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COVID-19 University Support And Resources

Managing your finances

COVID-19 University Support And Resources

Managing your finances

Hi, my name is Chris Conway, and I work in the financial education and repayment management team at the University of Phoenix.

These are trying times, and financial uncertainty is maybe adding to your concerns.

Money management is about the basics. It’s knowing where your money is going, where it needs to go, and spending less than you earn.

When we’re facing financial challenges, the most important thing to do is get back to the basics.
I’ll share some tips and resources that can apply to all of us and then a bit more information for those with reduced income.

Because the effects of this pandemic are so wide spread, relief is being offered to many of those impacted. That’s where we’ll start here with the CARES Act.

The CARES Act was passed on March 27th. This act includes an economic-impact payment that many people will receive by April 17th.

The IRS will determine your payment amount using your 2019 or 2018 tax return.

If the IRS has your bank-account information, you should receive the money via direct deposit by April 17th.
If not, a paper check may be issued and delivered through the mail.

Also, if you haven’t recently filed taxes in 2018 or ’19, you may need to file a simple tax return.
You can find more information about that as it’s available on the IRS coronavirus information page. That is on this next slide.

Another part of the act is that payments on federally-held student loans are suspended through September 30, 2020.
For these loans, you don’t need to contact the loan servicer. It will be automatically applied.

Interest will not be accruing during this time. If you’re able to make payments, you can continue to do so, and the amount that you pay will be applied to your principal balance.

Please note that this suspension of payments does not apply to private loans or loans not held by the federal government.

If you’re unclear about your loans, contact your servicer to learn more.

Now, let’s look at some money-management basics, some tweaks that can be made as we go through this pandemic.

First, if you don’t have a budget, now is really the time to create one. A budget is your spending plan that shows where your money will go.

It can be as simple as having it on a piece of paper. It could be on a spreadsheet, or you can use an app as long as you are telling your money where it needs to go. This helps you track that.

In good times, you can work towards a zero-base budget where you apply every dollar to a stated purpose.
A simple budgeting method to use would be the 50/30/20 plan.

Using your after-tax income under this plan, 50 percent of their income would go to needs, things like food and rent and transportation, 30 percent would go to wants, 20 percent would go to savings.

It could be having that emergency fund or investments for the future. Then you need to know how your money is being spent throughout the month to know what you have left.

You can do this by tracking your spending. Again, you can do this in a simple old-fashioned way of writing all your expenses down on a piece of paper, or you can use an app from your bank or another source.

Apps make it easy to track where you are, but reviewing and writing it down really keeps you in touch with the money and how you’re spending it. That could be an important way to do this.

During this period, it would also be smart to set up a weekly or a bi-weekly household review so that you can make changes as soon as they’re needed.

Then look at ways you can lower other expenses that you have.

We need to eat, but you can use more coupons, or you can plan meals to get the most out of the food that you do buy.

Do a search online for coupon sites or meal-planning sites, and you’ll likely find some that will work for you.

With more time spent social distancing, we’ve probably learned a lot of new ways to have fun that don’t require going out and spending money.

Going out for a walk costs nothing. Cards and board games might be in your basement already. Talking to friends and family by phone or video can be a good, cheap way to pass the time and stay in touch with people.

Next, if you have bills that can’t be fully paid, contact your creditors and the banks.

Again, since the effects of this pandemic are so widespread, many creditors are making exceptions to help customers through these times.

Some will allow partial payments, some are lowering interest rates or waving fees, and some are even deferring payment.

I’ve heard of some banks that are postponing car and mortgage payments as well as credit cards. Don’t assume that your debt will not be eligible.

You do need to tell them if you’re in need of some help because they won’t know otherwise.

Some people are working and doing okay, and others need some help. One exception to this is, as I pointed out earlier, the federally-held student loans.

You don’t need to contact the servicer for that, and you’ll find your account status online for those.

Building an emergency fund. A general rule of thumb is to try to maintain savings to cover six months of expenses that you can draw on in an emergency like this. Many people aren’t able to save that much.

Any amount that you have in savings can be really helpful at a time like this. If you’re able to, look for any opportunity to build that emergency fund for now or for the future.

Lastly, if you’re able to do so, if you are working and things have stayed pretty steady, consider giving money and time to help those in need.

There are local and national organizations and funds that are being created to help people get through these times. It feels good to help and to know that help is available if you need it.

Now we’ll talk a bit about the loss of or having reduced income. If you’ve lost your job, you may be eligible for unemployment benefits and should start that process right away.

The CARES Act passed on March 27th provided additional benefits for the unemployed.

Your state determines the weekly amount that you would receive, and that’s based primarily on your earnings and how long you’ve worked.

The act allows for an extra $600 a week, and that would end July 31st. Most states allow for 26 weeks of unemployment payments, and the CARES Act extends that by up to 13 weeks.

Another change applies to people not usually eligible for these benefits who might now be eligible.

That includes self-employed, gig workers, independent contractors, and part-time workers. Each of these should look into applying for unemployment benefits.

Check with your state unemployment office to learn what you may be eligible for and if you can apply right now.

Now is the time to create an emergency striped-down budget, really just for the needs. We mentioned the 50/30/20 plan. That 50 percent for what you really truly need, have that in your budget.

What are the absolute must haves? Again, it’ll be food and housing, utilities, transportation.

Look at the budget that you have and the spending that you’re doing to find any non-essentials that you can eliminate or reduce.

Can you lower your car-insurance payment if you aren’t driving to work each day? Do you have some savings because daycare is no longer needed or open?

Can you cancel gym membership? What subscriptions do you have that you can cancel?

Every little bit will really help at this point and make sure that your money is going to the true necessities.

Next, if you have less money coming in, get creative about things that you can do to earn some money.

What skills can you monetize? What items do you have around that you can sell? What paid work can you be doing now?

If you’re currently unemployed, can you pick up something fulltime or part time with a business in increased demand?

It might not be the job that you want long term, but it’ll help you get through for now.

If you need help, consider social services or community resources that can help with finding options for aid.

On here, I’ve listed United Ways’ 211.org., which is one tool that allows you to find resources including food, housing, and utility assistance in your community.

iGrad coronavirus hub. You can find that on your account if you’re a student at University of Phoenix.

I will have the link added to the PowerPoint here for you if you wanted to grab those. Here you go. There’s some IRS information, iGrad, and United Way.

These are resources available, and they’re there for you to use. It’s okay to ask for help.

Apr 07, 2020 • 9min 14sec

COVID-19 University Support And Resources

Taking Great Care of Customers in a Crisis

COVID-19 University Support And Resources

Taking Great Care of Customers in a Crisis

Greetings.

My name is Ruth Veloria.

I am the Chief Strategy and Customer Officer at the University of Phoenix.

Our topic today is, Taking Great Care of Customers in a Crisis.

I’m gonna be sharing with you some lessons I’ve learned, personally, through my own career and through my great interactions with the leaders at Bain & Company, especially Fred Reichheld and Rob Markey, and, of course, from my great colleagues here at the University of Phoenix.

We’ll be sharing some examples of how to put these principles into life in our presentation today.

I wanna start with a quote that was important to me when I was in the financial services industry in the ’90s.
“Every interaction with others is an opportunity to either increase the connection with them or to break that connection.”

At this time, when many of our customers are deeply concerned about things outside of their control it’s a time of great stress for them.

It’s also a time of great opportunity for your brand or your company to be able to step in and truly deepen those relationships with customers.

Managing through crises with customers well could be a really important time for you to truly accelerate the loyalty of your customers to your brand.

It’s a great opportunity to do—show up well and therefore to cement loyalty for life. Since many of our students and alumni actually run their own business, this topic is really, really important to them as they focus on taking their businesses to the next level through this crisis.

I wanna start with sharing some thoughts about the actions you should be taking right now and again, very inspired by Rob Markey, my colleague that I’ve worked with over the years at Bain & Company.

One important thing to do right now is to go through these three steps but to do them in the right order.

First of all, you should be asking yourself, “Where does my product fit in my customer’s priorities right now?”

You might be an essential business. If you’re in the essential business category then your most important priorities are to make sure that customers know how to get ahold of you.

You may have closed physical locations. Do you have a website that tells customers where they should now get ahold of you?

If you’ve had to curtail your phone hours and phone service, where are those new hours published, and how, in general, are you extending your touchpoints with customers to make sure that they know how to get ahold of you?
Of course, if you’re not in the essential products category, you may just be a small and local business, but you may have very, very deep relationships with a small set of local customers.

Those customers, right now, really want to interact and help you to keep your business running, so it’s important that you let them know how it is that they can help you. What is the help that you need?

Whether it’s now doing remote ordering instead of coming to your physical location or sending messages of support out on their social networks, what could it be that they could do to help you?

Third, if you’re not an essential or a well-known and loved local product, it’s often a really good idea right now to be especially quiet.

There are a lot of messages in customer’s ears. I’m speaking for myself. I’m getting hundreds of messages, both as a vendor to my university and, of course, as an individual consumer.

I’m ignoring the vast majority of those messages because the second step is really very important here in this process, and that is to really know, can your existing product help with an immediate need in the community?
If it does, it is important for you to get the message out about what your product can do to help others.

If you do have those things, think about ways to bring those solutions to market.

A small example perhaps being these webinars that we’re doing for our students and alumni at the University of Phoenix.

Then third, but not at all unimportant, is this could be a good time, after the first two questions have been assessed, to be thinking about, how does your product need to evolve for the new normal?

What is the new normal? Well, it’s certainly an expectation that our customers will be hoping to interact with us more virtually and more digitally, for the foreseeable future, since they’ve got used to the convenience of doing that.

It also may mean they have more fears and anxieties. You may have a lot more competition in this time.

They have learnt ways to solve customer problems that you were not equipped to do, and you should be assessing the competition and working out how to evolve your product to keep it relevant for the future.

Now, that’s a lot about what you should be saying. We also need to be mindful of how we should be communicating with customers at this time.

Of course, wisdom essentially collected over the ages, you could site a number of sources for how to talk to customers, but the golden rule, I think it goes without saying, this is not a time to be opportunistically commercial.

I’ve written that right up at the top of the page. Assuming that we all follow that and understand why that’s important, I have picked out five of the ideas I’ve read about for communicating with customers, and that we use here at the University of Phoenix, as some key golden rules for this time.

The first one, as we’ve already discussed, especially for essential businesses, be available for customers. Make sure they know how to get ahold of you.

When you do interact with them, really important that you acknowledge what’s happening.

I’ve had a lot of marketing messages in my inmail these days telling me about products I could be buying in sales that I could be taking advantage of but without acknowledging the crisis. It’s falling flat for me.

Therefore, it’s really important, as you look at the communications with customers, that you’re reassessing the words and the tone in those communications. We’ve certainly taken a look at the way we’re positioning things that we do at the University of Phoenix on our website, and I’ll show you some examples of that shortly.

Number four, be transparent. Customers really want to know that you know what safety issues are, potentially, with interacting with them in their locations. How you’re taking care of your employees.

Making sure that your products are safe and appropriate at this time. Really take the time to be clear with customers about what you’re doing on behalf of them and on behalf of your employees.

Then fifth on our list here, be relevant or be quiet.

As I previously mentioned, there is a tremendous amount of traffic and messages coming to everybody these days, whether it’s on the television, through their YouTube videos, through their email inboxes. It’s very cluttered.

If you do not have anything relevant and important to say this time, you are wasting your money and your energy in communicating. Better to say nothing, at this point, than to be lost in the noise.

Now, as we start to use this time to plan for the future, this is a great time to be thinking about how our consumer’s needs are gonna be shifting in the future.

I also wanna reference another great piece of work by Bain & Company, first published in HBR in 2016.

There’s two versions of this paper that speak about the elements of value. There’s a paper about that for the B2C, or consumer market, and then one for the B2B, business market.

Of late, they’ve recently republished this on their website and talked specifically about what customers will value more, in the near term, as we start to come out of the crisis.

When you read the full article, you’ll see that they’re taking Maslow’s hierarchy approach to thinking through all the different needs that customers might have.

Then, the circles here in the diagram represent elements of value, as they call them, that are things that you can be doing, value that you can be delivering as you construct your services and products for the future.

The hierarchy, of course, begins at the bottom, in Maslow’s world, with food and shelter and the other such basic needs and then progresses through functional and emotional and then, eventually, to self-actualization styles of needs.

You can see here in the diagram there are six of the elements of value that they’ve focused on for the ways that customer needs will be shifting and therefore, how our products would be adapting in the future.

Three of them, in particular, speak to me about that basic level. Reducing anxiety. Reducing risk.

How can your product be mindful of anxieties and risks that your consumers face, and how do you adapt and incorporate those needs into your future product? Three of them, in particular, speak to me about that basic level. Reducing anxiety. Reducing risk.

Three of them, in particular, speak to me about that basic level. Reducing anxiety. Reducing risk.

Which may, of course, lead to increasing your availability or the flexibility of your product. Maybe that’s physical flexibility, as many of us are experiencing right now, or maybe it’s time flexibility, a lot of what we do here at the University of Phoenix.

Then, there’s stability. In a time when many things are out of a consumer’s control, your product being stable and predictable will be of a reassurance to them.

Do think about ways that you can add stability into your offering. Last here, of the six, is a mention of social responsibility.

This is the highest order in the framework of ways that your brand could be contributing and adding value.

A lot of our consumers today take great, great pride in associating with socially responsible brands.

What is it that your brand could be doing, both now and sustaining into the future, that helps our community be better after this crisis than it was before?

Here’s a few examples now of how University of Phoenix is incorporating these principles into our messages with our students and alumni.

Firstly, there you notice that, together, we sow webinars, the example that we’re in at the moment.

Those are ways that we are putting relevant information out to our students, leveraging things that we have that can help right now.

Then, in terms of revisiting the tone and the wording, you’ll see the blue bar there, “Online, but never on your own.” It’s the latest messaging that we’re sending out to our students, recognizing, acknowledging, that right now they—some people might be, in fact, on their own and studying at home, maybe in a quarantine situation.

The University of Phoenix has a lot of great counselors that are here to support you every step of the way. We’re making sure that people understand that that is part of our value proposition.

Then lastly here on the page, we have our phoenix to phoenix social media example. At this time, creating affiliation and belonging across your customer base may be very helpful.

In our case, connecting students going through this process together but separately, geographically, they’re able to share their tips and tricks for success, and it really brings them together to help each other out in a time when, otherwise, they might be feeling quite by themselves.

Just a few examples there are the things that University is doing to make these principles come to life for you.

I actually want to end on a note that’s not about customers at all really. It’s first and foremost about employees.

Of course, many people have spoken about this topic over the years here. We’re illustrating Richard Branson and Bill Marriott, but this notion that if you take care of your employees, they will take care of your business.

Really very simple philosophy but I think we’re coming to understand how important it is that our employees have their basic needs met.

Of course, we often think of that as the tools to do their job, but right now, those needs have gone to the next lowest level in the hierarchy of the food and shelter level. “Is my job safe? Do I have sick pay?

“How is my employer helping me stay safe? Do I have work-at-home policies? How are they protecting me in this time?” I want to leave you there with that most important principle of actually remembering that employees come first of all.

I do hope these tips have been valuable for you, especially if you’re running your own business.

I wish you every success in stabilizing your business and setting it up for success in the years to come.

Apr 03, 2020 • 13min 35sec

COVID-19 University Support And Resources

Entrepreneurs’ and Small Business Recommendation Guide for Covid-19

COVID-19 University Support And Resources

Entrepreneurs’ and Small Business Recommendation Guide for Covid-19

Hello.

Today, we’ll be talking about entrepreneurs and small business recommendations guide for COVID-19.

My name is Dr. Dave Aikens.

Fighting the coronavirus.

The pandemic is causing lots of risk for small business and entrepreneurs.

Agencies, the U.S. government, and Chamber—U.S. Chamber of Commerce are working together to keep businesses informed with up to date information and also to help prevent the spread of the virus.

These efforts continue to include helping small businesses and entrepreneurs plan for short and long term effects of this pandemic.

The following slides will discuss some recommendations.

Be transparent and communicate.

Everyone is going through this together. Communicate, be transparent and honest about what your business is going through, be honest with your employees and also your customers.

Customers appreciate and sympathize with brands and businesses that are facing crisis.

If you don’t create a connection now, it will be difficult to create a connection later on, and if you do create a connection with your customers now, those will be connections that’ll last a long time, well beyond the end of the crisis.

First thing, protect your employees. Establish a work at home option. We’ll be discussing how that might work in a minute here.

There are many free and low cost options that can be used to implement keep teams and coworkers working together.

Creating a work at home policy needs to include expectations of communication, when people are gonna be available.

When are they not available? People have other considerations when they’re at home. They may have children.

They may have relatives that they’re taking care of, even pets that need to be taken care of at times.

Spread out the responsibilities among your team. Hold your meetings virtually.

We’ll discuss—make some recommendations here in a minute.

Providing flexibility. Have some understanding that people aren’t gonna be able to do—perform the same ways they would in an office.

In some cases, they may perform better, and in other cases, they may have some constraints on their performance.

Be flexible and your employees should respond. Then create a contingency plan in case people start getting sick and you still need items to be done.

Consider temporary employees, contractors, and other options.

How should you communicate? There’s a couple of different ways to communicate. You’ve got business to business versus business to consumer.

Communication’s different, and you probably understand this already, but—in how people are communicating.

Are they on a platform of desktop or laptop? Are they on their tablet? Are they on a PC or a Mac?

Are they on a phone, smartphone? Is it IOS or Android? Those are just some considerations that’ll affect how people can communicate.

Agree on a collaboration platform. Some are free. Microsoft comes with Skype, comes with Skype for Business, comes with Microsoft Teams.

Some implementations require installation and maintenance, and others can be run from the cloud.

Consider something that can be brought up very quickly, which is usually something that’s running in the cloud, but feel comfortable with that because your information’s gonna be stored there too.

Cisco Webex meetings, Webex teams, and Jabber are highly secure ways that you can communicate, and at least for basic versions that handle a certain number of people, they’re free.

The same with Zoom. You can get a Zoom room that can share a certain number of people, up to 10 or 20 people for free, and then over that amount, you can pay a monthly fee.

A lot of schools and organizations like schools are using Zoom to communicate.

There are some security issues you just need to be aware of. A lot of them are caused by just people being a little lax about their passwords and their meeting numbers, and so if you pay attention to that, you can increase the security of Zoom.

Your customers may communicate via Google Hangouts, Facetime, or Facebook Meet, or even by text and e mail, so you have to be able to receive and send messages in those modes.

Then social media. Tell people when you’re open. Tell people how to reach you.

Put hours on, maybe if you’re a restaurant, your menus, what’s in stock if you’re retail. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are great platforms for that.

Best practices for a meeting.

Before, agree on a time if you can and set up before and practice if you can. Don’t wait until five minutes before the meeting to see if you can install and get the program to work.

Use a wired headset like this if you can, or a wireless is okay, or even a mobile phone headset that you get with your smartphone is fine.

A lot of people use the Apple Airpods, for example. You see that on TV a lot. Have some kind of a headset. If not, you’re getting a lot of echo with the PC microphone and the PC speaker. Phone video is acceptable. Have video on if you can.

If you are using your phone, try to have a mount for it so it doesn’t move around a lot, but people like to see—have that connection. Turn your camera on.

We’re all having bad hair days. Frankly, if you’re getting dressed, that’s pretty good. Have some understanding. Turn your camera on. Make that visual connection.

Over 50, 60 percent of communication is physical, is visual as opposed to audio.

Take advantage of that. Use your camera. Dress up at least from the waist up and then share a story of how it’s going for you.

Hopefully, it’s a good story, but everyone is having struggles, and that can kind of bring a group together.

Feel free to have a few moments of the call—of the meeting just to share those experiences during the call and even right before. Have a practice session.

Encourage two way conversation. Ask more questions than you normally would. Discuss how to use the mute button and how to turn it on and off if there’s distractions, if there’s noise in the background, a barking dog.

Also, try to find a quiet place. Not everybody has a quiet place, so have some understanding there. Try to share content, slides, pictures, anything to make something more interesting.

Again, ask more questions than you normally would. Keep the dialogue going. That will really help. Take questions periodically. Don’t drone on about a topic. Again, keep it interactive.

Then provide how to communications. Give a reference sheet. Some people are early adopters, and some people like to follow some instructions on how to get technology to work for them, so try to give them some hints and some instructions that they can go to.

Eventually, everyone will feel comfortable with it. Other business considerations. If you’re a small business, you might give people a chance to buy gift cards to pay for future purchases now.

Maybe leave a large tip. Hopefully, they do. You can leave a large tip for a business that you like.

Use a GoFundMe page if there are, say, wait staff that potentially don’t have any other means to help them, and they’re waiting for their government checks.

Again, make it easier to do business. Establish a way that people can do takeout, or if you’re a restaurant or have social distancing, have lines set up so they can know how to keep far apart.

Get your customers information, again, on your website, on Twitter, Facebook Messenger, text messages. Communicate with them. Keep it up to date.

Keep up to date what—if you can, your information, what’s in stock, et cetera.

Offer flexible payments if that’s an option for you, although some companies are already slowing down payments and conserving cash, so be careful with that, especially as a small business.

Communicate with your employees. Keep them working if you can. Then the new government programs are coming out that will help you as a small business to help keep them working.

If you have major business losses, you may have business insurance or business interruption insurance to cover the unexpected major events.

That might be in your policy, so check with your broker. If not, next time, you might consider getting that kind of insurance just so you don’t suffer unrecoverable losses.

Many entrepreneurs and small businesses are expecting this to have a major impact, so communicate with your suppliers, your investors, local officials, whatever is in your circle of influence and people that influence you.

Let them know that you’re out there. You’re still open for business. They may be able to—you may be able to work out ways you can help each other.

Hopefully, some of these ideas and some of these implementations will help you stay afloat until business returns to normal. It may be a while. We’re hearing that it’s getting extended.

Finally, step up your hygiene. Be obsessive. Don’t shake hands. Wash your hands frequently.

I heard today that they’re recommending that instead of singing happy birthday, you sing baby shark, but instead of baby shark, you say wash your hands.

Don’t touch your face. Remind people not to do that. Keep cleaning knobs.

One thing I read, that some of the larger—some of the areas where there’s more germs are things like the handles on the front door at Starbucks was one of the most—it had the most germs. Just kind of be careful where you touch, and if you do, clean up after.

Finally, there are resources. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has tips for small businesses.

Also, the Small Business Association. Again, there are loans coming out, and you can find information about that at the SBA.gov page.

Hopefully, again, that was helpful. Thank you for watching this video, and we’ll talk to you soon.

Apr 01, 2020 • 10min 17sec

COVID-19 University Support And Resources

Resumes that get noticed

COVID-19 University Support And Resources

Resumes that get noticed

I’m Alice Rush, a certified career counselor with the University of Phoenix and 20 years of experience working on thousands of resumes, while also experienced with national employers and recruiters knowing what they’re looking for today in resumes.

That’s why I’m so excited to lead you through this webinar. Let’s get right to the heart of what’s most important about resumes.

The most important step to writing a resume, is to focus on what’s important to your future boss. If you don’t know, then you won’t be able to write a resume that stands out.

Everything you write should be to show the employer that you understand what’s important to them, and that you’re the best person to help them achieve their goals.

That’s what it means to tailor your resume to the job.

How often do you analyze a job ad for core competencies when updating your resume? That’s really what you wanna do.

In order to tailor your resume to the job, you have to learn what the employer wants from you. Here’s a simple three-step process to do just that.

First, study several job descriptions for the type of job you want. Second, identify the key responsibilities and skills that keep coming up for those job descriptions.

This will tell you exactly what employers are looking for.

Third, align your experience to the job description to show you’re a good fit for the role. Let’s look at an example of how to do this on the right.

Here’s an example of a job description for a project coordinator. The core responsibilities and key words have been highlighted in red.

On the experience section of the resume, this example the candidate has highlighted experiences with projects and the type of skills outlined in the job description.

This candidate made it very easy to identify the projects they’ve worked on by creating a notable project section with detailed descriptions.

That’s how you tailor your resume to the job. This is something you can’t force.

If you don’t have the experience, it would be difficult to demonstrate a fit for the role.

The second step to creating a resume and to get noticed, is to choose the right design and format.

You need to make sure critical information is easy to find and read both by humans and optical scanners.

First, let’s talk about appearance. Your resume appearance matters.

A simple but aesthetically pleasing resume helps you present yourself professionally while also making it easy for your reader to quickly find relevant information.

Start with a blank document, not a Microsoft Word document. MS Word templates usually use embedded tables and content controls which can also cause problems for applicant tracking systems.

It can also be difficult to make changes to your resume later because the templates are difficult to edit. Keep your design simple, and use color in moderation.

If you’re in a conservative industry like law or accounting stick to black and white, but if you’re applying to a hip tech startup, perhaps use color.

The importance thing is to consider your reader and understand the company culture. Use half-inch to one-inch margins all around.

If you want more space for content, use smaller margins. If you don’t have much work history, then perhaps use one-inch margins so it’s easier to fill up the page.

Create clearly labeled sections to make it easy to spot your information. Be consistent with font, font styling, and alignments so the resume has a uniform appearance.

It’s customary for your name to be in larger font as well as your headings. Avoid dense paragraphs and use more bulleted statements to make the resume easy and quick to scan.

Balance text with white space so your resume doesn’t look cluttered. Stick to font styles that are common. These fonts listed in our PowerPoint are all good options.

The top row of the fonts are sans-serif fonts. They don’t have the squiggly lines at the end. They have a modern appearance and feel.

The bottom row are serif fonts, and they give a more traditional look. It’s usually best to stay between a 10 to 12-point font size for the body of your resume, and 14 to 18-point font size for your name and headers.

It’s also important to make sure your information is consistently aligned. As a best practice, list the company name and job titles in the left margin, and always place dates in the right margin.

If you place dates on the left, these two can cause issues with applicant tracking systems, so it’s best to stick with this common format.

When providing your name and contact information, consider how much space you’re using. If you’ve got lots of experience, use the format on top so you can save room for more important information in the resume.

If you have very little work history, and need to fill up the page, use the format on the bottom. It’s also important to make sure you’re using a professional email address which should just be your name.

You can also include your LinkedIn profile if you’ve already polished it up, or link to your portfolio professional website, or any other site used to showcase work that supports your career goal.

When working on your experience section, there are several formats you could use. The reverse-chronological format is the most common.

As you can see in this example, you start with your most recent work experience, and work your way backwards.
Another format you may wish to use is the sub-dates format. This format works well for someone who had two or more positions in the same company.

You list the company once along with the total time spent there followed by your positions and the dates of employment for that particular role in parenthesis.

This way, you see the longevity with one employer but also the growth of different roles within the same company.
The last format I wanna show you is the stack-and-summarize format.

This format is useful for people who have been at one company for most of their career, and have advanced to higher-level roles, but don’t wanna waste space on their resume rehashing experience in the lower-level roles.

When listing your positions with the company, stack your position titles on top of one another, and include sub-dates for each role.

Then underneath the stack positions, write a brief paragraph that summarizes your career progression, and the key accomplishments of your current role.

Another important step to creating a resume that gets noticed, is to provide evidence of your fit.

That means you need to show concrete examples and tangible results. The first step is to find your success stories in creating these tangible results.

Reflect on your experience and ask yourself these questions. How is my performance measured? What metrics can I provide to prove I am a top performer?

Did I improve upon an existing process or solve any specific problems? What did I do that was above and beyond my normal job duties?

These all are excellent questions on this PowerPoint to ask yourself with quantifying your experience.

How do you remember your results? There are many ways to do this, but here are three important steps. First, add numbers to your resume.

Review your resume and look for spaces where you can ask yourself, how much, or how many?

For example, if you managed or trained people, how many people did you train? If you managed a budget, how much money?

Second, share your details. As you review your own resume, look for spaces where you can ask yourself such as, or in what specific way?

For example, if you assisted your manager with a special project, in what specific way did you assist?

If you provide excellent customer service, ask yourself, such as, and try to describe your best example including a specific result.

Third, when talking about certain job duties, you need to say why it matters. Look for statements in your resume where you can ask yourself, so what?

For example, if you implemented a new process, so what? Why was this important, and what value did it add to your employer?

Here’s some examples of bullet statements that were transformed into accomplishments.

Once we’ve quantified our work experience, a formula that can help you write your bulletin statements is action verb, plus description of what you did, plus the outcome or purpose.

As you can see here, are some examples of this formula and action. Here we see developed and trained 20 district managers on effective negotiation and buying strategies that cut expenses by an average of 15 percent across 75 stores.

You can see how impressive it is when you use this formula when writing your content.

Or coached 35 teachers on implementing Thinking Maps into curriculum to develop students’ problem-solving and decision-making skills. You see how nicely that flows.

This concludes our webinar, and we are delighted that you participated today. If there’s anything more that we can do for you, just reach out. We’re here to help you.

Thanks so much for your time, and good luck on your job hunting.

Mar 27, 2020 • 11min 7sec

COVID-19 University Support And Resources

LinkedIn: Your Online Brand

COVID-19 University Support And Resources

LinkedIn: Your Online Brand

Hello everyone. My name is Heather Livingston, and I’m a career counselor with the University of Phoenix.
Thank you for watching this presentation on how to utilize LinkedIn.

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a professional networking site designed to connect people to opportunities.

It’s important to understand that LinkedIn is a professional social network, not a personal network.

For anyone who isn’t very familiar with LinkedIn, it’s important to realize that although it may be a form of social media, it’s not the same as Facebook.

On LinkedIn, you should be professional in all of your online behaviors.

Many people think that LinkedIn is just an online version of a resume, but it’s much more than that.

Professionals use LinkedIn for opportunities to connect, learn, and build their brand which are three of the most important things you can do manage your career.

Why is building and maintaining relationships important for managing your career?

The opportunity to connect with others on LinkedIn is important because in the world of work, relationships are your competitive advantage.

Every business decision, from recommending a colleague or hiring a candidate, to promoting and employee flows through people.

If you fail to build a network of support around you, you make it difficult to achieve your professional goals.
The opportunity to continuously learn is also available to you on LinkedIn. That’s because your network is a valuable source of knowledge.

LinkedIn also has a learning platform Lynda.com that enables its premium members to take online courses in various topics in order to learn new skills.

Finally, LinkedIn allows you to build a strong brand by establishing a professional online presence.

LinkedIn is an ideal place to build your online brand because when you create a LinkedIn profile, you become part of the world’s largest online professional network.

More than 600 million professionals around LinkedIn. These are the decision makers, the hiring authorities, and the business leaders.

Over 40 million LinkedIn members drive business decisions. They hold director-level positions and above. Nine of ten recruiters use LinkedIn to find talent and vet candidates before an interview.

They look for clues about your cultural fit, and what others have said about you through their recommendations.
Six-point-eight million LinkedIn members are C-level executives, and on LinkedIn, they’re within your reach.

There are five specific strategies we recommend to build your online brand with LinkedIn.

One, create a complete profile. Two, write a compelling headline and summary. Three, follow companies and thought leaders. Four, expand your network. Five, be active.

As we go through each tip, I’ll explain how each one helps you get value out of LinkedIn.

First, let’s talk about how to create a complete profile and why it’s important for your online brand. A complete profile, means you have all of the following. A profile photo.

This should be a high quality image with a neutral background where you’re dressed appropriately for your profession.

Education. Including your education, enables recruiters to find you by searching for the school you attended or the degree you earned. It also allows other alumni to find you which is great for networking purposes.

Location and industry. This information also makes it easy for recruiters to find you when they are looking for talent by region or industry expertise.

At least 50 or more connections. If you have less than 50 connections, it probably means you are not engaged in your professional life or maintaining your professional relationships. Location and industry. This information also makes it easy for recruiters to find you when they are looking for talent by region or industry expertise.

At least 50 or more connections. If you have less than 50 connections, it probably means you are not engaged in your professional life or maintaining your professional relationships.

A minimum of three skills. On your LinkedIn profile, skills act as key words because they are searchable by recruiters who are looking for people with your talent.

You need to add at least three of your top skills, but you can include up to 50.

Your current position with a description and two past positions. Having a complete profile is the easiest way to make your profile more visible so you can be found.

By having a complete profile, you are 40 times more likely to come up in recruiter searches.

The second strategy is to write a compelling headline and summary. Your headline is the information that is right under your name. This is one of the first things people notice about your profile other than your name and photo.
It’s also the main thing someone sees in a search result including recruiters. You want to make sure it captures your personal brand.

By default, LinkedIn uses your most recent job title, but you should customize this to better capture your brand so you stand out among people with similar job titles. You have up to 120 characters of room to do this.

The summary is the information that is underneath your headline. Your summary should give people some insight into your personality, not just your credentials.

You’ve got 2,000 characters for this section, plenty of space to tell your career story.

Only the first 220 characters will be shown unless you click “see more.” You should make sure that you instantly communicate who you are, and what you do.

As we see in this example, Steven Starks uses his headline to communicate that he is a board-certified counselor, a career coach, a job-search strategist, and that he specializes in helping people discover what they love.

That headline is a lot more descriptive than just career coach. As we see in the first 220 characters of his summary, he instantly communicates that he helps people discover what they love, they’re good at, and that pays what they deserve.

Let’s take a look at the techniques for creating an effective headline and summary.

The trick to creating an effective headline is to make it searchable. In other words, use key words that would help a recruiter find a professional like you.

The first step is to capture who you are. You don’t have to use your job title but you will need some sort of title that explains the field you’re in or aspire to be in.

For example, if you’re an accounting student but lack work experience, you could call yourself an aspiring accountant. If you’re already in a career you love, go ahead and use your current job title such as business analyst or HR generalist.

However, if you are unemployed you can just use the word professional, such as marketing professional. This way, your brand is not determined by your current job title.

The second step is to describe what you can do or what you know. Using the same example of an aspiring accountant, perhaps you’ve taken classes to become QuickBooks certified. This would be a strategic skill to add since it is such a common tool in accounting.

The point is to be very strategic about what you say about yourself. Do not use vague or cliché words like result-oriented, motivated, or team player.

If you were looking for an accountant who is QuickBooks certified, would you type any of those words into the search box? Of course not.

The third step is optional. You can add a statement about how you help others. A tagline. This is a brief statement about who you help and what outcome you deliver.

As you can see in these examples, it is very clear who these people are professionally and what they do.

The LinkedIn summary is the heart of your profile. This is where people will learn a bit more about what you do and perhaps why you love it.

A LinkedIn summary should never be a copy-and-pasted version of a resume summary. It’s an opportunity to say something more about yourself. It should be written in your natural voice, and use small easy-to-read segments, not lengthy paragraphs.

There are three basic components to a LinkedIn summary. The first is your intro. You should start with an attention-grabbing lead to make the summary more engaging and interesting to read.

This could be a statement that captures the essence of what you do and how it benefits others, or it could be a statement about a belief or a philosophy you have that drives your career, which you then explain in the rest of your summary.

It’s really up to you. Just make it clear to your audience.

The second part is the body. This is where you elaborate on what you do or aspire to do.

You may want to share career highlights such as specific achievements, past experiences, or a bit more about your purpose or passion for what you do.

The point of the body is to make sense of your career journey so it is coherent and people understand what you’re good at, or where you’re headed.

The last part is the conclusion. This is where you wrap things up. You can include a call to action which might be an invitation for people to connect with you or a suggestion to check out your portfolio with a link attached.
You could also share information about who you are outside of work to help the reader get a sense of your personality, or insight about your cultural fit for an organization.

This could be done with a simple statement like, “Outside of work you might find me—” and then insert a couple of hobbies or interests.

Maybe you run marathons, volunteer at a hospice program, or travel the world. Whatever you share, be strategic and reflect on how it may help show you in a positive light.

Here’s an example of a summary. In this example, the candidate asks a question to engage the reader, and instantly communicate what types of problems he can solve.

We get a sense of this person’s expertise in digital marketing, and web development, and a solid understanding of his core-value proposition of cutting costs while increasing website performance.

The third strategy is to follow companies and thought leaders. Following company and thought leaders enables you to build up your market intelligence. Your industry expertise.

Hammer out a list of companies and industry experts to keep on your radar, and get the inside scoop on the latest news and trends.

You can follow your dream companies to stay in the know on what they’re up to. You can use this technique to prepare for interviews because you’ll be well-informed about the company.

You should also connect with people you admire. Search for CEOs of major corporations and industry or thought leaders.

By doing so, you can gain wisdom from their posts and insights that you could not have gained otherwise.
When you follow a company or thought leader, their posts are included in your daily feed.

If you simply spend five to ten minutes a day browsing through these posts, you can learn about important developments in the markets, or new resources and tools that can help you in your job.

In this way, LinkedIn becomes a powerful tool for learning from your network.

Your fourth strategy, is to expand your network. It has never been easier to connect with people and maintain relationships.

At the simple click of a button, you can send invitations to connect with former colleagues, people you meet at events or current coworkers.

Start by connecting with people you already know and join groups related to your professional interests. As you interact with people in person and online, feel free to invite them to connect with you.

When you want to connect with someone, you should always personalize your invitation.

In this first example, you can see that an invitation to connect is not generic. It reads: “Hi Eve. Nice meeting you at the career-day event and touching base today.

I’d like to connect. I look forward to future conversations. Have a good week.” It’s that simple. Now this person is part of your network.

Another great way to expand your network is to request informational interviews. An informational interview is a conversation with someone who works in your desired industry, company, or role that you would like to get insight from.

It’s never about asking for a job, but rather about gaining insight or advice.

With this type of message, you’d be surprised how many people may be willing to speak with you just to offer advice as long as you don’t request too much of their time, and never ask for a job.

In this example, you can see how such a request might be made. Your network will not expand if you simply create a profile and let it sit there.

You have to actively engage people in conversation, and make an effort to build relationships.

Your fifth strategy is to add value to your network. In just five to ten minutes a day, you can position yourself as a valuable resource. Someone who is helpful, and offers valuable information to your network.

Adding value to your network is about supporting your network through consistent micro actions. Micro actions are things such as liking, commenting on, sharing other people’s content, or endorsing other skills.

All these actions can be performed in a matter of seconds.

If you take anything away from this presentation, let it be this. Opportunity is not found, it is cultivated. Steven Starks.

Ultimately, your online brand is the net result of your behavior. You will only get value out of LinkedIn if you use it to engage in your professional world and the people in it.

This concludes the webinar for utilizing LinkedIn. Thanks for watching. I hope it was helpful to you.

Mar 27, 2020 • 14min 11sec

Phoenix Feature

Phoenix Feature – Dr. Medgar R.

Phoenix Feature

Phoenix Feature – Marie Z.

Phoenix Feature

Phoenix Feature – Caffio

Project Name & Asset ID:	Phoenix Feature
Copywriter:	Jordan Diab	Designer
Date:		Due Date:
Round #:		Legal:	>

Project Name & Asset ID:	Phoenix Feature
Copywriter:	Jordan Diab	Designer
Date:	12/23/19	Due Date:
Round #:	R1	Legal:	1/06/20

Project Name & Asset ID:	Phoenix Feature
Copywriter:	Jordan Diab	Designer	Stephanie Taylor-Coleman
Date:	11/01/19	Due Date:	11/07/19
Round #:	R1	Legal:

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