sometimes I'll from working from home, I'll walk downstairs, I'll refill my Yeti and just take a quick break.

And then after that, I restart my timer and I jumped, I move into my next 25 minute task, but I find, you know, those are the four things that are on my iOS homepage now in the streaks app. And you know, it sends me notifications reminding me if I'm like halfway through the day and I haven't done my second or my third, a cup of water, you know, it'll just send me a nice reminder. But streaks app has been helpful to me in terms of getting like these ongoing behaviors that I want a song from Los Angeles.

Vincent Phamvan (35:29):
A song says I use the XYZ formula in my resume, love that XYZ formula for those that haven't heard me cover is a strategy from Google. The Google recommends people use on their resumes on their LinkedIn profiles for basically writing bullet points. And it's basically each bullet point should be measured accomplished X as measured by Y by doing Z.

And so every single bullet point is this is what I accomplished. Here's how I measure it, and here's what I did. And it's just a nice framework to be able to quantify what your accomplishments are and move from job responsibility to key results and accomplishments. Because right now, especially in a competitive job market, employers are hiring folks who are standing out above the crowd, not just people who can do the job, but people who are delivering results and can speak to their past accomplishments.

And so her things that she asks herself are could I do something similar in my next role mirroring is this freakishly impressive? And does it honor the merits of resume real estate? And if not cut it, and what is a Rose, what is a bud and what is a thorn? And so I love song what you're talking about there.

Vincent Phamvan (36:54):
And when I look at songs resume, I think something that's impressive about about the resume is there's a one page version of the resume and a two page version of a resume. And one of the bullet points on here is identified a $4 million gap and recovered 3.9 million from a 10 million energy engineering project due to historical data, matched five senior stakeholder interviews and over 115 docs.

And so this is a good example of using the XYZ format, right? The accomplishment recovered $3.9 million. And so that's clearly quantifiable, right?

It's an achievement as measured by the $3.9 million in savings. And how that was accomplished was by doing a project with historical data analysis and being able to match the savings to five senior stakeholder interviews and 115 different documents. And the other thing that song does on the resume is use bold words.

Vincent Phamvan (38:00):
And the bold words on here are FP and a cross functional and efficiency. And so by using bold, by using different type faces, you're really drawing your eye to what you want people to see. And so I would recommend for everybody, you know, number one, what song's talking about in terms of the resume real estate is so true recruiters on average, spend six seconds on average reviewing resumes.

The top half of the resume gets more eyeballs and a quick look before deciding whether to look at the rest, the resume. And so you want your accomplishments to really stand out on the top half of your resume and people read people read at least in English from left to right. And so top half of your resume focusing left to right, the left side is where you want the biggest thing to stand out.

Vincent Phamvan (38:54):
And if there's something that you want somebody to draw their eyes to, that's what you should bold. And so you can make a decision as to whether is, is it the job title that you want somebody to focus on? Or is it the employer name that you want somebody to focus on?

And, you know, if your resume is full of top companies within their industries that are name brand recognizable companies, that you might choose to bold the company name, but if it's the position, whether, if it's the job title, or you're trying to show that you were promoted three times within an employer, then you might choose to make bold or italicize the job title. And so those are the biggest things that I would really think about is how do you showcase your key accomplishments?

How do you tell the stories that you want to tell in an interview and have your resume lead you into those fantastic stories that showcase your accomplishments and how can you in a glimpse of a resume, make sure that your eyes are drawn towards the best things that showcased you as a candidate, because you are selling yourself in your resume.

Vincent Phamvan (40:02):
And we're going to wrap up this episode with one more question. This comes from Nicolette, from Miami, Florida. Hey, Vincent.

My question is, how do you tackle the question? What was your previous salary from the HR recruiter on initial fund screen live in Florida? So they can legally ask this question.

So, as an aside in some States, employers are not able to ask this question. And so state by state check out where you live. But in Florida, she says you know, they can legally ask this question.

I'm aiming for a title pay higher than my previous role since I was supposed to be promoted this year. So this is what I do.

You know, the, you hear me say often I'm sending out on a mission to help people find fulfilling careers with the pay and purpose that they deserve. And in a salary negotiation, this is absolutely key.

Vincent Phamvan (40:46):
Some recruiters will try to push candidates to name a number. And you know, what they're trying to do is they're trying to make sure that they don't go through all the work of setting up interviews, all the work of making sure that it's a good fit if the camp and it is not going to fall within their budgeted range for that role.

So I would say, you know, early on in your job search, you should definitely know what you're worth and what the market is for both that specific job function, that job role, as well as the city that you live in or compared to the country's average, there's a lot of tools online that can help you take a look at that research. Some of them are PayScale Glassdoor, LinkedIn even has a feature now, but you know, number one first and foremost.

Vincent Phamvan (41:34):
You need to know your value. Second one is I would flip the question over on to the recruiter. Hey, I'm really interested in this role and I'm really excited to find out whether this role could be a great mutual fit.

Is there a chance that you can share the budgeted range for the compensation package, for the hire, for this type of role and what this does is it turns the question around, over to the recruiter to be able to share the budgeted range. And if the budgeted range is a good fit for you, then you can simply say, Hey, I'm confident that when we get to that point, that we can determine a compensation that's fair for this role.

If you're working with a recruiter, who's playing hard ball, and they're pushing you to know to give a specific number, then that's the point where I would give a range, take the number that you would be really happy with.

Vincent Phamvan (42:27):
Take the number that based on your research for that type of role, that type of function, that type of level in that type of city and get to the best data that you possibly can add another 10% to the number that you'd be really happy with, and then give a range. Hey for this type of role, I'm looking for a compensation between 110 and 120,000 as an example, but this is where doing your research upfront, understanding the market and understanding your worth ends up being really important. If you get pushed into the scenario where you're backed into a corner, and they're, they're telling you that they absolutely need a number from you before you can move forward.

Alright, thank you so much, everybody for sharing your questions on this, ask me anything episode of how I got here. Two ways to share a question. If you want your question answered in the future, first one is, leave me a voicemail and I'm going to pull the voicemails first, just because they're great for our podcast. Y

ou can leave me a voicemail by calling 866-VYTEN-60, or shoot me a text message. My text message. My cell phone number is (615) 667-8433.

So leave me a voicemail. If you really want your question answered. If not, shoot me a text (615) 667-8433. All right, everybody take care. We'll see you next time.

Vincent Phamvan (43:52):
Thank you so much for listening to the show this week. If this podcast was helpful to you, the best thing that you can do to support is please consider rating and reviewing the show on Apple podcasts. This helps us help more people just like you move towards the life that they desire.

Visit our podcasts on Apple podcasts, then score to the bottom, tap the rate with five stars and just leave a sentence or two about what you loved most about this episode.

You can subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts, or you can write at hello@vyten.com. I'm Vincent van van, and you've been listening to how I got here.