The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
We're all about helping create a healthy, positive, and spiritually positive environment for church staff members and leadership teams.
The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
The Resume Reality Check
Is your ministry resume truly making an impact, or just gathering dust? Join me, Todd Rhoades, on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast as we tackle the art of crafting an effective ministry resume. With years of experience reviewing church staff resumes, I reveal the essential strategies that can help you secure that crucial first-round interview. Discover the importance of tailoring your resume to the specific job, showcasing your notable achievements, and incorporating the right keywords. This episode is your guide to transforming your resume into a powerful tool that commands attention in a competitive job market.
Additionally, get acquainted with the invaluable resources and services offered by Chemistry Staffing. From expert resume critiques to assistance in recruiting new church staff, we’ve got you covered. I also highlight how you can reach out for personal help with your job search or hiring needs, and assure you of my availability for any questions via email. As the weekend approaches, let's finish strong and stay connected for more insights and support on Monday. My heartfelt prayers and well wishes go out to all our listeners, as we continue to build a supportive community through the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.
Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com
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Is Your Church Hiring?
If your church is searching for a new staff member, reach out to Todd for a conversation on how he might be able to help.
Are You Looking for a New Ministry Role?
If you are open to a new church role in the next few months, add your free resume and profile at ChemistryStaffing.com.
Hi there, welcome to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. My name is Todd Rhodes. Today we're going to talk a little bit of a reality check on resumes and we're really going to dive into the good of resumes. It's not going to be your typical how-to guide, okay, and maybe you're saying, todd, I'm not looking for a new job, you know what I get. That that's all good. But I think it's always good to have your resume ready to go. You never know what's going to happen, but it's always good to keep your resume updated. It's like a will. You always want to keep it updated and have it ready to go in case you need it.
Speaker 1:Let's start here. Okay, you might be thinking, todd, isn't the purpose of the resume to get a job? And I would say not exactly. Here's how I put it. The true purpose of the resume is much more specific. In fact, your resume has one purpose, and one purpose only. Can you guess what that is? One purpose, one purpose only. Can you guess what that is? One purpose, one purpose only for your resume, and that is to land you a first round job interview. Okay, that's it. Think of your resume as your opening act. It's your elevator pitch, it's your first impression. It's not the whole story of all of your ministry experience. It's a hook. It's your hook that gets potential hiring team search team interested enough to invite you for a conversation. Okay, so that's the big thing, and that's what I've been preaching for the past years in my work at chemistry.
Speaker 1:Staffing is that your resume has one, one purpose and one purpose only, and that's to get you the interview. So anything, and once you start looking at your resume through that lens, it changes what you put on your resume and what you don't. So how do you craft a resume that grabs attention and opens doors and actually achieves the purpose of getting you that first round interview? Here are some principles and these are some secrets that not everybody does when they do a resume. I look at probably hundreds of church staff resumes every week. Matter of fact, I would dare to say I'm probably in the top three percent of all Americans. I'm not very good at much or not in the top three% of much of anything, but I probably am in the top 3% of Americans that have viewed the most church staff resumes and I can tell you most all of them are the same. So what do you do to make it stand out and what do you do to make your resume really connect with someone so that it achieves its purpose? That first round interview, first of all, and I'm giving you some secrets here. So write these down and these I think they're good. Who knows, first of all? And nobody does this. This is why it's so valuable Tailor your resume to the specific job.
Speaker 1:Don't just send out a generic resume. I can tell you 98% I'm pulling numbers out of the air here, obviously, but 98% of resumes are so generic. Many of them are so generic. I don't have any idea what position Do they want to be a worship pastor, a youth pastor, a facilities director? It's really hard because resumes can be very generic and they fit every church.
Speaker 1:I am a strong advocate to customize your resume. Make sure you highlight the skills and experiences that are most relevant, not just to the skills and experiences you have, but make sure that they are the skills and experiences that are most relevant to the position that you're applying for. You almost want. You almost want. When someone looks at your resume and you have there's been studies you've got really six seconds. We call it the six second resume rule. You've got really six seconds, according to the research for somebody to determine whether or not they're going to be interested in you as a candidate. So when someone looks at your resume, in that first six seconds you want something to stand out to them that says man, I don't know who this person is, but they look like they could be exactly what we're looking for. And you do that by tailoring your resume to a specific job.
Speaker 1:My second tip and I've got five of them here focus on your accomplishments, not just your duties. You can list your job responsibilities and most resumes have a list of hey, I did this, I did that, but make sure you quantify your achievements. Did attendance increase? Did you launch a new program? Did you raise a certain amount of money? Show, just don't tell. So focus on accomplishments. Of these are some things that I accomplished. These are some things that I excelled in, not just I preached 48 weeks a year. Okay. So focus on accomplishments, not just duties.
Speaker 1:Third, make it concise and easy to read. I have seen I think the record is like, seriously, I think it's 52 pages. That is not concise and I can guarantee you what happened in the first six seconds on that resume. Read at least from me Okay, keep it concise. We usually say between a page and a half, so keep it short and then also make it easy to read. A lot of times churches will get 50, a hundred, sometimes 200 resumes and they all come in at once. So make it short and make it easy to read. The people that are reading it are busy people and they don't have time to wade through pages of dense text. Keep it one or two pages. Use clear headings. I'm a big fan of bullet points. Excuse me, short bullet points. Highlight the most important information again that is going to really stand out in that first six seconds.
Speaker 1:Number four use keywords strategically. Churches are a little different than doing things for businesses. You don't have to worry about keyword loading or anything like that, but make sure that your resume includes relevant keywords from the job description. Again, that goes back to my first point of kind of tailoring the resume to the specific job in the church. Usually what I'll do is I'll take what I recommend people do is look at the job description, maybe even print it out and get a highlighter and highlight some strategic, really key words in there and include those on your resume. You're not being deceptive. What you're doing is you're trying to tailor the resume to what they're looking for. Don't apply and don't use keywords that don't apply to you. But if they apply to you and the churches, use them in their job description absolutely weize your resume to include the things that they are really interested in. It's really going to help increase your chances of achieving the purpose of the resume, which is, again, to get the first round interview. And then, lastly this almost should not have to be said, but I have to say it you need to proofread it meticulously. Have your spouse proofread it, have a friend proofread it.
Speaker 1:Typos and grammatical errors, man, they are a major turnoff and I see them all the time. Make sure you have somebody else proofread your resume and I don't know if you're familiar with Grammarly, but Grammarly is awesome. I think it's Grammarly G-R-A-M-M-A-R-L-Ycom. I think it's Grammarlycom. Obviously, I'm not a paid spokesperson for Grammarly, but that can help you with not only typos and grammatical errors, but also just in rephrasing things to make your resume much better. All right, so remember your resume, just the first step.
Speaker 1:Once you land the interview, it's up to you to shine, be prepared to answer the questions about your experience and your skills and your passion, all that kind of thing and to be yourself. But remember, if you don't have a good resume, you're never going to get more of a chance to tell your story. So here's the bottom line for you today your resume, man, it's the ticket to your interview. Not the job itself, but the interview. That's where it all starts. So by crafting a targeted, concise, accomplishment-focused resume, you can really increase your chances of getting your foot in the door and kind of landing that next ministry role.
Speaker 1:If you need help, we offer at Chemistry Staffing, and I do all of these resume critiques. You can find out more information about that over at chemistrystaffingcom. If you have any questions about resumes or job search, or maybe your church is looking for a new staff member, reach out to me anytime. You can do that just by sending an email to podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. I'm here to help you however I can. If you're listening to this podcast on the day it was released, it's Friday, so finish your day. Finish. We've got a big weekend coming up. I'm praying for all of you and thank you so much for joining us on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. We will be back here for you on Monday. Don't miss it. I'm looking forward to being with you again on Monday. Have a great day.
