Hello Nina,

Thanks so much for reaching out to Cancer and Careers! I will pass along your inquiry to one of our volunteer career coaches, but in the meantime I wanted to point out a number of resources that CAC has available specifically concerning resumes.

• We have a free Resume Review Service where you can submit your resume (or CV) along with some background info on what you're looking for, some of the struggles you've been facing, and any other relevant info, and one of our career coaches will provide you with custom suggestions and critiques to best highlight the right aspects and experience for what you're looking for.


• Our Job Search Toolkit is a free publication that provides advice on improving resumes, helpful suggestions for using LinkedIn to your advantage, and much more!


• The Looking for Work section of our website houses a ton of helpful articles, including a number on writing resumes and addressing concerns around resume gaps. 


• Finally, in terms of where to find specific organizations that are of interest, I would recommend starting with networking. You can look on LinkedIn for companies that fit your interests and see if there are specific individuals at those organziations that you could connect with. Perhaps asking if they'd be open to an informational interview, or if they would be willing to speak with you about the work they do. If you're uneasy about doing cold outreach, you could try to see if you know of anyone that is connected with people at compannies you're interested in, and see if they'd be open to providing an introduction. While networking can feel a bit scary, we have a number of articles on networking best practices that can help get you in the right mindset to approach it and do it effectively. 

I hope the above helps!

Best,

Nicole Jarvis, LMSW

Assistant Director of Programs

Cancer and Careers

Hi Nina,

Nicole's suggestion to submit your resume to the CAC Resume Review service is exactly what I recommend, especially because I am the coach who reviews the resumes and I can keep an eye out for it.

It is a bit difficult to give you specific feedback until I see your actual CV however I do have some general comments. ATS (Applicant Tracking Software) differs from company to company but does rely on scanning and storing resumes with specific keywords. These keywords can be pulled from job postings and sprinkled  throughout your resume as well as in a bulleted keywords section on the top half of your first page.

Your headline is also a place for you to add keywords along with your summary. I actually have a sample college academic advisor resume that I can attach when you submit your resume to the review service so you can see the keywords used for this job.

Regarding finding small companies, this is where you will need to network with people. LinkedIn generates a company page for every employer listed in profiles no matter how small, so I would constantly do company searches there. Identifying specific disabilities and Googling the heck out of those with different variations usually works. 

Please write back if you have any questions.

Take care,

Julie