Carol Fishman Cohen: Welcome to 3,2,1 iRelaunch, the podcast where we discuss strategies, advice, and success stories about returning to work after a career break. I'm Carol Fishman Cohen, CEO, and co-founder of iRelaunch, and your host. Today we welcome Kathryn Troutman. Kathryn is known as the federal resume guru, with over 30 years, helping thousands find jobs with the federal government.

She's the author of several books, including the Federal Resume Guidebook, now in its seventh edition and The Job Seekers Guide: 10 Steps to a Federal Job for Military and Spouses, now in its eighth edition. Kathryn provides 10 Steps to a Federal Job curriculum to career-transition counselors at military bases, universities, veterans organizations, and private industry.

So in other words, Kathryn knows the federal hiring process inside and out, and is an expert on getting a federal government job. She's passionate about helping people find great jobs with the government and we're going to discuss the attributes of a career in the federal government, what unexpected or hidden opportunities there are in the federal government, special opportunities for military spouses at military bases, and a lot more. Kathryn, welcome to 3,2,1 iRelaunch.

Kathryn Troutman: [00:01:30] Thank you very much. It's great to be here. My favorite topic: career change into the government.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:01:36] Excellent. So let's start by learning a little bit more about your background. Can you tell us how you got to be an expert in this specialized area of getting hired in the federal government and where did you start?

Kathryn Troutman: [00:01:50] Sure. I started Resume Place in Washington, DC on K street. And originally the business specialized in students from George Washington University and lawyers on K street, and capitol Hill private sector resumes. But then I realized people wanted help with their old form. The 171-Form that was active at that time.

So we got really expert at that form, but then 1996 came and the government switched over to USAjobs.gov and posted all their jobs online. And they changed from the 171 to a resume. And that was an opportunity that I saw 1.7 million federal employees needed to switch their 171-Form, which was like 30 pages long, to a resume.

And I thought, 'Oh my gosh, somebody needs to write a book about how to write this resume for government.' So I did it. I met with OPM, the Office of Personnel Management, and I talked to HR people in government. And nobody was writing a guide on how to write this new resume for government. So I decided to write the first book on a resume guide book on how to write a federal resume with all my HR friends and contacts in Washington.

And I did it in 1996, and that was the beginning of me being an expert in federal resume writing was that book. And then now we're in seventh edition. So here we are.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:03:20] Wow. Congratulations. That's really interesting. And I'm so glad we're talking to you about this topic. What are the pros and cons of working in the federal government?

Kathryn Troutman: [00:03:32] Well, the pros are that the government jobs are very, very stable. The chances, if you got a permanent federal job, most likely like 90%, you would be there if you chose to go all the way to the end of your career. And they, you know, with COVID-19 and the pandemic, the federal employees didn't lose their jobs.

They didn't get furloughed, they just went home. They went home to work virtually, so very, very stable, also very flexible. I think the government is the best employer for especially a mom, a working mom, because I was a working mom. They are so flexible for your kids. You can go to parent meetings, you can do all this stuff with your kids.

You can stay home if your child is sick, because you've got backup at work. You're not working for a small business where it's just three of you. You've got all kinds of people that can back you up. I just liked the flexibility of it. Opportunities for growth is great. I mean, there are so many jobs, you might be in one job for a year and you want to apply to another one. There's just so many positions that you can apply for new ones once you're in once you know your way around.

And I think the salary and benefits are very good. I know the benefits are great. Retirement is fantastic. If you make it all the way to retirement, retirement is really good. So I got a lot of good things to say. Negative, well, you got to go to work every day, nine to five, you got a supervisor, you got to get along with them.

You’ve got to put up with politics. You can't control it. Do your job. I train a lot of current federal employees in writing federal resumes. So I talk to federal employees all the time in my classes, and they're thrilled to be working in the government. They have a few complaints that, you know, it was really hard to go from working live in the office to virtual.

Everything is via zoom. There's a lot of meetings. There's a lot of tight agendas. But, I think the pros clearly outweigh the cons. So I just think it's a good idea.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:05:30] Right. And also anyone in the private sector who does not have to be on the premises has also gone to work from home too. So that isn't a different experience in the federal government versus not.

A clarifying question. How many years do you have to work in the federal government to get the retirement benefits?

Kathryn Troutman: [00:05:51] I think it's 20, but I'm not an expert on retirement. Actually it could be 10 years for partial retirement. Or even, I mean, retirement is really good in the government and if you make it through the full retirement is where you get the biggest benefits.

But military people, if you retire or separate from the government, you can transfer over your retirement from military to federal. That's a great incentive for veterans.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:06:16] Very interesting. All right. Well, we'll talk a little bit more about not so much military themselves, but military spouses.

But let me just focus right now on the process. Can you walk us through, what are the basic steps involved in applying for and getting a federal government job? Do you have to take tests? And how does it differ from regular hiring process that might be at in the private sector?

Kathryn Troutman: Well, the first thing you have to do to begin your federal job search is you go to USAjobs.gov and you set up your profile. You have to set up your account, your username, password, and you have to set up a profile. You've got to answer questions about your personnel background and you have to copy and paste a resume into the profile system.

It's a basic resume, but it goes right in the profile. It'll take you probably 45 minutes to an hour to do the profile. And then after that, you need to start searching for jobs. So let's pretend you live in Kansas City, Kansas. So you would look for jobs in Kansas City, Kansas, or look for jobs in San Diego just to see what's in your town.

If you're flexible to move, then that's good. You could look by job, but if you have to stay where you are, you don't want to move this week or next year , look by region and then narrow down your search to salary because you don't want to look at all the jobs. You don't want to look at every job that goes from $45,000 to $175,000.

You want to look at your job range is $65,000 or $55,000, whatever your salary might be or $85,000, whatever. You can narrow it down by salary. So searching on USAjobs.gov and setting up your account is the very first thing you have to do. And then after you do that, you've got to learn more about how to search for the jobs and look at the jobs.

And then, you need to start working on your federal style resume, which is not the same as your private sector resume. So you’ve got to do the whole thing on the resume. And so then I recommend you set up a search in USAjobs.gov so that you can receive emails every day for jobs that are in your regional area, that are in your salary range that are of interest to you.

I think a search is very helpful because job announcements with the government can close, like, in four days. And if you don't have a search setup, you might miss something, if you don't look every single day. Then applying for it is another whole process. It's two systems. One is USAjobs, you upload the resume. And then you go to a separate system where you answer a questionnaire.

There's something called a self-assessment questionnaire, and it's really something. It is a test and you have to give your self an assessment, the highest level that you can there. And you upload your documents and then you submit it. And then you wait and see what happens. Now, good news here is that OPM and the hiring agency will send you an email and they will tell you what your results are. And the results can range from ineligible, which is terrible, but that happens, or you are eligible, or you are eligible and best qualified, or you are best qualified and referred to a supervisor. So you will get an email that will give you some background on what's next. And then from there, who knows whether you will get an invitation to an interview. I don't know, but that's basically the process right there.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:09:58] All right. That's super helpful. Let me just ask you a few clarifying questions. So when you said you're filling out that form later in the process, and you said it was like the assessment, were you just saying it's like a test or it's an actual test that you're taking?

Kathryn Troutman: [00:10:16] It's actually a test. It's called the Self-Assessment Questionnaire and they might ask you 20 questions that are job related and you need to answer the questions.

Your choices are A through E. A is I don't know anything about this. B is I've done this but I have no training. C I've done this supervised. D is I do this work unsupervised and E is I'm an expert or I'm a supervisor, or I am the person that people ask for help because of my knowledge.

So if you can be an E the highest level, that is the goal.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:10:55] Okay. And then sometimes I've seen a federal government job advertised and then the deadline is like the next day. So why, do they always have these very short timeframes for the openings?

Kathryn Troutman: [00:11:10] They don't always, but a lot of them are because they don't want to receive a thousand resumes. They'd like to get 200 or 300. So they limit the days. Because the resumes are reviewed by real human HR people. It's not an automated system that reads the USAjobs resumes. So they've shortened the timeline on announcements because they don't want to get overwhelmed with reading too many resumes. That's why.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:11:34] Wow. So this is pretty interesting. If you don't go into one of these applicant tracking systems and you get sorted or your resume gets thrown out because there's something unusual about it, as might be the case with a relauncher, you're saying that a human looks at each resume.

Kathryn Troutman: [00:11:53] I am saying that. The only agency in government that uses artificial intelligence is NASA. They do use that system for keywords and key skills, but every other agency has human people reading resumes on the screen. And that's why the resume has to be organized in such a way that the HR people sitting at their screen can look at the resume and find the qualifications that match the announcement.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:12:18] I see. And the guideline for creating your resume is what you talk about in your book, right? The Federal Resume Guidebook.

Kathryn Troutman: [00:12:28] That's exactly right. If you get a copy of the Federal Resume Guidebook, you will see what a good federal resume looks like. And the basic facts are that the average federal resume length is five pages.

And it should match the announcement, the qualifications in the announcement, and it should include accomplishments that demonstrate and show your experience that matches the announcement. And the format is in the book. Just look at the book, it's called the Outline Format. I call it the Outline Format because it starts out with all cap keywords and the all cap keywords are basically an outline matching the announcement. And then you fill in the outline with some sentences, you add some accomplishments and then you have a federal resume that is easy for the HR person to read on their computer screen, and hopefully find you best qualified, and hopefully refer you to a manager.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:13:27] Okay. And then normally when people are applying to a private sector job, they might put in an application online, but then they're trying, ideally they're trying to network, to connect with people who work inside the organization, or know someone who works inside the organization and have additional connection, sort of outside the regular process. Is this something that you can do with the federal government application? Or are you not allowed to do that kind of thing?

Kathryn Troutman: [00:14:00] You can do that. If your neighbor works at that agency and they let you know that this position was coming up and you applied for it, and you said to them, "I applied for it. I did it. I did it. I applied for it". Then maybe they could talk to the manager and say, "Hey, did so-and-so come up on your list?" and see if the person came up on the list.

It's actually a little bit rare, but. If you do know somebody inside of an agency, please talk to them and find out if their agency is hiring and are positions coming up, and what are the positions, and see if you might be interested in any of them. Networking government does work.

You can't contact the actual recruiter manager for the announcement. You can't go and find them and talk to them. No. But if you know somebody that works in the agency, yes.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:14:49] That's very good to know. I hope our listeners noted this because that is similar to how you might apply for a job successfully outside the federal government. So the same kind of networking advice looks like it's relevant for the federal government process too. If you know someone in the agency, they can essentially mention your name, that will flag your resume and bring it to the top of the pile or near the top, sounds like.

Kathryn Troutman: [00:15:19] It would help, yes.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:15:20] And then how long does it usually take to get one of those emails back putting you in one of the categories of either not qualified or, very qualified and getting an interview?

Kathryn Troutman: [00:15:33] It doesn't take very long, a week or two. It's really quite quick that email. Be sure you look for those emails. Here's one thing that is happening now with that email, there's a new test in the government called USA Hires. I can't tell you who's using it, what agencies, what jobs, I don't know, that's a mystery. But if you're going to be invited to take that test, it will appear in that OPM email.

And they will say to you, you have three days to take this exam. And after you take this exam, we will consider you further with the application process. So if you don't take that exam within the three days, you're out.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:16:16] I see. All right. And I guess you better check your spam file and make sure you're all over your email so you don't miss something like that. No exceptions, or you have to reapply or something.

Kathryn Troutman: [00:16:28] You're out. You're just out, right?

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:16:31] Yeah. Okay. All right. Noted. Can you give us some examples of unusual or unexpected federal government jobs? I was intrigued by you saying, you know, you can live anywhere in the United States and apply for jobs that are in your local area.

So it's not like you have to be in metro DC, you can be anywhere in the country. So I thought that was interesting. Can you give us some unusual jobs that maybe people wouldn't ordinarily think of?

Kathryn Troutman: [00:17:01] I can. There's one in particular, the job is called Program Analyst and that's an official job title in the government.

O343 is a job series, but Program Analyst, if you type that in USAjobs, thousands of jobs will come up. And what a program analyst does is this, they analyze programs. They analyze it to see if it is efficient and effective. They analyze data, qualitative and quantitative data, to analyze the effectiveness of the program.

They communicate with customers. They prepare briefings and information. Now this job sounds really government-ish, but actually not. So many people can apply for this job. If you are a realtor, if you are a sous chef, managing a restaurant, you do those things. You do analyze the efficiency and effectiveness of your program every day.

]If you manage a hotel, you do this. If you even work at a cruise line, these are companies and agencies that have been losing employees because of the pandemic. If you're in sales and marketing, you can apply for Program Analyst. So that's a job that a lot of people don't even know exists and that you can translate your skills from almost any industry where you analyze the program for efficiency and effectiveness, and you do the numbers, you do database, you work to improve the program, you make recommendations. That's a really popular job title. Every single agency has program analysts. Every program has a program analyst. You should look it up and read the jobs.

It is very interesting. And the jobs range all the way from a GS-7 to 15. So all the way. Yeah. Seven to 15. You know, any of them, if you have a new MBA, you could qualify for a GS-9 because all the courses in the MBA program would match this job title. So I like talking about that job title because there's so many of them available.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:19:07] And it's very interesting that you're saying people with such a wide range of backgrounds could qualify. You mentioned just now the GS 7 to 15, and I'm not familiar with that. And I'm guessing most of our listeners are not either. Can you just give us a breakdown of what 7 to 15 means? And is there something that's lower than seven?

Kathryn Troutman: [00:19:27] Well, GS 5 is what you could qualify for with the new bachelors degree, but the GS levels go all the way down to one, I think, and two, three, and five. And those are people that do clerical or labor work with no qualifications required. But a GS 5 is entry level average. You can have one year specialized experience in a certain field of work, or you could have a bachelor's degree for the five. For the seven, you can have a one year of graduate school or one year of experience at around $35,000 a year. And nine is next, that's a master's degree. It's like $50,000, I guess, I don't have the salary scale in front of me. You should look up the salary scale. Oh, that's another thing you should do as a beginner. Just Google government GS salaries or government salaries.

It'll come up. And look for your geographic region because the pay is different in different states. So if you're in Florida, look for the salary. If you're in California, look for it and then look up the salaries because you do need to learn to equate GS level to salary. You have to learn that. And so look up that GS scale. That would be good for you.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:20:41] Okay. So that's great advice. And can you talk a little bit about, is it different for people who are returning? Our audience is relaunchers, people returning to work after a career break. Is it easier for someone who worked in the federal government previously, even if it was five or 10 years ago to return to a federal government job, versus someone who did not work in the federal government before?

Kathryn Troutman: [00:21:10] Oh yeah. It's easier if you're coming back as a former federal employee, because you can apply as a competitive applicant. And there's a lot of jobs for competitive, current and past federal employees, but you have to have three years of experience in the federal government to apply as a former federal employee.

So yes, it's easier. And the non-past fed would apply as a public person. And there is a challenge with the public announcements. The public announcements is where the veteran's preference will apply. So you will be competing with veteran's preference in the public announcements. And you might get an email that will say that your resume was not reviewed because there were so many veterans that applied for this position. And there was nothing you could do about that. You must just apply again to another announcement. And that is the way veterans preference works, is on the public announcements. And, but then there are also other hiring authorities in the government.

So if you have a person who's applying who has a disability, you can look at the list of the disability items that are written down. You can get a letter, called a Schedule A letter from either a doctor or a vocational rehab person. And you can have a schedule, a letter. You can research this on USAjobs, and OPM Schedule A letter.

And it's also in my book, you can read what a Schedule A letter looks like, and you can apply as a federal employee with a Schedule A letter. So that's also very good to know. A lot of people do have a disability that can give them the Schedule A letter. Then there's one more thing I should mention right now with that, is that there are Schedule A coordinators, they're called Selective Placement Program Coordinators. And you can find them on the OPM website. These are real people who you can send your resume and your Schedule A letter to, and they can also assist you with finding a federal job. So that's always of interest. I coach a lot of people who are coming back after a break. The break could be family caregiving, kids caregiving, travel, their own illness that they've gotten better from and they're ready to go again. People do come back and they do go to work and they do get hired, but the resume has to be updated. The resume has to be really good. There can be a gap in the dates. You can just write a simple sentence, like caregiving, or working toward a new career.

Something that you can add that will account for five years or three or ten. Recently, there was a man who was out for 15 years that we worked with from California, and he took care of a lot of caregiving with his wife and his son. And he is not hired in the government yet, but he did get hired in the state, and we are still working for project management, telecom, facilities management for him and the federal government.

And since he got hired in the state, then that state job disappeared because of COVID. So we're back on federal jobs now. So it can be done. It can be.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:24:16] Good. Because our listeners are mostly in that category. So glad to hear about that example and these pathways. So we're about to have a new presidential administration come in. What jobs turnover when a new administration comes in, is there a special category or are those related to a new administration sort of separate from other federal government jobs?

Kathryn Troutman: [00:24:45] Well, there are the presidential appointee jobs that Biden will be hiring and recruiting for. And you can find those jobs in a book called the Plum Book 2020. You can Google Plum Book 2020, or it's on my website posted also. But those jobs are, they're very senior level. You have to be very specialized and very expert in order to get these Schedule C, appointee positions, but they are listed in the Plum Book.

They're there. And also President-elect Biden has a website called BuildBackBetter.org. You can go there and submit your resume and cover letter and fill out the form. So those are two things, but, he is going to be creating a lot of jobs in the federal government this year. Now I can't tell you what they are because I don't know his new programs yet.

I mean, when he does his inaugural speech, he's probably going to mention the programs that he's going to roll out, could be construction, new hiring, climate control. I don't know what it's going to be, whatever it is, there's going to be jobs associated with it. But then besides that, a lot of people left the government this year.

A lot of senior people, a lot of people near retirement, went ahead and left, because it was a tough year in the government. And then when the pandemic hit and everybody went virtual a lot more people retired. So there's just a lot of jobs and a lot of openings in the government. This is a really prime time to do what I've been saying, search on USAjobs, set up their profile, do the whole thing. You get the book. Yes. Go government.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:26:18] Interesting. And how do you spell Plum Book? I don't know what that is.

Kathryn Troutman: [00:26:25] P L U M Book 2020.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:26:29] And is it all one word PLUM BOOK or two words?

Kathryn Troutman: [00:26:32] Two words.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:26:34] Okay. Just so everyone knows, but also we'll talk to Kathryn at the end about her website and get her website URL so you can look it up there too. Kathryn, can you give us a little insight for military spouses? Are there special opportunities that they should be considering during the time they're moving from base to base , and also, when their service member has ended their service and then the military spouse might be establishing themselves in one location for the longer term?

Kathryn Troutman: [00:27:06] Yeah. Federal job opportunities got way better for military spouses last year. President Trump signed an executive order on March 9, 2019. Big surprise. I didn't even know it was coming and it was great, it was really good. He said that government agencies should do more to hire more military spouses.

And there were a few changes that were made to one of the best changes is that if you look at USAjobs now, there's a little widget for military spouses. We've got public, federal employees, veterans, military, and then we've got military spouses, thank you! So you can apply to all those jobs where it just says military spouses on USAjobs.

Then I wrote, I updated my book when this happened. The book is called The Stars are Lined Up For Military Spouses and I recommend it. I came up with a new format for spouses for their resume. I recommended that they add their PCS history to their resume, change all the different locations where they went.

So they would add to their resume Naples, Italy; Rhoda, Spain; San Diego, California; Pentagon, Washington, DC; and San Antonio. They put the list of their career and the dates, and then describe some of the things that they did at each of their bases and the skills they gained as a military spouse. And I've taught this method 200 times to thousands of people and spouses, and everybody really likes it. Because spouses have in the past hidden the fact that they're a spouse because the employer is going to know they're going to move in three years. But you know, the average length of employment now is three to five years. So it's time to talk about their knowledge, their military spouse experience that they've had throughout their career.

Now, that could work for either active duty military spouse or someone who's retired. Let's say this spouse is married to a retiree. They could still add this to their resume, to show their career and their life and their experience and knowledge. So when they go to apply for a job that could be DOD, they can show all the knowledge that they have from traveling around at the military bases. They gain knowledge and documentation and compliance with rules and the school systems. And so much knowledge from traveling from military base to military base. These samples are in my book. It's called The Stars are Lined Up For Military Spouses.

Very enthusiastic about helping military spouses. I'm really glad that there is more accountability now. Every year agencies have to report to OPM and tell them how many jobs are posted for military spouses and how many military spouses did they hire? That just started last year. So this is brand new.

So anyway, it's better overall.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:29:53] That's very interesting. Thank you. And thanks for the specific information about military spouses. I just want to clarify when you're saying that they should list all the different places that they lived and their experiences there does that include, cause it could be volunteer work.

And as they may not be doing paid work when they're moving around. Some people have a job that depends on transferable skills and they can move with it and others don't. So would you include volunteer experience too?

Kathryn Troutman: [00:30:25] And I'm glad you asked that. Absolutely. because here's the good news, volunteer jobs are equal to paid jobs in the government.

So if you write up your volunteer job, let's say you worked in elementary school part-time with the kids, no money, all for free, but you did student activities. You did help the teacher with the classwork or you did virtual zoom support. You could write all that down and say 15 hours a week. And you did this for three years.

You would get credit for education and curriculum development, platform development. You would get, you could use it as credit. You don't have to be paid to get credit on a federal resume.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:31:09] Is that the case for military spouses and non-military spouses, anyone who does volunteer work during their career break?

Kathryn Troutman: [00:31:17] Absolutely. It's for everyone. So if a person has been out of work for five years and they've done a lot of volunteer work for this place or that place, they have to write it up like a job blog, they have to say the title of their job, the place where they worked, the street address, the name of the supervisor and phone ,month and year to month and year, hours per week.

And then the duties of their nonprofit volunteer job, just like it was a paid job. That's how you get credit.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:31:44] Wow. All right. That is very, that's a very interesting distinguishing factor about federal jobs because in the private sector, we're seeing more and more recognition of relevant volunteer experience.

But you're saying that as a rule on a federal government application, they look at volunteer roles, just like paid roles.

Kathryn Troutman: [00:32:07] That's exactly right. You can even change your career. I've got one example. I taught a class for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and there was a young lady in the class and she showed me her resume and she worked for the Postal Service as a carrier before she came to CMS.

And I said to her, "How did you get hired at CMS when you were a carrier before?" And she said, "It was my volunteer job. I worked at a church for four years helping to sign up seniors for Medicare and people who needed help with Medicaid. And I did this volunteer work 15 hours a week for four years. I put this volunteer job on my resume and I got hired as a health insurance specialist at CMS because of that volunteer job that I did all those years, while I was carrying around the mail."

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:32:54] That is a great example. Just for our audience what does CMS stand for?

Kathryn Troutman: [00:32:59] Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services?

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:33:02] Very good. Thank you. Well, you know Kathryn, we're running out of time and I want to wrap up by asking you the question that we ask all of our podcasts guests, and that is what is your best piece of advice for our relauncher audience even if it's something that we've already talked about today?

Kathryn Troutman: [00:33:20] My best advice is that you need to go to USAjobs.gov. You've got to start looking at jobs and reading the duties of the jobs, and reading the qualifications in the announcements. I know the announcements are long, but you must read them if you want a government job, and do some of the research that I've talked about in this podcast, you've got to learn about federal jobs.

You also need to get the book, the Federal Resume Guidebook. You've got to see a correct federal resume to see what it looks like. It's not a private sector resume. It's a hundred percent different. It's five pages, not two. So that's my best advice. Just start learning and set up your accountant and go forward.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:34:03] Excellent. Well, we are so fortunate to benefit from your expertise, Kathryn, can you please tell our audience how they can find out more about your work?

Kathryn Troutman: [00:34:13] Yes. The website is Resume-Place.com. And on that website, you will find all the books that you can order, print book or email. You can sign up for my blog, which you definitely should because I send out a blog every week or two about federal jobs and hiring and presidential appointees and all kinds of new stuff. So you need to read the blogs and then you can find where you can order a consultation. If you want to have a one hour consult to talk to me, or one of my consultants that's on my team, it's only $190 to talk about your resume, your ideas for federal jobs, or just kind of a starter consult.

We do write resumes as well. That's a separate thing, but we consult and advise people to write great federal resumes to help you to get best qualified, hopefully referred. We also do interview coaching. Whatever you want to know about federal job search is what you will find at the website Resume-Place.com. And I hope you will go there.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:35:13] Great. So you, you mean it's it's so it's www. R E S U M E - P L A C E.com.

Kathryn Troutman: [00:35:23] That's right. That's it. And everything you want to know is there, you can also read all the old blogs too. Those are good.

Carol Fishman Cohen: Excellent. Thanks Kathryn.

Kathryn Troutman: Thank you very much for your time and good luck with your federal job search. Keep it going.

Carol Fishman Cohen: [00:35:35] Wonderful. Thank you. And thanks for listening to 3,2,1 iRelaunch, the podcast where we discuss strategies, advice, and success stories about returning to work after a career break. I'm Carol Fishman Cohen, the CEO and co-founder of iRelaunch and your host. For more information on iRelaunch conferences and events to sign up for, our job board, and access for return to work tools and resources go to iRelaunch.com.

And if you like this podcast, be sure to rate it on Apple podcasts and your favorite podcast platform, and be sure to share this podcast with a friend on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media. Thanks for joining us. .