All restrictions put in place by the COVID-19 pandemic couldn’t stop Women in Big Data in Silicon Valley from having our interactive, hands-on workshop with executive coach Robert (Bob) G. Loftis online on April 14. On contrary, since the event was online, we were able to invite members from our sister chapters around the globe to join us.

The workshop was second in a sequence of several events this year planned by WiBD Silicon Valley with Bob, focusing on Communication and Career Growth Skills. Thanks to fabulous effort of WiBD volunteers Mridula Alani, Stella Mashkevitch, Regina Carson and Tina Tang the event was a sound success!

Women in Big Data (WiBD) member Mridula Alani, SOC Design Engineer at Intel, kicked off the session with an introduction about WiBD and Bob Loftis.

The workshop was focused on how to up-level one’s resume. We discussed how to quantify one’s past project successes, how to match achievements to job descriptions, and how to speak our brand as we focus on doing work that influences beyond routine tasks and responsibilities.

Members had multiple opportunities to discuss their experiences with Bob and with each other in smaller groups, asking specific questions. Using the I-O-A (Issue-Opportunities-Actions) technique, we tried to think over our experiences to put forward a quantifiable statement of past successes.

Bob suggested several online tools to analyze and match one’s resume to a job description, such as tagcrowd.com and jobscan.co. He also recommended an easy and eye catching resume format to follow. More information is available at Bob’s website.

There were many other takeaways from this session, difficult to fit in a short blog. At the end of the session participants had a clear path to a strengthened version of their resumes and powerful speaking points for interviews.

We just proved that even in this world of COVID-19 shelter-in-place, we can very effectively and interactively work on our brand and our resume, preparing ourselves for expanding careers ahead.

You can download session documents here:

• Session Presentation
• Worksheet to Help Create I-O-A Stories
• Older Resume Sample
• Waldo Resume