Leah Warwick: Hi, everyone. I’m Leah Warwick, and you’re listening to “The Admin Edge.” This season was recorded at the American Society of Administrative Professions event, called “EA Ignite,” in the spring of 2025. Our guest today is Madelyn Mackie, who is returning to the podcast after an episode in season 2 on how to map your dream career. Madelyn is back to talk about résumés with ASAP Advisory Board Member Rae Morlan.

Rae Morlan: Hello, my name is Rae Morlan. I’m the Vice President of Administration at First Premier Bank in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. My guest today is Madelyn Mackie, CEO and Chief Career Activator of Madelyn Mackie & Associates, LLC, and trainer at this event of EA Ignite. Welcome to the podcast.

00:00:56

Madelyn Mackie: Thank you, Rae. I am so excited to be at another EA Ignite, where we are going to do amazing things today.

Rae Morlan: I was so impressed this morning, when we walked into that room, to feel the power in that room. It was incredible.

Madelyn Mackie: Admins run the world.

Rae Morlan: We do — that’s why we’re here. [laughter] So, today in our podcast, we’re going to talk a little bit about how to make your résumé stand out. I am at a point in my career, Madelyn, where I hope and pray that I never have to write another one. I so hope. But how long have you been doing the résumé thing, and how did you discover this passion?

Madelyn Mackie: Oh, well, I have been in business for over 12 years, but I have been writing résumés all my life, because it took me 40 years to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. In my first career, I’m a published biochemistry researcher. I wrote a paper on the intercalation of an H2 [unintelligible] that I’m sure everybody listening has read. And then I switched careers to theater, which was my true love and passion. Yours too?

Rae Morlan: I’m a theater major.

00:02:00

Madelyn Mackie: See? I switched to theater, and in theater you have to rewrite your résumé every eight weeks. Show opens. Show closes. You’re done. Show opens. Show closes. You’re done. So I was always rewriting my résumé. I was always rebranding myself. I had fun with it, and in theater you think about the job search differently since you have to do it so much. There’s no emotion behind it.

So my friends were like, “Will you help me with my résumé?” And I was like, “Oh, sure.” And one day someone called and asked him, how much did I charge to write résumés? And then we were off to the races.

Rae Morlan: You can get paid for this? Really?

Madelyn Mackie: I can get paid.

Rae Morlan: Yes, you can, and you should because — thank heavens I don’t write résumés anymore, but I have to review a lot of them, and I’m getting anything in, from [like] when I grew up, how it had to be on one page, to a seven-page, to somebody wrote a newsletter about themselves and sent that in. How do you know what’s right and what’s the new popular? And how do you stay ahead of it?

00:03:03

Madelyn Mackie: Yeah, there’s a lot of changes in it. So let’s address the first myth of the one-page résumé. That’s for students. That’s for people that have three years’ or less experience. You haven’t done a lot, so don’t try to expand or extrapolate your career into two pages. One page is fine. But most every single person here at this conference, you can have a two-page résumé without any problems. You want to really focus on your most recent work, not something you did 15 years ago, because we all know the technology from 15 years ago is obsolete. So the work, as much as you were like, “But I did all these great things 15 years ago…” It does not matter. It’s about: What have you done for the world lately?

Rae Morlan: The world — I like that approach, not just your exec, not just your company, but the world. I like it. So what are the new styles? What’s the new, hot thing?

00:03:53

Madelyn Mackie: Do you know what? Résumés have really not changed. The technology that reads the résumés have changed. The technology to write résumés has changed — where, yes, I’m talking about AI — but you know what? They still want to know: What’s your name, phone number, and address? They need that information. They need your skillset. They need to know, what was your accomplishment at your most recent job? So, yes, you can use color now. You can use some graphics. But you’ve got to be careful because some of those technologies that read your résumé cannot read the graphics, so I tell people: Keep it simple. Keep it straightforward. Keep it clean. Yes, you can use bolding. Yes, you can use underline. Yes, you can use borders and things like that to make yourself stand out, but don’t get too crazy with it. People just really want to know: What is it you’ve done lately? What are the skills you bring, and what’s your education, and how do I contact you?

00:04:51

I talked to a recruiter the other day. She said she spends anywhere from 7 to 20 seconds reading a résumé — 7 to 20 seconds.

Rae Morlan: So if it’s not on top, it doesn’t really matter.

Madelyn Mackie: It does not matter.

Rae Morlan: They’re not going to get past the first paragraph.

Madelyn Mackie: And on page two, they don’t read anything. They read one section on page two. Guess what section they read?

Rae Morlan: References?

Madelyn Mackie: Nope.

Rae Morlan: Ooh.

Madelyn Mackie: Page two. Education. They want to know if you have — what’s your educational background? And they don’t even read all your bullets. They read company, your titles, the dates you worked at that company, and then they’ll read maybe the bullets for your most recent job, and that’s all they’re looking at.

Rae Morlan: Interesting. I once had a prof tell me — it was a theater prof [who] said to me that: “We’re going to look at your degree just to make sure you started something and finished it, so we know that you can finish the project. We know that you can see it through and not bail out halfway.” So I’ve carried that one with me my whole life.

00:05:49

Madelyn Mackie: Right. And any type of education, like the [NOVA] training that everyone is doing here. That counts. Your Microsoft Office certification counts. So if you don’t have a degree, it’s okay, but you have training. So make sure you add that training to your education.

Rae Morlan: Great point, Madelyn. So you touched on it briefly. What effect does AI have on this? Is it a good effect, bad effect? AI scares me, I’m not going to lie. I just don’t even — I don’t go there. But what are you seeing with it on résumés?

Madelyn Mackie: People are using AI to write their résumés, and I’ve asked recruiters, “Do you care if it’s an AI-written résumé?” And they said, “I don’t care if it’s an AI-written résumé, but I can tell when it is. And if it looks like it’s a generic résumé that just has a lot of pretty buzzwords and a lot of fluff, then I’m not going to interview that person. What I’m looking for is the impact they’ve had on an organization.”

00:06:51

The way individuals can show that impact is by adding metrics to the bullets. I know for a lot of admins, a lot of executive assistants, [they] say, “There are no metrics. I’m not doing sales and things like that.” But I’m like, “How big was the expense report? How many trips did you plan for your executive? How many people are on the board of directors? How many executives do you support?” Because these days it’s definitely more than one.

Rae Morlan: It’s more than one. You’re exactly right. We’re going to jump over a minute. Again, we’ve got a listener question that was submitted, and they write: “Does having a certification, like PACE, on your résumé really make an impact? And if so, what is the best way to promote that? Is that a page-two thing? Is that a page-one thing?”

Madelyn Mackie: Having any type of certification, especially when it’s relevant to your field, does have a big impact, and it makes you stand out from all of those that don’t. I would say it needs to be on page one. It needs to be on page two. It needs to be on your LinkedIn profile. It needs to be on your business card. It needs to be on your email signature. It needs to be in the cover letter. So you should hype that in all the different places you possible can, and make sure they know what that means, right? PACE is an acronym, so spell out the acronym. Say how many hours of training. That’s another metric that you had to invest to earn that certification.

00:08:10

Rae Morlan: That’s awesome. Great. Now, I’m going to ask you a question that’s not on here. When I interview guests, I stalk them on social media, so I was stalking you the other day and you are involved in everything, lady. You are all over. I don’t even know how many community boards you’re on. You read the entire bible. These are huge things. This just doesn’t happen in a day. How do you manage it all? How do you do it?

Madelyn Mackie: One project at a time, and I don’t worry about the end; I worry about the continuation. You talked about the bible, reading the bible, right? It was a program I did through the Hallow app, called “Bible in a Year.” It took me 609 days, so it was not 365 days; it was 609. It was about, even if I take a day off, come back to it. So if you’re doing something like your certifications and your trainings, you may not be able to finish it in the allocated time, but keep going. Don’t stop. Time blocking is a big thing.

00:09:24

But even if you can only do five minutes — five minutes. I have to work out today. I haven’t done it yet. You know what? I’m going to walk down the street for five minutes in one direction, turn around, and walk back. That’s going to give me ten minutes of walking, and then I’m going to walk all around this conference center, and that’s going to get me my 10,000 steps, eventually. But just keep doing it.

Rae Morlan: You are so awesome. I’m so blessed to be able to talk to you today. Thanks for joining us. This has been wonderful, Madelyn. Where can our listeners find you online?

00:09:56

Madelyn Mackie: You can absolutely find me on LinkedIn. Just put in “Madelyn Mackie” and you’ll see me pop up as Madelyn Mackie, the Career Activator, or you can go to my website, www.madelynmackie.com. I look forward to hearing from all of you to help you activate your career dreams.

Rae Morlan: Thank you again, and have a blast here at the conference.

Madelyn Mackie: Thank you so much.

[music playing]

Leah Warwick: Thank you for listening to “The Admin Edge,” produced by the American Society of Administrative Professionals, original music and audio editing by Warwick Productions, with audio and video production by 5Tool Productions. If you liked this podcast, please leave us a nice review, five stars, and subscribe. If you’d like to submit a listener question, you may do so on our website at ASAPorg.com/podcast.