Full transcript
0:04[Applause]
0:09hey guys welcome back to the channel
0:11big shout out to nick shirley up there
0:13in the frozen tundra of canada
0:15today's topic is because of him he
0:17requested this one
0:18but before we get into it we need to do
0:20a quick wardrobe change
0:22so here we go whoops
0:25went a little too far this is my texas
0:27interview outfit
0:30there we go much better okay so today's
0:32topic of discussion
0:34is building a resume for getting into
0:36the construction industry
0:37or just improving your resume if you
0:39want to go to a different company or
0:41just
0:41update your resume and keep it you know
0:43keep the dust off of it
0:45so we're going to start with guys who
0:46are getting into the industry what
0:48exactly
0:48are employers looking for i actually
0:50spent the morning calling around to
0:52about 20 or 30 different places to talk
0:54to
0:54if not the owner the hr individual
0:57responsible for taking in new resumes
0:59and applications
1:00and i got their thoughts and their
1:01opinions on what they look for when it
1:03comes to new
1:04inexperienced operators getting into the
1:06industry so the first thing
1:08by far and away that everyone is looking
1:10for in this industry is
1:12someone who is willing to stick to it
1:14this is going to be demonstrated on your
1:16resume
1:17by showing that you have more than one
1:19year of experience at your previous
1:21employers so if you're one of those
1:22individuals that has hopped jobs around
1:25every six to eight months you're going
1:26to have a lot more difficult time
1:28getting into this industry
1:30because that shows that you don't really
1:32have the ability to stick with a job
1:34what employers want especially in this
1:36industry where they're going to have to
1:37take time to train you is
1:39they want you to be there for the
1:40duration and everyone recognizes in the
1:43excavating industry
1:44that the duration isn't five plus years
1:47it's just a fact of
1:48the industry that operators jump around
1:50and so if you can demonstrate that
1:51you've got one plus year experience
1:53at your previous employers that's really
1:56going to go a long way
1:57another thing that they're really
1:58looking for is that you're willing to
2:01learn and we'll get into
2:03interview techniques and kind of topics
2:05that you want to bring up in your
2:06interview but i had multiple hr people
2:08tell me that they really look for
2:10someone who is willing to learn
2:12and is eager to get into the trade not
2:14because they just want to make a
2:15paycheck
2:16but because they actually like the trade
2:18and they want to be in the industry
2:20so let's get into some details of what
2:21they actually look for outside of the
2:23one plus year of experience i had two
2:25separate hr people tell me that
2:27one plus year experience is actually
2:29very important on a resume
2:30so outside of that trade schools as much
2:33as you guys have heard me kind of poo
2:36poo trade schools and i want to be
2:37careful there because
2:39that's a whole other topic of discussion
2:41don't give me off track keep me on track
2:42guys
2:43so trade schools list your trade schools
2:46i actually had an hr individual tell me
2:47directly that she
2:48takes into account whether or not you've
2:50been to a trade school it shows that
2:52you've taken an interest in the industry
2:54enough to go spend your money to learn
2:56part of the industry
2:57and she's more willing to take a chance
2:59on people who have a trade school under
3:00their belt
3:01now that being said as i've said in the
3:03past that doesn't mean go out and
3:05everyone
3:05go to a trade school i'm not saying that
3:08i'm saying
3:09make sure you list that if you have been
3:10to a trade school and make it a decent
3:12chunk of your resume
3:14military experience is another one if
3:16you're a previous military whether it's
3:18in the reserve or active military
3:20make sure you list that out as well i
3:22talked to multiple employers and they
3:23said that's a really good indication
3:25that first of all you're willing to work
3:27in tough conditions
3:28secondly you're not going to quit on
3:30them if things get a little tough and
3:31third
3:32you've been out in the elements so now
3:34let's talk about some jobs that you
3:36might want to focus on on your resume as
3:38opposed to
3:39other jobs one of the job scenarios i
3:41discussed with one of the hr reps was
3:44let's say you had an individual who had
3:46worked at pizza hut for four years and
3:47worked their way into a manager position
3:50and they also on the same resume in
3:52their same background
3:53had a year of landscaping experience
3:56believe it or not
3:57as i don't want to discredit you for
3:59getting into a management role
4:00at pizza hut that's great that's a great
4:03accomplishment you should be proud of
4:04that
4:05but when it comes to this industry
4:07you're actually going to want to focus
4:09more on your landscaping experience
4:11rather than the pizza hut job
4:13simply because what that indicates is
4:16you can work outside in the elements
4:18you understand that this is a difficult
4:20industry and it requires a lot of hard
4:21work
4:22you're used to long hours it's not in
4:24the air conditioning it's not
4:26inside out of the elements that's a
4:28really big indicator to someone
4:30in this industry that you'll be able to
4:32hack it and it's worth their time
4:33investing in you the pizza hut
4:36experience on the other hand
4:37you might have been a fantastic manager
4:39but that's inside
4:40it's out of the elements it's generally
4:42working pretty reasonable hours
4:44it's not a really good indicator of how
4:46well you'll translate over
4:47into the heavy equipment industry the
4:49other thing we're going to talk about is
4:51if it's ever possible and whenever
4:54possible to work in your resume
4:56make sure you work in that you're
4:57willing to learn and how good you are
4:59at learning new skills and new
5:00techniques because that's really
5:02important to employers
5:03in this climate where there's a lot of
5:05people that bounce
5:06in and out they want people who are
5:08interested in the industry and they want
5:10people who are willing to learn so we're
5:12really going to emphasize that on our
5:13resumes
5:14so now let's flip gears and let's talk
5:16about experienced operators who maybe
5:18want to dust the cobwebs off of their
5:19resume and update it whether you plan on
5:21going someplace or not
5:22it's always a good practice to keep your
5:24resume updated so one of the first
5:26things i
5:27discussed with an hr individual about
5:29experienced operators is
5:31the biggest thing far and away is how
5:33long were you at your previous employers
5:35you know two plus years of experience
5:37tells them that you're not one of those
5:38operators that simply bounces from
5:40company to company sometimes two or
5:42three times a year
5:43it shows them that you're going to be
5:45there for at least a semi
5:47lengthy amount of time and it's worth
5:49the investment for them to hire you
5:51on the second thing they're going to
5:53look at is what machines can you run
5:55and not just what machines you can run
5:58can you
5:58finish blade can you rough grade i mean
6:01what can you do when you say you have
6:03dozer experience
6:05don't just put excavator experience tell
6:07them what size machines you're capable
6:09of running
6:09and what machines you have the most seat
6:11time in were you laying pipe
6:13were you doing site work were you
6:14digging footings were you digging
6:16basements
6:16you need to indicate all of these things
6:18on your resume so that the employer
6:20knows what you actually can do
6:22outside of just pull sticks because
6:24let's be honest anyone can list that
6:26they've run heavy equipment
6:27anyone can list that they've run a 385
6:29excavator i've run a 385 excavator
6:32for about six hours i'm not a 385
6:35excavator
6:36operator that's just the fact of the
6:38matter if you threw me in a 385 doing a
6:4130 foot deep cut for sanitary sewer
6:43i wouldn't have a clue what i'm doing i
6:45would be totally out of my debt so again
6:47we're going to talk about
6:48actual experience on our resume and this
6:51is for
6:52everyone that i'm talking to right now
6:54whether you're inexperienced or
6:55experienced
6:56be ready to back up what's on your
6:58resume we can make the prettiest
7:00floweriest resume that will get guys to
7:03actually look at you as an operator
7:05and it doesn't matter if you get into
7:07the interview or you show up on the job
7:09and you can't back up the skills that
7:10you said you've done
7:12so i do want to be very careful here
7:13that we do want to talk positively about
7:15ourselves
7:16but we also want to convey an accurate
7:18picture of what we're capable of
7:20so with that being said i'm going to go
7:21change out of these ridiculous clothes i
7:23got out of the banking industry so i
7:25wouldn't have to wear this stuff
7:26i'm going to get comfortable and then
7:28we're going to dig into the resume
7:29building so i'll see you in a minute
7:31[Music]
7:32okay so that's much better so now let's
7:35get back into it we're going to go over
7:36here to the computer and we're actually
7:38going to take a look at my personal
7:39resume
7:40and then i'll kind of talk about a
7:41different couple points that we might
7:42change depending on your
7:44situation so let's flip over here to the
7:46computer the first thing i want you to
7:48notice is
7:49uh this is a very clean outline there's
7:52not a lot of fluff there's not we're not
7:54going to go crazy with
7:55a different font we're going to keep it
7:58very simple very straightforward
8:00one of the biggest things you can do
8:01with your resume to turn
8:03employers off is to go crazy with fonts
8:06they can't read
8:07in a bunch of different sizes you want
8:09to keep it very neat very concise
8:11and by the way i am going to put this
8:13resume template
8:14down in the comments section for you to
8:16download so if you would like to use my
8:17resume template
8:19to start your resume on feel free to
8:21download this and change all of your
8:23information
8:24now i'm going to give you a very very
8:26very big warning here
8:28please do not leave my information in
8:31your resume
8:32it will not serve you well it is not
8:34your work experience it's my work
8:35experience
8:36people in this industry can very easily
8:39and very
8:40quickly weed out when you're full of so
8:43all that being said you are more than
8:44welcome to use my template for your
8:46resume
8:47just change the information to be your
8:50own information
8:51so let's go back here so we've got my
8:53name we've got my fake address i don't
8:55know if you guys picked that up but
8:56that's not actually where i live
8:58uh and i've got it broken out very
8:59nicely and then this would be my contact
9:01phone number here
9:03uh and then we move down into the
9:04profile section and the profile section
9:06is just kind of a general feel of what
9:09your capabilities are and what your
9:11competencies are
9:12we're not going to drill down into the
9:14nitty gritty as you're going to see here
9:16this is just kind of an overall who is
9:18brian and what is he capable of
9:20and so for my profile you can see i have
9:22experience with both residential and
9:24heavy civil projects
9:25i have a background in a corporate
9:27environment because as you guys have
9:28known from my channel
9:30i have a banking background but then i
9:32also have extensive field
9:34experience because i've been out in the
9:36field for the last 10 years
9:37i'm an efficient finished dozer operator
9:39but i also
9:40i want to make sure they know that i
9:42have large dozer experience
9:44i'm very careful with my wording here
9:46i'm very confident in my finished dosing
9:48abilities
9:49i'm very confident in my hogging
9:51abilities as well
9:52but what employers are looking for most
9:54of the time is can you finish
9:55grade with a dozer and i can and i'm
9:58very confident in that i do however have
10:00some larger dozer experience
10:02but it's limited it's okay to talk about
10:05things you have experience with
10:07in a limited manner but you have to be
10:09careful not to oversell yourself because
10:11that's where you run into problems with
10:12your employer
10:13if they choose to go forward with you so
10:15you can see here i do have larger dozer
10:18experience but i make sure that i don't
10:20really play that up
10:21so then i have excavator experience all
10:23the way from mini machines all the way
10:24up to 50 ton machines again like i
10:26talked about
10:27i have sat in the 385 and loaded trucks
10:29for about six hours before
10:31i'm not putting the 385 i'm not saying
10:33that i have that 85 to 90 ton
10:35excavator experience on my resume
10:37because i really don't i'm not a
10:38proficient operator
10:40in that machine i've run it but i'm not
10:43a proficient operator
10:44so then it's capable of handling task
10:46heavy operations with little supervision
10:48that's going to give the employer an
10:50idea of you don't have to babysit me you
10:52can give me a bunch of things to do
10:54or what i'm specifically referencing
10:57here is my
10:58experience as a loader operator on a
11:00pipe crew
11:01you can give me a huge variety of tasks
11:04and i can handle all of those tasks
11:06without you having to babysit me all day
11:08so that's a very important piece of
11:09information to put up there in your
11:10profile because that tells someone okay
11:12this guy knows how to think for himself
11:14then we're going to move down into our
11:15work history section and again this is
11:17going to be dependent totally upon you
11:19guys
11:19if you are and i've had a fair amount of
11:21you guys if you are previous military
11:23and you just got out of the military
11:25absolutely highlight that here in your
11:27work history section
11:28don't feel like that needs to be moved
11:30to the bottom and kind of relegated
11:32someplace else
11:33absolutely put that in there that's
11:34going to shine now if you're not
11:36active military or if you didn't just
11:38get out of being active military and
11:40it's a little further back in your work
11:42history don't worry about it there's a
11:44section we're going to get to where we
11:46can
11:46still reference that military history
11:48without having it in your work
11:50experience your work experience
11:52needs to be in order starting your last
11:56job that you just came from to the
11:59oldest job and you generally want to do
12:01no more than three or four jobs because
12:03if you do more than that it's going to
12:04tell your employer that you bounce
12:06around a lot
12:07and that is going to cause you problems
12:09because no one wants an employee that
12:10bounces around every six to eight weeks
12:12or six to eight months so i was an
12:15outside sales representative with
12:16southeastern equipment
12:18and i actually believe it or not i have
12:20gone in and edited this
12:22resume down from what it was before i
12:24made this video because
12:26i actually had this section beefed up a
12:28fair amount because the jobs i was
12:30pursuing
12:31were a little more geared towards that
12:33sales position and i really wanted to
12:34plate up that experience
12:36but you're going to notice here i
12:37actually took out a good two bullet
12:39points
12:39that were solid bullet points but they
12:41don't really apply if i were
12:43applying to work as a heavy equipment
12:46operator again
12:47and so i've actually shrunk this section
12:49down so that i could expound on my
12:51experience
12:51in the field a little more so here i
12:54prospected
12:55new customers via cold calls and site
12:57visits i coordinated or i'm sorry i
12:59maintained existing customer
13:01relationships with regular contacts that
13:03shows people that i come back and i'm
13:04thorough and i keep following up
13:07i coordinated equipment rentals and
13:08trucking the fact that you can
13:10coordinate if you can talk about being
13:12able to coordinate that's going to go a
13:13long way with an employer because it
13:14means that you're a critical thinker
13:16they don't have to sit there and babysit
13:18you if you're capable of coordinating
13:20these things
13:21you can figure out where your haul
13:22trucks need to go if you run out of
13:24material here
13:25that's not something that they have to
13:26continually monitor you
13:29arrange financing coordinated loaner
13:31machines again with the coordinating
13:33anytime you can work that in there
13:34that's a really good thing to do
13:37moving down i was a heavy equipment
13:39operator and you've got my dates of
13:41employment there
13:42i also want you to notice here when i
13:44start talking about dan's excavating
13:46in parentheses i actually put what the
13:49focus was of that company
13:50so if you have previous experience with
13:53landscaping or excavating or anything
13:55like that
13:56it's okay to emphasize kind of what your
13:58specialty was
14:00because at the end of the day no one
14:01knows if you're not from michigan
14:03central michigan no one knows what dan's
14:05excavating is
14:06is that a small 15-person company or is
14:09that a huge
14:09300 person company is it a marine
14:11company
14:12so it's okay to put a little small
14:14description like i've got here
14:16to kind of give the your future employer
14:18an idea of what kind of company you're
14:20looking at this is where we're going to
14:22get into specifics and you can see my
14:24formatting is off when i
14:25when i shuffled this over to google
14:27documents for whatever reason the
14:28formatting is a little off this needs to
14:30be all lined up here
14:32uh when we come down to these lines in
14:34fact we can do that right now i'm just
14:35going to bump this
14:37maybe i'm not because i don't know how
14:38to use google docs
14:40so what i would do is i would pull this
14:42oh it did it it did it look at that guys
14:44it did it it's just a little laggy for
14:47me
14:48too far so i'm not going to do this
14:51well maybe i will do this whole thing
14:53while we're
14:54doing the video here and this is really
14:56important as
14:57tedious as this is formatting this and
15:00making it look nice
15:01is very important because attention to
15:04detail
15:04is something they're looking for they
15:07want you to be able to
15:08know what you're doing so we're just
15:11going to clean this up a little bit here
15:13make sure all our bullet points are in
15:15line so again
15:18that little dog snuck back over there
15:21there we go okay so dan's excavating
15:24this is where you want to get into the
15:26nitty-gritty of what you actually
15:28did for your former employer you're
15:30gonna notice i don't just say
15:31i ran dozers now if i were applying for
15:34a sales position
15:36yeah i'd say i ran dozers and i would
15:37leave it at that next line i ran
15:39excavators i would leave it at that
15:41i would probably focus a lot more on the
15:44material management that i did
15:46when i was running loader for a pipe
15:47crew or the number of tasks i was given
15:50or the fact that i was kind of helping
15:52to
15:53coordinate people on the job and
15:54trucking and all of that stuff i want to
15:56play into the strengths of the future
15:58job that i'm going for
15:59but since we're looking to get a job as
16:02a heavy equipment operator
16:04we need to dive into the details they
16:05want to know what machines what size
16:07what were you doing with them
16:09so i operated cat d6t d6k and d6 in
16:12dozers
16:13doing rough and finish work that's
16:16important they need to know what you're
16:17capable of doing in that dozer
16:19because anyone can run a dozer but can
16:22you finish grade with a dozer
16:24that's important ran cat 938 for various
16:26crews including multiple pipe crews
16:28you'll notice there i
16:29pulled pipe crews out specific anyone
16:32who's been in the industry will tell you
16:33that there's a big difference between
16:35someone who can just run a loader around
16:37and someone who can run a loader for a
16:40pipe crew it's a very
16:41task heavy job you're coordinating a
16:43bunch of different things you're having
16:45to think ahead of where the crew is
16:47actually at
16:48so it's really important to actually
16:50pull that out
16:51specific instead of just leaving it as i
16:54know how to run a loader
16:55uh rain excavators ranging from a cat308
16:58all the way up to cat 349 and i was
17:00loading trucks and performing pipe work
17:02again there we're going to pull out
17:03those tasks
17:04separately because each one shows that
17:07you can do
17:07multiple things with those machines i
17:09was commonly called on to assist with
17:11forecasting orders and job site
17:13materials
17:14again this is referring to when i was
17:15running the loader for the pipe crew
17:17because
17:17i was in charge of telling the foreman
17:19when we were going to run out of
17:20material and when we needed it i had to
17:22give him a couple days notice
17:24again this is going to tell your
17:25employer does this guy know how to think
17:27on his feet can he
17:28react on the fly can he make big
17:30decisions and help and can we possibly
17:33believe it or not employers think about
17:34this when they're hiring you can we
17:36possibly move him into a foreman
17:38position down the road
17:39is he a candidate for some sort of
17:42management worked on large scale heavy
17:44large-scale civil projects including
17:46highway and airport jobs
17:47tell them what exactly you did not just
17:49big jobs
17:51what big jobs what have you done and i
17:52was also a frequent point of contact
17:54between multiple crews
17:55inspectors foreman to organize tasks
17:58again
17:59referencing the loader experience but
18:02that's a yet another
18:03aspect that is very important to display
18:06so i'm not going to read through
18:07everything here you guys can kind of do
18:09that on your own but i do want to move
18:11down to this section at the bottom where
18:13we go into
18:13education this is where if you have a
18:16military history or you have some very
18:18relevant applicable experience but it's
18:20further back in your work history
18:23we can absolutely do that in this
18:24section so education
18:26i went to college i got a college degree
18:28as always you want to put that in there
18:30if you have a degree
18:31this would be a great place if you went
18:33to a trade school to put that
18:34certification
18:35if you have any osha certifications
18:37mining certifications anything that's
18:39applicable to the industry
18:40that's not job experience related
18:44but it's important to get on there this
18:46is a great section to do that
18:48and with relevant experience i would
18:50absolutely throw in your military
18:52background if you have landscaping
18:53background if you have
18:55some sort of position that had you out
18:56in the elements you want to emphasize
18:58those things that we talked about
19:00earlier
19:00that employers are looking for if you
19:03can't work that into your work history
19:06this is a section where you can really
19:08pull those things out
19:10and you can highlight the fact that you
19:11do have relevant experience you have
19:13some things that apply to the industry
19:16so again if you guys have any questions
19:18on this aspect
19:19of formulating the resume don't hesitate
19:21to shoot me a message or comment down
19:23below
19:24i have no problem doing some workshops
19:26if you guys want to do that in the
19:27future perhaps on one of our live
19:28streams we can
19:30year one towards resume building
19:31specifically i have no problem doing
19:33something along those lines
19:35but now now that we have this this is a
19:38great
19:38form that you can email to someone but
19:41if we want to go deliver it in person
19:43there's one more step that we need to do
19:45and to do that we need to go on a road
19:46trip
19:47so with that being said i'll see you in
19:48a minute
19:57that's what we're shooting for okay so
20:00here we are at walmart
20:02in the home office section and we're
20:04looking for
20:05this right here so it doesn't make sense
20:08to do all of that work to make a really
20:09nice resume if you're not going to put
20:11it on some
20:11decently nice paper so don't put your
20:14resume on
20:14plain printer paper and you can see you
20:18can get like your
20:19basic a basic bottom of the line nice
20:21paper
20:22for 7.97 it's still going to be kind of
20:24white color
20:25i tend to lean towards something like
20:28this here
20:29in fact let's take it off where you can
20:31see you've got a little brown color to
20:32it
20:33it's got a little texture that's just me
20:36maybe you don't have a paper fetish like
20:38i do but you feel like a million bucks
20:40when you print it on nice paper so why
20:41not do it so
20:42anyway we're gonna grab one of these
20:44things of paper it's gonna last me for
20:47i don't know 40 different job
20:48applications and it's only costing us
20:51eight bucks nine bucks
20:52so let's go check out
21:02all right back to the house
21:16[Music]
21:43[Music]
21:56[Music]
22:01and that's that that's building a resume
22:04that's what it takes
22:05to produce a well refined document that
22:08will get an
22:09employer to at least consider you for a
22:11position at their company
22:13so there's really not a whole lot to it
22:15it is time consuming i will say that
22:17just going through my work history and
22:18redoing that aspect of my resume
22:20probably took me about 20 to 30 minutes
22:22so it's not terrible
22:24but it does take a little time spend the
22:26time doing it
22:27it's well worth it this is your first
22:29impression to your future employer
22:31so make it count make sure you don't
22:33have any misspellings
22:34one thing i did want to point out too
22:36you'll notice i had a lot of big words
22:37on that resume
22:38i don't use big words every day great
22:40tip
22:41write your resume out even if you use
22:43the same words for multiple items on
22:45your resume
22:46write it all out and then take some of
22:48those words that you use a lot
22:50go to google and search for synonyms of
22:53the same word
22:54that way you can vary the way you're
22:56saying things so it's not repetitive but
22:58it still gets that meaning across
23:00i use the word extensive extensively all
23:02the time
23:03and so it's going to come off as being
23:05very repetitive and very redundant
23:07if i just keep using it over and over so
23:09i went to the good old google
23:10and got a synonym and that's how i get
23:12words like in depth and
23:14knowledgeable and other things that i
23:16use in place of extensive
23:18so that's just another helpful tip for
23:19you guys so i hope this has been helpful
23:22as always comment down below with any
23:24questions and we'll catch you guys on
23:25the next video
23:36you