Writing a "Winning" Resume

Career Services Webinar

One of our assignments this semester is to utilize the webinars/workshops offered by ASU's Career Services. The overall goal of Career Services is to assist current students and alumni with their career and professional development. This goal is accomplished by offering career advising, educational opportunities, and access to internships and career fairs, amongst other services. Since it has been a few years since I earned my undergraduate degree, I have already spent a substantial amount of time in the workforce. Given my established work history in my current profession (urban planning/public administration), much of what Career Services has to offer is not as beneficial to me. However, prior to graduation, I will need to revise my resume to reflect my more recent work experience, as well as the completion of my graduate degree. Since I will be updating my resume in the coming months, I decided to attend a webinar on resume writing. The webinar I attended was "How to Write a Winning Resume" and it was approximately one hour long. Overall, I was already familiar with most of the information presented in the webinar; however, I did learn some interesting tips along the way. Some of the most interesting information presented in the webinar was a list of the most desirable skills a candidate could possess. According to the webinar, employers value a potential employees communication skills the most, with initative, adaptability, interpersonal skills, problem solving, analytical, and teamwork skills also being important. Furthermore, the webinar noted that when describing you work experience, your accomplishments should start with a verb and they should demonstrate the purpose for performing each duty you listed. Prior to attending the webinar, I never thought to describe my work experience in that manner, nor had I thought to include my social media skills, which the webinar cited as becoming increasingly important to employers.

ICMA's 99th Annual Conference - Recap

This past week I attended the International City/County Managers Association's (ICMA) annual conference in Boston, MA. In my previous blog post, I described how I was fortunate enough to be afforded this opportunity through my fellowship, and how I was looking forward to attending the conference. Now that the conference has concluded, I thought I would provide a small recap of the week's events. The major themes of the conference appeared to be mobile technology and mobile applications; women in leadership; creating work-life balance; using open data; and responding to traumatic events or natural disasters in the community. The sessions were mostly informative, but some of them were not described well in the conference program. The keynote speakers were great additions to the conference and presented a lot of useful information that could be applied to anyone in the profession. One of the speakers, Ann Cuddy, spoke about the use of body language, and how practicing dominant body language can increase our testosterone, decrease our cortisol levels (stress hormones), and lead to increased professional performance. The conference was held at the Hynes Convention Center in Downtown Boston, which provided for a memorable experience. During my down time, I was able to network with other students and managers from across the U.S., as well as explore the city! One of the major highlights was attending the ACMA (Arizona City/County Managers Association) reception, which was held on a yacht that cruised the Boston Harbor during the evening hours. All in all, Boston was an amazing experience that added greatly to my professional and personal development, and I look forward to attending next year's conference in Charlotte!

Work-Life Balance

One of the topics that was presented during the ICMA conference was the importance of maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Although I know how important it is to sustain your mental and physical health, I never really gave much thought about what I do to maintain this balance. The seminars on this topic discussed how important it is to not feel guilty about taking care of ourselves; you cannot perform your job duties to the best of your ability if you are not mentally or physically healthy. These sessions made me realize that in order to be an effective and productive worker, I need to be sure that all aspects of my life are being appropriately managed, and that I should not feel selfish when addressing those needs. Moving forward, I think I will dedicate more time to my hobbies and engaging in activities I enjoy (reading, traveling, exercising, etc.). When you have multiple employers and attend school full time, it seems wasteful to spend time on recreational or non-vital activities. Most of time is spent working or doing schoolwork, which is a sacrifice I have been willing to make for the past 14 months; however, I do think I can spend a little more time doing activities I find enjoyable. Presently, I have made a plan to devote at least 3 hours a week to doing activities I enjoy and I'm hoping I can stick to this new schedule.

My Future in Local Government

While I was in Boston for the conference, the winners of the primary election for the candidates running in the 2013 Mayoral race were announced. For the first time in over 20 years, Boston will be electing a new mayor. Incumbent Mayor Thomas Menino has declined to run for reelection for the first time in six consecutive terms. Their were 12 candidates in the primary election, with Marty Walsh and John R. Connolly winning the majority of votes and becoming the two candidates to advance to the general election on November 5th. The attention surrounding the election made me think more deeply about what type of local government system I want to work in after graduation. The council-management form of government is most predominant in the western and southern united states, and places a greater emphasis on the manager's role int the community. On the contrary, the northeast united states will utilize the strong-mayor form of local government. This type of administration involves the mayor having a much greater role in the policy and administrative decisions in the community.The city manager role and the chief administrative officer position have very similar job responsibilities, but ultimately, there are distinguishable differences between the two positions. Most likely, the geographic location I choose to work in will determine what type of local government system I will work in, but before I select a location, I need to decide what role I am more comfortable taking on.

A day in the life of an intern...

The Town of Gilbert

The Town of Gilbert was founded in 1891 and incorporated in 1920. As of 2008, the Town's population was estimated around 206,000, with population levels expected to exceed 280,000 by year 2020. The Town is one of the top-five employers for the community, with approximately 1,270 staff members. Local governments are in the business of providing services to residents and businesses that include public safety (police & fire services), utility services, trash and recycling collection, licensing and permitting services, recreation activities, library services, and other neighborhood programs, to name a few.

Throughout my internship, I will be placed in the Town Manager's Office, which is tasked with overseeing the daily operations and administrative functions of the Town. Gilbert has one Town Manager, one Deputy Town Manager, and three Assistant to the Town Manager positions (ATM's). My immediate supervisor will be one of the ATM's and most of my work will pertain to the Manager's Office or ancillary departments. Currently, Gilbert is allowing me to choose most of my projects, and therefore, I will have the opportunity to develop a well-rounded resume by diversifying my experience with various departments. During my time at Gilbert, I hope to gain more experience with local government finance, particularly budgetary functions, as well as a general understanding of the functions of three major departments: Public Works, HR, and Economic Development.

Current Projects

One of my current projects is to assist with Gilbert's Performance Management initiative. This initiative is being spearheaded by the Budget Department, but requires involvement and participation from all departments. One aspect of performance management is to create performance measures for each department in an effort to assess whether each department is meeting their stated goals and objectives, as well as measure outputs and efficiency. Benchmarking is one tool used in performance measurement and it allows Gilbert to compare itself to other communities that are similar in size and scope. Currently, I am conducting research on benchmarks established for the Communications Department to ascertain how Gilbert's Communications efforts compare to other communities. Specific measures include social media use, press releases, public involvement, newsletters, mobile applications, and manager/mayor communication. The results of my work will be sent to the Budget Department to assess Gilbert's communications efforts, specifically what the department is doing well, what needs to be improved, and options to explore.

Although there is no 'typical day' at this internship, it is likely that I will be attending anywhere from 1 to 4 meetings each day. The topic of each meeting varies, but every week I attend Executive Team meetings, as well as monthly ATM meetings, and Long Range Infrastructure Planning Meetings. Additionally, there are also Council Study Sessions and bi-weekly Town Council Meetings; however, for the most part, I spend my days working on my current project list. Recently, Gilbert switched to a four-10's schedule, where staff works Monday-Thursday, from 7:00 am to 6:00 pm. Although the days can be long, I have found that I am able to be more productive with the extended hours. Since people are working more hours in a day, commuting delays, lunch breaks, and other time commitments have less of an impact on the work day. Lunch hours start at 11:00 am and typically go until 1:30 pm. For a normal 8 to 5 schedule, the lunch hours reduce the work day to  5.5-6 hours; however, when you work extended hours, you are still left with 8 full work hours even after the lunch break.

 

Travel to Boston - ICMA 99th Annual Conference

Next weekend I will be traveling with my supervisor and a few other Gilbert staff members to Boston for the annual ICMA conference. The International City Managers Association is the professional and educational association for local government administrators. They are an international organization that is well respected in the community of local government management. Last year, the conference was held in Phoenix and I was able to attend sessions in between classes. The conference drew thousands of local government professionals and vendors, and was a highly valuable experience. I have not visited Boston in several years, so I am looking forward to rediscovering the city, as well as all of the networking and learning opportunities that will be provided through the conference.