Ep 452: Land Your Dream Job in 2025 with “Advice With Erin”
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Hey everyone, I'm Jean Chatzky. Thank you so much for joining me today on Her Money. I cannot believe that we are almost at the end of 2024. I gotta say personally, I am looking forward to 2025. I need to get out of this year and into the next one for a whole bunch of mostly personal reasons that I don't need to get into right now because you all have heard about them before. But

Boy, is now a great time to reflect. It's a really good time to look back on the past 12 months. It's also a good time to set some big, audacious goals, financial and otherwise goals.

for the year to come. And if one of your goals happens to be to land a new job, let me tell you, you got plenty of company. According to a recent survey from Bankrate, nearly half, 48% of Americans say they are likely, likely to search for a new job in the next year. They also say they're going to ask for higher pay and more work flexibility, among other things. But

Saying you want a new job and actually going through the process of updating your resume, writing a cover letter, not to mention going through your LinkedIn, then submitting to many, many, many jobs. Those are two entirely different things. Plus,

Even if you do all of that, there are no guarantees. There's that awful chance that your resume gets continually passed over or that you make it through college

one of the many rounds of interviews only to get ghosted. In other words, landing that new job, that new position can be fraught with complications, not to mention a lot of stress. Well, today we got your playbook. We're going to walk through all of those steps, the ones that you really need to

when it comes to getting that job in 2025. We'll talk about how to actually craft a resume that stands out, how to negotiate for pay the right way, even

unpack when it's okay to lie. All right, maybe just shade the truth in an interview. We're doing it with one of social media's leading workplace experts, Erin McGough. You know her as Advice With Erin on TikTok, where she has almost 3 million followers. Wow, Erin, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

I'm excited to be having this conversation because one of the things that we know from looking at our past shows and the shows that do well over and over again is that our listeners really like career advice. You started sharing this sort of advice in 2020. That was a very distinct era in the professional landscape. It was

COVID Central, it was different from the one that we find ourselves in today. What has changed from 2020 to now?

Oh, gosh, so much has changed. And yet so much has stayed the same. One of the biggest changes since 2020 is definitely pay transparency. It is radically different. When I first started giving advice in 2020, the common etiquette, job interview, professional etiquette was still to not talk about pay in a first round interview. Now that it's completely changed, it is very much different.

on both sides best interests to get aligned on salary in the first round, especially since wages have really varied. And some industries have shot way up and some industries they've very much stayed stagnant. So we're seeing laws across the country that require jobs to list salary ranges in the job description. So I'd say that's one of the biggest changes that I've seen.

Yeah, that is definitely a huge one. Let's dig into it since we're talking about it. When is the best time to bring up salary? Should you do it on that first interview? And if you do it, how do you do it?

And when you are presented with salary ranges, they can be substantial, right? They can be $25,000. They can be $30,000. How are you supposed to maneuver within those boundaries?

Yeah, well, first, let's talk about when to bring salary up. So of course, this is a case by case basis and extremely unique to your situation. So for example, if you're in a state where they have the salary band listed in the job description,

Okay, you have something to work with. You might not have to bring it up in the first round interview if that band works for you. And you guys both know you're on the same page. They know that you saw the band. You can check in the first round interview. Is this the proper band for the role? Okay, that works for me moving forward. But if you're in a state where maybe it's a little bit squishy or maybe you're starting out in your first entry level job and you're not quite sure.

You got to do your research. You know, you got to go to websites like Payscale or Glassdoor and figure out what is your market rate? What should you be looking for as far as salary? What will your cost of living be? Do your budgeting, figure out your taxes, and also, you know, take into account benefits, 401k, matches, and PTO, and healthcare. These are all things with monetary value, in my opinion. So...

Let's say in either case, either there's a band or there's not a band. Maybe there's a band, but you want to make sure because based on where you are right now that you could get a salary at the higher end of that band. Do you, in the first interview, bring this up? Do you say, this is how much money I'm looking for? Is there another way to raise the question of salary? Can you just give us like some words? Yeah. Oh, for sure. I mean...

Something that recruiters tell me that they really love is when people do want to get aligned. Because if you're not aligned, if you're looking for $100K and their budget is $50K to $60K, and you get to the end of three, four rounds of interviews and you realize then that you're not aligned, nobody wants that. It's a waste of time for you and it's a waste of time for them. So if you're truly vague on what it is, I always recommend asking them.

and saying just before I move forward I noticed that there wasn't a salary range listed in the job description. I just want to make sure that we're aligned moving forward. Do you know the salary range for this position? Always try to get them to put out the number first because companies know. They know their salary band. They know how much they can pay somebody within that band depending on their experience and skills. And if they say that they don't know or they can't share

Yeah, that's just not true. Like they have to get it approved by finance. So I would just gently keep pushing them. And then if you are in a situation where you know your walk away number, tell them that add three to 10% more. I always say to just add a bit more because you should always expect them to meet in the middle.

Fantastic. I think that's a really good place to start because it's such concrete, tactical advice. And I love that you're asking for the band. That feels like a very non-threatening way to begin a salary conversation. You're not saying, what am I worth? You're saying, what does this job pay? And that

That seems like a good place to go. Anything else that has specifically changed since 2020? We did a show recently on the whole work from home, not work from home kind of thing. What are you seeing?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, generally across the board, people are willing to take pay cuts in order to have flexible hybrid or even remote work. I'm definitely seeing less people want to be entirely remote. A lot of people want a mixture of those. They know that working from home 100% of the time isn't great for your psyche and for your social life and for your general happiness. So a lot of people do kind of want this hybrid kind of

work situation. So that's something that I'm definitely seeing a lot and people are willing to take pay cuts in order to gain that flexibility. I think something that I've very much seen changed is people reprioritizing and decentering work from their life. People who of course have the luxury to do that and it's just, you know, different situations for different people. People who have the opportunity to be financially stable and comfortable, then very much wanting to seek a job that's not their entire life, but just gives them enough money to live the life that they want to live.

All right, let's talk about getting that job in 2025. And let's just sort of go through the things you have to do to get a job. You need a resume. And your advice for resumes is kind of like my advice for investing, which is that boring is often better. What do you mean by a boring resume?

Yeah, so boring is definitely referring to the structure of the resume, like the physical design, not the content. The content should be riveting. Like reading it should be juicy and spicy and you should have lots of adjectives and verbs and quantify things. It should be really fun to read. But the actual structure of the resume should be incredibly boring.

boring, that doesn't mean not well designed. It should be very well designed because the function of a resume is to be quickly scanned. And usually it's quickly scanned by a computer. And computers do not care about colors. They hate photos. They hate weird formatting.

I mean, there are lots of awful, what they're called ATS out there, applicant tracking systems. And computers think simple resumes are so great. And so do recruiters who are reading resume after resume all day long. So definitely very interesting in content, but very boring in structure.

What is your preferred structure for a resume? So most people use chronological resumes, which is when you have like your name at the top and then all of your experience from most recent to less recent. And they have their contact information and their education at the bottom. I actually really love functional resumes. Chronological is really great if the employer really cares about where you've worked and the trajectory of your career, which is great for business consulting and all that.

But I think for a lot of folks, a functional resume can be extraordinarily useful. Basically, the difference is a functional resume leads with your skills and not with your experience. So you'd have your name, contact information or whatever at the top. And then underneath that you would have here are the things that I can do. Customer service or video editing or whatever that hard skill is. And you talk about how you can do them, what you've done in the past, and you just really jam pack in

what kind of package you are. And this is great for people who have taken career breaks or are moving laterally or switching to a different industry. And then underneath that, you can list out the companies that you've worked for and then your education and your skills. And I personally, I really like functional resumes. I think they can be really helpful for a lot of folks.

When you do a functional resume, and let's say customer service is the thing that you are focusing on, do you put the different customer service roles that you've held with different positions? Or do you really just talk about, I ran this department or I ran this program or this project and I can, you know, I...

boosted the satisfaction by X percent. Yeah. So, I mean, the way to make an amazing, rock solid, very impressive resume is to take the job description from the job that you're applying for and take the top skills and literally to put those on your resume, if it's truthful, as your skills. You need to basically make your resume look as much like the job description as possible and have the recruiter think, wow,

"Wow, this is a hands down perfect person. We need to at least interview them." So that's basically what you need to do. So you need to determine those skills that you list on your functional resume by what the job description is. And to answer your question, I would keep it more vague, project management, and then list the kinds of projects you've managed and the success of those projects instead of getting more company specific. And that's something else people should stay away from is using too much intercompany jargon that can sometimes get you in trouble.

When a computer is reading your resume, there are some things that are sort of hotly debated in terms of what you should and shouldn't do. Bright colors, a summary paragraph, a photo. What do you think of all of those things?

Yeah, again, just keep your resume as simple as possible. I personally recommend Google Docs free resume templates. I think they're really great. They're really simple. I'd stay away from anything trying to do too much. Sometimes people ask me, well, Erin, I'm in a creative field.

Your portfolio is where you should showcase your creativity, not your resume. The function of a resume is to be quickly scanned. Recruiters will spend a maximum of seven seconds skimming it before they either put it in the trash or they put it in the read again pile or whatever it is. So keep it short, keep it concise. And again, try to keep it as similar to the job description

It's possible. And there are some websites out there where you can like upload to a sample ATS and put in the job description to see if they match. So that's something that you can do. My advice at the end of the day is to not hyper fixate on your resume. Just create a simple resume system where you can easily customize and tailor your resume for each role and then take that extra energy and put it into networking because that's actually how you're going to get a job.

So with the resume often comes a cover letter, although I've heard a lot of people saying they aren't even necessary anymore. Where do you come down on this? A cover letter is never going to hurt you. It's never, ever going to hurt you to write a cover letter. It's only going to help your chances. So

yeah, if you want the job, why not just write a cover letter? If there's a space for you to upload a cover letter, with ChatGPT and with AI nowadays, it is so easy to just put in your resume information and say, hey, can you write a draft for a 250-word cover letter? Make it conversational in tone, get professional, emphasize my strengths with three bullet points. And then ChatGPT will spit that out in five seconds. You can go through and customize it and upload it. That takes a maximum of three minutes. So I don't really subscribe to like

pro or anti cover letter. And it's like, if you want the job, why wouldn't you just do it? And if recruiters don't read them, then they shouldn't ask for them. Is a cover letter that's written largely by chat GPT really going to tell your story?

Yeah, if you enter the right prompt, it absolutely will. If you enter in your resume information, you tell it a little bit about where you're going, you enter in the job description and you give it the correct prompt, it will absolutely spit out a beautiful cover letter for you and actually have a YouTube video tutorial on how to do that. But like you said, if you just ask it, write me a cover letter. Yeah, it's not going to do a very good job for you.

A recent study from the Financial Times found that about half of current applicants are using ChatGPT. They're using Google Gemini, not just to write cover letters, but to add keywords to their resumes and to complete assessments. What do you think about that? I think we're in the age of AI no matter what. This is like

where we are and it's going to keep becoming a bigger and bigger part of our life. I think AI is a beautiful tool for efficiency, but if you're using it to mask a skill that you do not have, it's going to catch up with you. Again, AI is a great tool for efficiency. So it can save you a lot of time on writing things like a cover letter or doing a task, but it shouldn't be doing that on your behalf necessarily. You should be going in and editing it and making sure that everything is good. It's about how we use the tools. I don't think necessarily the tools themselves.

One of the issues that I know that people have had, particularly in the last couple of years, is that it's become so easy to apply for jobs, like the Common App has made it easier to apply for colleges, that jobs are just flooded. Recruiters are flooded. Hiring managers are flooded. And the chances that you get pulled out of that pile, even if you've got a very good resume,

have really just fallen precipitously. How do you fight that? Do you need to make a personal connection? Do you need to link in with somebody before you send something to that company? I mean, how do you just not get lost? Yeah, and this is actually a gripe I have with lots of nefarious AI systems. People are creating this AI system

generators that will auto submit you to like thousands of jobs and it's just clogging up the system. It's just problem after the next problem. And

Yes, recruiters are completely inundated with completely unqualified candidates due to these mass-applying, easy-apply, I'm very against quick-apply. I just think it's the worst thing ever made. Getting a new job isn't throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something's sick. You have to imagine that you're a recruiter looking at resumes. Are you going to hire the person with the generic resume or the tailored resume? It's easy, and anybody who's ever been in a position to hire knows that. So now we're in an issue where people are mass-applying, quick-applying, AI-applying to all these jobs.

And a lot of jobs are fraudulent.

We have a lot of ghost jobs right now. So it's just a huge mess. The job boards are a complete disaster. And that's why I really stress networking because at the end of the day, you can hyper fixate on HDS and your resume and your cover letter and applying to all these jobs and using AI. But at the end of the day, a computer isn't going to hire you. A human being is going to hire you. And if you can go through all that work or you can just network with somebody from your college and they can give you an in and that internal referral or recommendation is a

thousand times more powerful than anything you can do on your resume. What's a ghost job? Okay, so ghost jobs are fraudulent jobs. So they're jobs that companies post that they have no intention of filling. This became very prevalent post kind of pandemic economic boom because a lot of companies wanted to save face and they want to make it look like they're doing really well or they want to gain intel on the market. And there's no way to tell if you're posting a ghost job or not. So they just go on LinkedIn, Indeed or whatever. They post posts.

jobs that they simply aren't really seriously looking to hire for, people apply and they never hear back. So it's a massive problem right now. And there's no way to discern what's real and what's not real. I mean, the other frustration is I know that a lot of companies have a candidate that they've already picked out, but legally they are bound to post that job, which you have no shot of getting because there's already somebody waiting in line.

Yeah. I mean, research shows that like anywhere from 80% of jobs are secured through the hidden job market, which is through run of mouth. A lot of like entry-level positions are of course earned through applications.

app applying online through resumes once you get further along in your career people do tend to get more jobs through referrals and word of mouth as you network and as you meet more people throughout your career there's no way to tell if a job is a ghost job there are red flags if there's been like thousands of applicants if the posting's been up for more than 30 or 60 days which now indeed in zip recruiter and all of them are trying to discard uh job postings that have been up for a long time

Also, if it is a really vague job description and you can tell that it just wasn't written by an HR professional, that's another red flag. But unfortunately, there's no way that you can really tell if a job is fraudulent or not. Oh, too bad. All right. We're going to talk about what to do when you do actually get that interview. But before we do that, Erin, we're going to take a very quick break.

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We are back with Erin McGough. She's your internet bestie for all things career growth. Okay, Erin, let's say you get the interview, which is a huge relief. You've said that there are some times where it is actually okay to tell a white lie in an interview. One of these is if they ask, are you interviewing at other companies? My answer

My inclination, by the way, would be to always say yes. Yes, yes. I'm in demand. Make it sound that way. Your inclination is correct. It's kind of like being on a first date. You don't lie outright, but you definitely want to put your best foot forward.

forward. So you never want to say no. No is the only wrong answer. You just want to say, you know, yes, but transparently, this is my top choice. And if you feel uncomfortable saying that because you feel like it's not true, I encourage you to reframe your mindset because you most likely have put out multiple applications and you're just waiting to hear back. So you are exploring multiple opportunities at different companies. That is what you are doing. You have applied. It's not very likely that this is the only job that you applied for in the only interview that you got.

Another white lie opportunity is answering the question, what is your greatest weakness to honestly? I think you have to be careful there because you can't say something that comes across as total bullshit like, oh, I work too hard or I'm too dedicated. Right. I mean, that's just. Yeah.

Yeah. No, it's like saying I'm a perfectionist. It's like you'll get an immediate eye roll because it's not really a weakness. You're just kind of bragging about yourself being a great worker. They're not really asking what is your greatest weakness. What they're really asking is, are you self-aware? What are you doing to improve yourself? How do you speak critically of yourself? Are you going to reveal a red flag to me? And a more even layered question that they're asking is, do you know professional etiquette?

Have you been in a job you're moving for? Do you know that people ask this question? That's a way of them telling, are you a real professional? So my trick is to pick a real authentic weakness. So of course, this will be specific to what you do. And then you want to spend about 10% of your answer naming the weakness, but then 90% talking about how you are working to improve this thing. You want to spin it as this is something that I'm currently working on improving.

And that can be active listening or delegation. Delegation is almost always safe unless you're applying for a manager role and then you have to be good at delegation. But you want to pick something that is like, oh, okay, yeah, we all kind of struggle with that. It's good to hear that you're working on it and that what you're doing is really working for you. When they ask why,

why you're leaving your current job. I would think there's a fine line you have to walk. You're leaving for a reason, right? You want to be honest. You don't want to be too honest. You don't want to badmouth that company that you may someday want to go back to or that this person who's interviewing you now may end up working for. What do you say instead? Yeah, again, you should think of it kind of like a first date. I'll give the advice and people will say, why can't I just tell the truth? Why can't I just be honest? And it's like, well,

You want to make yourself look good. So imagine you're on a first date with somebody and you ask the guy, oh, why aren't you in a relationship? And he's like, all the girls I date are awful. And you're just like, that could be true, but I don't know you that well. So this is mainly just making you look bad. It's the same thing in a job interview. They just don't know you that well. So if you start saying, my last boss was so toxic, they were awful, they were micromanaging me, it just reflects poorly on you, even if that's true.

You know your last boss. And if they do, and you're talking poorly about them, and that's their uncle, yeah, that's going to cause problems as well. So it doesn't do what people think they think it's going to do when you think it's going to bond you and the gossip and getting the tea. Save the tea for after you get the job. Then tell them all about that awful boss. Instead, you just want to keep it positive and forward-facing. I really enjoyed my time at this company. I'm proud of what I was able to accomplish. However, this feels like the right time to move on.

And you can always hint at something in a professional way. There was a recent shift in the management style at my last company, and I felt that it was the right time to move on. My role had grown stagnant, and I'm looking to pursue a new opportunity like this job here at ABC or whatever it is and bring it back to the present. What if you were laid off? What if you actually don't have a job at this point? Is that the kind of thing you try to skirt? A layoff is not your fault. That's the thing. You just have to say,

The company unfortunately had to lay off a massive portion of my team and I was affected. My role was made redundant. It's really unfortunate because I loved working for that company. I was proud of the projects I worked on. I really enjoyed working with the clients. But ultimately, I'm grateful because now I can explore this opportunity here at whatever company. Again, always just spin it back to the positive and bring it back to the interview. We

We talked a little bit about salary before. We didn't really talk about those other benefits that I agree with you have great monetary value, additional vacation days, flexibility, a sign-on bonus. At what point do you move from a salary negotiation to a negotiation on those things? Again, it depends on you. So for a lot of folks, healthcare, gotta have a good healthcare plan. Maybe you have a chronic illness. It's like very important.

Maybe flexible hours are very important because you have young children. PTO is really important because you're younger and you want to go on vacation. There are different things that are valuable to different people. I think salary, the conversation of salary should take place first and foremost because that's the largest portion of your compensation. But it's important to understand other elements of your compensation package. And again, if you notice, I'm talking like a recruiter. You have to speak their language because that's how they think. This is the compensation package. The salary, just be part of it and imagine.

In America, we have a lot of benefits kind of jammed into jobs, hopefully, and you need to explore those. Something that I really recommend is if you get to the end of the salary conversation and they can't meet you where you want them to meet you, that's a great piece of leverage to open up the door to benefits and ask them simply,

Can you be flexible on any non-salary elements of the compensation package? Throw it to them. Because you never know, different companies have different policies. Some companies might require that every single employee has the exact same 401k match. Other companies might lift that match to incentivize hiring good people. So you just never know. So just open the door to them and say, can you be flexible on PTO or hours, hybrid work, healthcare plans? I'd love to hear more about the non-salaried items of the compensation package is how I like to phrase it.

These days, interviews can go on round after round after round. At what point...

should you be not getting frustrated, but getting frustrated? At what point can you start asking for a sign if this is actually going to turn into a job? Yeah. I always say that you can tell a lot about a company by how they treat you during the interview process. Of course, it's not always true. A lot of companies use external recruiters who don't align with the way that they run their businesses. However, a lot of the time you can tell a lot about a company by how they treat you. I'll

I actually recommend nowadays first interview at the end to say, I'd like to prepare the best for this interview process going forward and put my best foot forward. Do you know a general timeline? Does this company make decisions quickly? Does it make decisions slowly? Should I prepare for three interviews? Should I prepare for seven interviews? It can kind of be funny with it. And yeah,

Any good recruiter will want to tell you and I'll say, yeah, we actually tend to move very slowly here. So you'll probably be hearing back from us within a month and then you have your answer.

We have in our audience some people who are a lot closer to my age than they are to yours. And it's tougher as you get older. It's tougher in general for women, particularly when it comes to negotiating for pay. What's your advice to people as we age about putting our best foot forward? This is something that I have been getting asked a lot.

I've been getting a lot of people say, you know, I know your advice is mainly for young folks, but as old folks are really struggling too. It's a hard economy out there and a lot of ageism. There's a lot of ageism and people do not talk about it enough. And it's honestly very tragic. I think my advice is to lead with skills. And that is not just me.

flipping something out of thin air. That's based in research. Recruiters this year have been saying that now for the first time, skills have dethroned education. They've dethroned experience. Companies want to know what you know how to do, especially in the age of AI where we are automating and making processes more efficient. They want to know what you can actually bring to the table and physically, tangibly do. So I think it's very important, especially for

Gen X or even boomers, people who have been able to rely on their education for a big part of their career to totally make a pivot and to focus on what they actually know how to do. And again, if you're struggling to know what do I actually know how to do, talk to somebody who knows you really well. Talk to somebody who you work with. Go online. Read the job descriptions of jobs you're looking for. Read what skills that they are looking for. Type in a chat to be everything you've ever done in your career and have it spit out what skills you know how to do because a lot of the times in corporate

corporate careers, we tend to have softer skills, but those can still be quantifiable and things that you can really lead within an interview. Last question, Erin, we get to the end of the process or we're in the middle of the process, but interviews are going well. This is a job I really would like. How do I express my enthusiasm? What's the best way to follow up? What's the best way to follow up without getting on somebody's nerves? Like, how do I tow that line?

Yeah. Oh my gosh. No, people love, love a follow-up. It shows enthusiasm. It shows that you really want the job. You should absolutely follow up after a job interview anywhere from 12 to 48 hours later. Send a nice email and just say, it was really, really nice to meet you today. I loved learning more about the role. Again, here are three reasons why I think I'd be a great fit. Three bullet points. I look forward to hearing from you and continuing this process. Erin, like keep it very, very simple. And

And at the end of your interview, you should ask about that timeline, like I mentioned earlier. And once it hits that date where they said that you should have heard back and you haven't heard back, that's a great opportunity to send another email. Hi, I know today's the day that you made the decision or yesterday. To reiterate, I think it'd be a great fit for this role. I'd love to continue our conversation. If you have any updates on the status of your hiring, I'd love to know. And just kind of keep it going. Something to avoid is

You don't want to come off desperate. But as long as you keep things really professional and just keep hammering home that you're a great fit. Because it's not that you want the job. They don't really care. They don't want the job. Just say, I would...

crush this job. I would make you look really good to your boss is basically what you're trying to tell them. Exactly. For people who are trying to switch it up a little bit in 2025, I know that you've got a quiz that can help them kind of figure out which way to go. Where do we find it and what are people going to learn?

Absolutely. Not all professionals are created equal. Some of us love a corporate desk job or some of us love running our own businesses. It's important to figure out what your personality and lifestyle preferences mean for your best career and the career that you'll have the best shot at being happiest in. So what I did is I spent months designing and engineering and researching a 30-question career aptitude quiz. It's 100% free. You can find it at advicewithaaron.com slash quiz.

Again, 30 questions. Grab somebody who knows you well. I find that really helps with self-awareness and take it with them, along with them. And yeah, it spits out one of six archetypes that tells you some great careers for you. I have some book recommendations, podcast recommendations, and all that good stuff. Erin McGough, thank you so much for a great conversation. It's been fun. Thank you. It's really great to be here. Before we dive into our mailbag, a quick word from our sponsors.

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So the last time you did a resume, I'm sure, or I hope that I'm sure that it's been a very long time since you did a resume. But did you do a functional resume? Did you do a chronological resume? I don't even have a resume. Mine may be more recent. It's the resume that I used to get my job with you in 2013. I think that was the last time I really used a resume. Okay.

And at the time, the advice was chronological. I mean, I've heard of functional. I actually love the idea of functional, leading with your skill set, your strengths, leading with what should rise to the top. But when thinking about that, I like the chronological story too, because I like to see how someone has evolved or pivoted or what type of journey that they've taken from

Point A to point D, whatever, whatever they're at. So I'm curious to get your take on it, because I could go either way. And I know it's going to be, you know, specific to your industry, specific to maybe how early or late you are into your career. Like there's so many nuances here.

But I kind of still lean in the direction of doing chronological if it tells a really good growth story for you or a story of utility, which I think is really important in whatever world you're in. What I thought was most interesting about the advice that Erin was giving was this idea that a functional resume, a skills-based resume really works for people who've taken a break from the workforce. And I think that applies

to a big chunk of

of the people who listen to this show, right? There's absolutely nothing wrong, as we've heard from so many guests this season, with dipping in and dipping out of the workforce. But still, we sometimes get all tongue-tied when it comes time to try to explain that to a potential employer. And so I think this can be good. The other thing that I was struck by, because it hasn't been that long since I hired, right? I

have hired people within the last couple of years. And when I started searching, I saw a lot of creative resumes, creative looking resumes, resumes with a lot of boxes and graphic designs and different elements. And Erin said, absolutely not. Absolutely not. And I wonder if I saw them because

You know, I interview largely journalists. It's a pretty creative field. Sure. But...

For anybody who is thinking that the resume is going to be looked at by a computer instead of a person, I would really try hard to adhere to that advice. Keep it straight. Keep the format incredibly boring so that the computer can really see it for what it is. And the other thing that she said that I thought was interesting, and it does require more work on the part of job hunters, is...

For every job, you should be going through the job description and tweaking your resume so that as many of those

keywords pop up in the cover letter and the resume that you write as possible. That's the way to get a computer to pull you out of the pile. Yes. And it's really editing. What we're talking about here is very familiar in our world. It's what we do. It's what we've always done. We know the power of editing and the fact that you can take a solid piece

piece of content and just make slight tweaks depending on your target audience. And that is a really important point in the use of keywords and imagining that you're plugging your resume into this engine that your future employer is going to use as a search engine. Like thinking about it that way too is helpful for me. But yeah, it was a great conversation and great advice going into the new year. Yeah, she's impressive. Yeah, for anyone who is looking or entertaining a switch.

All right. Let's see what we've got. Our first question comes from Liz. She writes that she has an equity line of credit turning into a HAMP loan, and she has a zero interest credit card that has roughly $5,000 balance on it. And she writes, I was paying about $25 to $26 a month from the equity loan as of my last payment on October 1st.

Should I pay off the credit card? I am thinking I would save over $250 plus more in interest. What do you advise since my mortgage was paid off years ago and I am retired now? Look, I'm always for paying off higher rate debt with lower rate debt. Almost always. Except that in this case...

Your home is on the line and there's nothing on the line with your credit card. So what we're talking about there is we're talking about collateral. If you don't pay your credit card bill, what's going to happen to you? You're going to get a lot of nasty calls, maybe some nasty letters and...

eventually your access to that card is probably going to be turned off and your credit score is going to go to hell, right? That's what's going to happen. But is your life going to change? Not really. If you don't pay your mortgage and a home equity line of credit is a mortgage, a HAMP loan is a mortgage. If you don't pay your mortgage, you're

your home can be foreclosed upon. Now, we're not talking about a lot of money here. We are not talking about tens of thousands of dollars. I would just try to see if you can throw a little bit of additional money toward that credit card every single month in order to pay it off a little bit faster, but I wouldn't put your home on the line.

There are a lot of reasons I could sort of go either way on this one. It's not a ton of money, but I'd preserve the safety of your home, bottom line. I know this is a tricky one, and we don't have as much information, I think, to get more prescriptive. So Liz, if

You want to share more on this too. Like I'm curious about sources of income or the relationship you have with your balance, your credit card today. Like is it, is that the balance that you've been paying down or are you still using that credit card in a way that might change how, not me, but Jean, the expert might answer this question. So Liz, let us know. It's a really interesting question and thanks for writing in.

Our next question comes from Jenny. She writes, "Hi, Jean and team. My question is about pulling money out of my investments in order to cover lost income while my husband stays at home with our young child. I am 37 and my husband is 44. We've been married for 10 years and we keep our money separate. He's a spender who came into the relationship with a small trust fund passed down from a grandparent. I am a saver who has amassed most of my money on my own. Here are my numbers. Retirement savings,

have $105,000 in a 401 , $145,000 in a Roth IRA, and $40,000 in a traditional IRA for a total of $290,000. Other investments include $150,000 in mutual funds spread across three companies,

We've run the numbers and I will need to liquidate $15,000 to cover expenses for the year with my husband not making an income. Which mutual fund account should I pull from? Is there an optimal time to do this? How much extra money should I pull to cover for taxes? Is there any way to reduce my tax liability? And I guess important points here, Jean, is that the mutual funds, the three mutual funds that she just referenced, have different amounts. One has $58,000, one has $55,000, and one has $37,000.

So I don't know if that matters when it comes to her question of which mutual fund to pull from and timing and tax considerations around doing that. She writes her first instinct is to pull from the mutual fund that has the highest management fee. They also manage money.

Absolutely.

Jenny, I think this is great that you guys have run the numbers in this way. Liquidating $15,000 to cover expenses for the year is, I would suspect, a whole lot less than what it would cost you if you had to pay for child care out of pocket. So, you know, I don't know the numbers on what your husband isn't earning and what you're losing out there, but it seems to be something that you, in fact, can afford.

afford as long as it doesn't go on for too long. I'm with you. I would probably pull from the account that has the highest management fee. I would take a look at your tax rate and just add that amount

to or what you anticipate your tax rate will be in the year where you only have that one income because it's likely that you'll be in a different bracket without your husband's income as well. Look at what that tax bracket is going to be. Add on the amount of state taxes if you've got any. So I'm with you. I would likely pull from the account that has the highest management fees.

The other thing to look at is the performance of the underlying funds in the accounts. If you have funds that are duplicative, if you have funds that are underperforming, now is an okay time to get rid of or shrink those investments as well.

If they've all done incredibly well and you think that you've got your bases covered as far as your asset allocations, then yeah, go with the fees, make the decision that way. It's a very easy call. Based on the numbers that you've shared with me, you should have absolutely no trouble continuing to speak to the person about your investments, particularly because they've also got your Roth and your traditional IRA. So I would not worry about that at all.

at all. As far as the tax question on those mutual funds, you're looking at long-term capital gains as long as the money has been in the investment for over a year.

Chances are you're going to be taxed at the 15% rate unless you are earning over $533,000 a year. And in that case, you're going to be looking at 20%. But I'm guessing you fall squarely in the 15% bracket, as most people tend to do, and

And as you go through the year, just take a look at what this has done to your forecasts for your future goals and make another decision about when and in what capacity it makes sense for your husband to go back into the workforce. Thanks so much for a great question, Jenny, and good luck with that. Thank you, Jean.

Yep. If you've got any other money related questions, we would love to hear from you. Just send them our way by emailing us at mailbag at her money.com. Thanks so much to Erin McGough for sharing her insight on how to manage the job search process. I feel a little bit better now. If you love this episode, please give us a five star review on Apple.

podcasts. We always value your feedback. And if you want to keep the financial conversations going, join me for a deeper dive.

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