CareerPro Global, Inc.This is a great service for Veterans departing from service, they did an outstanding job translating the things we do in our specific jobs to civilian terms. At the time of delivery I was blown away with what they did with my experience! Highly recommended
-SFC T. Buskey U.S. ARMY (RET)
We’re pleased and proud to share below some testimonials given by recent customers.
“I just wanted to update you. I got selected for an interview a couple of weeks ago for the mental health nursing job for the VA in El Paso, TX. Yesterday, they called me to give me a tentative offer (pending of course all the background checks and credentialing review)! So, with that said I wanted to thank you and your professional work! On the side, the interviewer told me I scored the highest. (I made sure to download and study everything you sent me prior to my interview, so, again, thank you)!” ~ Mario
“I connected with the best resume writers in the world. ” ~Ron
“Had an interview today for the Vicenza, Italy, job. I’m one of the two finalists out of hundreds of applications…and the only one to have not just a single recommendation but three!” ~Bert
“I would recommend this company to EVERYONE! I am at a loss for words at how completely satisfied I am with the work I received.” ~J.R.
“I am very happy. I actually received four job offers. It was all because of the resume. You’re the best.” ~ M.S.
“I was offered a position today. Thank you again!” ~ Nick
“Thanks for all your help. I will definitely come back to CareerPro for all my resume needs.” ~ Sheniqua
Two recent emails from clients who found their dream positions utilizing CareerPro Global services. Are you looking for a new job? Your dream job? What are you waiting for? Call us. We can assist you make dreams come true.
Landed Job as Assistant Management Analyst
“Good morning Ms. Adams,
“I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate Peggi Bass and what she meant to me in my job search. Before I contacted Career Pro Global, I had called many other companies with no success in getting help with my resume. Either the companies were too expensive or the folks on the other end of the phone were rude and unresponsive.
“At the time I called, I was very desperate. I had worked in one office for eleven years and had reached job burnout. I loved the agency that I worked for but I was just ready for a change. I was almost at the point where I was just ready to put in my two weeks notice. I had been applying for jobs but had not been getting many bites from the Federal Government, which is where I wanted to stay since I have twenty four years invested with them.
“As soon as me and Peggi started communicating about my resume, everything started clicking right away. She assured me with my education and valuable experience, combined with the resume she was building, I would have a better than average chance to get a new job. Peggi was quick, efficient, caring, very detailed and kept the lines of communication open during the whole process. She made me feel like I had known her for years.
“Once the resume was done, I posted it on USA Jobs, Monster, Career Builder and other job sites. I started getting hits immediately for interviews and I was so excited. Peggi had geared my resume towards a Management Analyst job, which is what I wanted and my education, skills and experience fit that career path. One day I saw an Assistant Management Analyst position posted at my agency and applied.. It was the first job I had applied for since the resume was done. I immediately got the interview and eventually got the job. The folks that interviewed me loved my resume and wanted to know who did it and can they take some ideas from it themselves. It was awesome.
“I am now at my new job as an Assistant Management Analyst with promotion potential to a Management Analyst and it goes two grades beyond my previous job’s max. I feel like a completely new person and my career has been revived. I owe it all to Peggi and Career Pro Global.
“Thank you so much Barbara, Peggi and the rest of the team at Career Pro!
Edward R.”
CareerPro Global Assists Client Earn Best Qualified for the CDP
“ Just wanted to check in and share with you an update on my DHS CDP application. My application met the qualifications; and has been forwarded to the next phase of assessment where it will be reviewed and rated by a panel of senior executives. There were over 2,200 applicants, which is why the HR stated is taking some time to complete the assessment. Results are expected soon. I am preparing now for the interview, just in case and will touch base with you in the next 2 to 3 weeks.
“Again, thank you so much for your outstanding work on my application.
“ D. G.”
As part of our ongoing commitment to quality, CareerPro Global (CPG) sends a satisfaction questionnaire to every client upon completion of his or project. We recently received a questionnaire response so wonderful we wanted to share it. At CPG, quality writing, professionalism, and a commitment to customer satisfaction are our hallmarks. Give us a call and let us make you this happy too.
“At first I was a little skeptical, never having used a resume writing service like this before and from reading quite a few caveats about similar services. But after more research, CPG was the only company with a base in the U.S. that was also ISO:9001 Certified with impressive credentials and awards.
“I submitted my request for consultation via the online form late at night and the next morning Chris Sheppard had responded with a follow-up phone call. Mr. Sheppard was extremely professional, courteous, polite, and most importantly, attentive to my questions and career intentions. I immediately felt comfortable speaking with him. He is a fabulous coach and guided me through understanding the government hiring process.
“Mr. Sheppard introduced me to Joseph L. Tatner, who would be come my expert resume writer specializing in my field, Information Technology (I.T.). Working under a tight deadline in order to meet a couple of job postings before their closing dates, Mr. Tatner worked diligently over the weekend and evenings to transform my programming experience into a noteworthy I.T. Specialist career! Mr. Tatner took the time to consult me via phone to really understand my background and the types of positions I wanted to target.
“The final outcome called for minimal edits and was a professionally drafted, government-formatted resume that fit perfectly into the USAJobs Resume Builder Program! I was absolutely impressed with the choice of wording, the structure, and how he was able to formulate certain skills and competencies from the basic descriptions I provided. With new resume in hand, I immediately began posting to jobs I had saved, and within a week’s time, I have received my first ‘Eligible’ status from a posting where my resume is being reviewed by a hiring manager!
“Even if you think you are a fantastic writer, resume writing is a whole different world…and government resume writing is in a league all its own. I wouldn’t trust any other company besides CareerPro Global to guide you and prep your career for government employment!
“Thank you, Mr. Sheppard and Mr. Tatner, for your professionalism, diligence, and guidance through what can seem a confusing process. I will definitely recommend your service to others.
“All the best, M. H.”
by Barbara Adams, President and CEO of CareerPro Global, Inc.
With very few exceptions, almost every Senior Executive Service (SES) position you apply for will require you to submit Executive Core Qualification (ECQ) narratives. While it is obviously important to ensure the examples you provide match the ECQ titles of Leading Change, Leading People, Results Driven, Business Acumen, and Building Coalitions, that’s actually not enough. The best way to write ECQs is to first select a topic that makes sense for that particular ECQ, and then look at the specific competencies and ask yourself whether you can address most or all of them effectively.
For example, let’s talk about Leading People. Imagine a senior military officer who is retiring after 20 years of distinguished service and trying to enter the SES. Now, imagine that he/she is writing his/her Leading People narrative. This individual is clearly a strong leader, and had led organizations of more than 1,000 people and provided executive oversight to 12 different organization comprised of more than 100,000 people stationed around the world.
Now, let’s say this individual provides a great description of all this leadership, but focuses purely on leadership philosophy and the complex missions the organization had to accomplish. Shouldn’t those folks in the Qualifications Review Board (QRB) still be able to tell what a great leader this person is? Maybe, but maybe not. Even though this individual is clearly a seasoned leader with worldwide experience in a variety of field and office environments, the ECQ likely won’t pass muster and the board will deny it.
Why?
Because the competencies were not addressed. The important thing to remember here is that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has been very specific about HOW it wants examples presented. So, even though every example is different, every career is different, and there is no “cookie-cutter” way to write an ECQ narrative, there are certain criteria that a strong ECQ should meet. First, OPM wants specific examples presented in the Challenge-Context-Action-Result (CCAR) format. However, more importantly, OPM wants the examples to be expressed through the “lens” of the competencies. If these criteria (along with a few others) are not met, the board will probably reject the applicant’s ECQs.
Let’s get back to our example. It’s not enough that this individual provided an example that clearly “proves” his/her leadership experience. Unfortunately, this applicant failed to tell the story though the lens of the competencies. In other words, while providing this great story of leading large organizations through major challenges, this individual failed to describe how he/she built the team, developed individual members of the team, leveraged diversity, and managed conflict (the four competencies required for Leading People).
One of the best ways to ensure you address the competencies in any ECQ is to turn those competencies into questions, and then answer those questions in the “action” section of your narrative. Regardless of what a great leader you are, and how logical it seems that your Leading People examples demonstrate your leadership, go back to the competencies. If you don’t weave those into the narrative, you are at serious risk of being rejected by the QRB. Here are some of the questions you might ask when writing up your Leading People narrative:
You can find job-winning, OPM-approved samples of SES application packages and a complete set of ECQ builders in our book, Roadmap to the Senior Executive Service. Get your copy today by clicking on this link or searching the title on Amazon.
Barbara Adams is the President and CEO of CareerPro Global, Inc. (CPG). She has been on the leading edge of SES application development for decades. Committed to providing world-class service, she has also built an SES writing team that has assisted more than 2,500 clients develop their application materials. Ms. Adams has been featured on TV and radio and as a presenter at numerous career conferences. CPG recently sent a team to instruct senior officials at Warner Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, in best practices for developing their SES application materials. She is the co-author of the new book, Roadmap to the Senior Executive Service: How to Find SES Jobs, Determine Your Qualifications, and Develop Your SES Application.
I know resumes.
Before I joined the CareerPro Global team, I worked in management for two decades, with a dozen or so years spent as the company’s human resources liaison. There were few things I dreaded more than having to place a help wanted ad because I knew I would soon be overwhelmed with resumes. And not just any resumes: boring resumes. After a while, one looked exactly like the next, and they all said the same thing:
WRITER, Company Name, 2000-01
Wrote news headlines.
Wrote text copy.
Wrote artwork captions.
Wrote…
wrote…
and wrote….
Yawn.
That was all wonderful and good, but it didn’t tell me why I should interview one candidate over another—let alone consider hiring one of them. So I had to devise my own methods of choosing:
“This one likes animals, she must be okay.” … “I once knew a woman named Martha, and I didn’t like her. Sorry, Candidate Martha.” … “This man has a lot of experience, maybe I should talk to him.” … “This man has so little experience; maybe I can give him his big break.” … “Can anyone start tomorrow?”
Needless to say, I hired many duds and probably overlooked some talented people.
Every once in a while, however, from out of the blue, I received a resume that was just a little bit different. It caught my attention. It differentiated the candidate. It made me believe that he or she really might be able to fill the vacancy perfectly. At the time, I couldn’t put my finger on what the difference was. The color of paper? The type? Did this person have more or less experience?
Of course, now I know what made those rare resumes stand out from all the rest: ACCOMPLISHMENTS.
When a candidate listed his or her accomplishments in a resume, it gave me a much better picture of that person’s talents and achievements–and potential–then a simple laundry list of duties that someone may have failed in completely.
Accomplishments led me to understand that one candidate had successfully run a print production department with 20 personnel, producing two publications per month, with an annual cost of job budget of $1K. Another candidate’s accomplishments shared that he had been a ghostwriter for seven technical journals, one of which had won an award for most comprehensive presentation. And yet another set of accomplishments allowed me to spot a woman who illustrated children’s books, gave me a listing of the books, told me she was capable of producing more than 30 original full-color pieces per month, and the average job commission was $6K.
It’s a bit more telling than Generic Writer’s laundry list above, isn’t it?
Speak to any of our career coaches and they will all tell you the most important piece to a resume is accomplishments. Accomplishments are so important, in fact, that we’ve developed free training for men and women exiting the military to assist them in finding those accomplishments and presenting them in such a way to make them civilian friendly and to POP for human resources personnel. We have written books that pound in the need for accomplishments, accomplishments, accomplishments.
If you have been looking for work and applying to vacancies with little to no luck, look at your resume. Forget the paper color. Forget the type style. Forget if your name is written in big letters or small. Are you sharing your accomplishments or have you simply created yet another laundry list of duties? If the answer if the latter, give us a call. We can help. We’re the experts. And we have the accomplishments to share with you to prove it.
While you’re at it, if you are interested in looking at one of our most recent accomplishments, our free veterans’ training, follow this link, http://tinyurl.com/cpgfreetraining, and look for the “Five Steps” products. You might also want to sign up for the CareerPro Global newsletter at http//tinyurl.com/cpgnewsletter, which is filled every month with great advice for job seekers, information on the latest happenings in the career world, news of our latest free offerings…and maybe even an accomplishment or two of our own.
In 2010, the President’s Management Council started a working group to explore ways to improve SES performance evaluation, and ultimately recommended a new standardized system. In 2011, top Office of Personnel Management (OPM) leadership stated that the challenging financial environment and other issues were placing a strain on the SES workforce.
Consequently, OPM has released a new performance management system for the SES. The new measurements are designed to improve the evaluation process through a standardized framework to not only communicate performance expectations, but also evaluate performance.
That framework integrates the five Executive Core Qualifications (ECQs) used to assess potential SES employees during the application process. The five core competencies are: Leading Change, Leading People, Results Driven, Business Acumen, and Building Coalitions.
Although SES employees have always been expected to provide executive leadership and oversight, the new emphasis on the ECQs in performance measurement places a sharper emphasis on individual results. In the new framework, senior executives will be assessed in their official performance evaluations in each of the five ECQ areas (on a scale of one to five).
Any executive who receives a final rating of “unsatisfactory” will be removed or reassigned. The same thing applies to any executives who receive two ratings at less than Level 3 within three years, or two Level 1 ratings within five years.
In Fiscal Year 2010, more than one-third of all SES members received the highest possible rating on their performance evaluations. It will be interesting to see how these new performance measures will affect those metrics. In the meantime, the importance of the ECQs in general will become even more prominent.
Think about it: Those applying for an SES position already have to provide well-written examples of their career accomplishments in each of the 5 ECQs while incorporating 28 competencies throughout. It was seen as almost a rite of passage, which it was.
But now, the ECQs won’t just be the way you describe your experience when applying for the SES; they will be the very cornerstone on which your ongoing performance (and job security?) is assessed and recorded in your official records.
The SES requires a dynamic balance of leadership, strategic thinking, and specialized experience. To enter the SES, your ECQs must demonstrate that you have the right balance, and they must show results. I predict that integrating the ECQs into the new SES performance measurement system will put a sharper focus on results across the SES in years to come, and that can only be a good thing.
Perhaps the collective standard of the SES has been raised a bit—or perhaps a lot. Only time will tell.
You can find job-winning, OPM-approved samples of SES application packages in our book, Roadmap to the Senior Executive Service. Get your copy today by clicking on this link or searching the title on Amazon.
Barbara Adams is the President and CEO of CareerPro Global, Inc. (CPG). She has been on the leading edge of SES application development for decades. Committed to providing world-class service, she has also built an SES writing team that has assisted more than 2,500 clients develop their application materials. Ms. Adams has been featured on TV and radio and as a presenter at numerous career conferences. CPG recently sent a team to instruct senior officials at Warner Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, in best practices for developing their SES application materials. She is the co-author of the new book, Roadmap to the Senior Executive Service: How to Find SES Jobs, Determine Your Qualifications, and Develop Your SES Application.
Dear Readers,
The entire staff of CareerPro Global wishes you and yours a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2012. Let’s make it the best year ever.
CareerPro Global is pleased to announce some recent wins at the Career Directors International (CDI) annual summit, this year in beautiful Savannah, Georgia. CDI sponsors the TORI awards, Toast of the Resume Industry, and this past Saturday our own Director of Veteran Affairs and Senior Writer, Lee Kelley, won the TORI for Best Military Transition Resume. If you want to see more of Lee’s award-winning writing, check him out at our sister blog, http://veteranstransitionhq.wordpress.com/.
Also CPG President and CEO Barbara A. Adams was honored with a special Innovator Award, for bringing quality control and customer satisfaction guarantees to the career management industry with the introduction of the ISO 9001: 2008 certification at our company. If you aren’t sure what this ISO certification means, take a look here to find out why it’s so groundbreaking, bringing regulation to an industry that’s been unregulated for decades: CPG ISO 9001:2008 Certification.
Lee and Barbara weren’t the only TORI winners this weekend. CDI will post a listing of all first, second, and third place winners on their website before year’s end. In the meantime, we send a hearty salute to all the winners! Their work, along with that of the certified writers at CPG, help make this industry strong. Congratulations!
We recently received feedback from two clients that we want to share. We love what we do at CareerPro Global, we really do, and feedback like this is icing on top of an already very sweet cake. Thanks to you, our clients, for entrusting us not only with your job but with your family’s future.
“I am extremely grateful of this service! The customer service is truly second to none! [Chris Shepherd and Kelly Poltrack are] very professional individuals who take PRIDE in helping you. You can’t find service like that anymore hardly. Do me a favor, and clone these people. They really walked me through the process step by step, and ANSWERED ALL OF MY CALLS AND EMAILS in a timely fashion. I did not feel like a number or some statistical worksheet. PLEASE KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK! Best Regards, DU”
“I’ve wanted to have this done for years and finally emailed upon seeing an ad in one of my VA email updates. I am so glad that I did! I received an email response followed by a phone call from Anna Anderson. She answered my questions and made me feel that I was making the right decision in perusing this. Then I was assigned to Mara Addison and she is the consummate professional. She took the information that I gave her and turned it into the perfect government resume. I have no doubt that I will obtain an interview because of this resume and I am so very pleased with the services provided to me by CareerPro! SB”
Come see us at http://www.careerproplus.com and let us make you happy too.
