A Client Landed a Management Consulting Job During the Pandemic With an Engineering Background

Had Her Original Job Offer Rescinded Due to the Pandemic

Nancy was a client of mine and reached out to me due to her dire situation. She was in her third year in engineering and was getting ready to start her 8 month co-op job that starts in the summer. Then the pandemic hit causing widespread panic in the business world resulting in mass layoffs and hiring freezes in key industries.

Nancy’s co-op was at a company focused in the entertainment industry and with mandatory social distancing in effect, the company had to temporary close down all their locations, lay off tons of workers and rescind job offers, Nancy being one of the casualties.

The only positive to this, is that her job offer was rescinded in March, meaning that she still had time to salvage her co-op term for this summer and could still apply to openings from other companies.

She updated her resume as best she could and started scouring the online job boards to see what was still available. She applied to 30 - 40 online job ads with no response. Online job applications are extremely time consuming to do and with her lack of results she was starting to feel frustrated and was losing hope. She realized that her worst case scenario would come true, which was to go back to school and push her co-op term to the new year.

Reviewed Her Resume and Guided Her on Improvement

Nancy ended up reaching out to me to see if I could take a look at her resume and provide some guidance on how to improve it. Although she is currently in engineering, she really wanted to pivot into the business side of things, specifically into management consulting, which poses two challenges:

1) She wants to land a job during the pandemic when there aren’t a lot of jobs available and has to do it before her co-op term starts.

2) She’s competing with tons of other students that had their offers rescinded due to the pandemic, with some of these students working on business degrees that are more aligned in the field that she wants to get into.

I took a look at her resume and provided the following recommendations.

1) Make it Easy for the Interviewer to Understand Your Purpose

The main issue she had when she was interviewing prior to the pandemic was she was getting a lot of questions from interviewers when she was interviewing for a business related position about why she is applying to business roles with an engineering background.

She then would have to explain her story about why she wants to get into business.

She changed her resume headline from:

“3rd Year Engineering Student”

to

“3rd Year Engineering Student Looking to Build a Career In Business”

Even if the interviewer asks her the same question, about why she wants to get into business, it would be more from a curiosity, positive standpoint compared to a confused standpoint.

It goes from:

“Why did you apply to a business position?”

to

“What makes you interested in building a career in business?”

2) Adding Her LinkedIn URL to Her Resume

You can only tell so much with a sheet of paper to a recruiter or hiring manager. By providing your LinkedIn profile in your resume it does two things:

• In today’s world, most recruiters and hiring managers are likely going to look you on LinkedIn somewhere down the interview process, whether it’s prior to interviewing you or whether they should extend you the offer; therefore by providing your LinkedIn profile in the resume, you will make it easier for them to search for you. In addition, it shows you have nothing to hide.

• It tells a fuller picture of you; therefore make sure you maximize your About section as well as your Featured section. You should feature things that would make you a standout candidate such as:

  • Articles that show your expertise

  • Portfolio pieces

  • Awards you have won

  • An About Me slide deck that shows some of your personality

3) Condense Summary and Make It More Meaningful

The standard jargon of saying you’re a team player and you are motivated doesn’t work anymore as anyone can say that. What makes you stand out from other candidates is what combination of experience and skills you have that others don’t.

I suggested to Nancy instead of utilizing very broad points as mentioned earlier, focus on your unique combination of experience and skills to differentiate yourself from the competition.

4) Show More Quantifiable Results In Your Work Experience

Many job seekers are still utilizing their resume as a way to list their responsibilities. Anyone can do your job, what makes you do the job differently compared to others are your results.

My simple formula to write killer quantifiable bullet points are:

• What did you do?

• How did you do it?

• What was the result?

5) Condense Education

Nancy already had a ton of work experience so expanding on her education isn’t necessary, the simple formula of:

• What degree are you getting?

• When are you getting it?

• What university you are getting it at?

Is good enough.

New Revised Resume Resulted in 20% Response Rate with a New Job Offer

With her new revised resume, she went from feeling frustrated and hopeless, to confident and determined and was back on the job hunt.

Her new revised resume ended up getting her a response rate of 20% at her target roles.

She ended up getting and accepting an 8 month co-op job at a management consulting company at the start of summer, saving her co-op term.

The pandemic might make things seem all gloom and doom with mass layoffs and many companies not hiring at this time; however with my guidance in combination with your determination, we can get the job you want in any economic climate.