write a resume for the claims industry (proofread by ben) 1 · pdf...

Copyright 2013 AdjusterPro – All Rights Reserved

Write a Winning Claims Resume by

Daniel Kerr, AdjusterPro

Preface: A Question of Relevance

In the tech-‐rich, systematized, abbreviated, got-‐an-‐app-‐for-‐that world we live in, resume writing may seem old-‐fashioned and irrelevant. In a day of email, texting, and Tweets where formality, word-‐craft, and anything like an observance of grammar are bravely shoved aside; it's difficult to even imagine sitting down and creating a formal resume. And it's even more difficult to do it. So is it even necessary?

You'll have probably guessed from to the title of this essay that I believe the

answer to be overwhelmingly "Yes!". Now, more than ever, writing a good resume is an integral component in landing the job you want. Why? I see three reasons –

1. Despite technological automation, the demand for written resumes hasn't diminished. Unfortunately for teenagers, hiring companies aren't currently accepting text messages in lieu of an application. That's largely because the breadth and depth of information a good resume provides is tough to replace. Automation in the resume process is happening, but its happening more on the screening side with companies developing programs that crawl sites like Monster and CareerBuilder looking for particular keywords, phrases, experience levels, and combinations thereof. More on this later.

2. The insurance claims industry, and the independent adjuster industry in particular, put a strong emphasis on resumes. While larger companies often have extensive online applications that supplement or even replace the need for a resume (although the information provided on these can nearly always be cut and pasted from your resume), most mid-‐size and smaller companies, TPAs, and adjusting firms ask for one thing and one thing only – a resume.

3. The overall quality of resumes is decreasing, which means the impact a truly excellent resume has by contrast is going up. Do you want to stand out from the other mostly mediocre 100 resumes sitting on HR's desk? Observe the rules that follow and you will consistently get more callbacks, interviews, and finally, work.


Part 1: What to Say The average employer will spend ten seconds looking at your resume. Ten seconds! That's about the time it took you to read the Part 1 heading and these two sentences. It's absolutely critical therefore that you not dilute your resume with fluff and non-‐essentials. Each phrase in your resume is precious real estate and it's either actively championing your cause or it's just blah, blah, blah and on to the next resume in the stack. So for now, let's leave aside the particulars of formatting and style and concentrate on the five key things you need to communicate. What follows represent the five most sought after traits hiring companies look for in an adjuster. Consequently, your resume should be written accordingly. Each word must be carefully chosen to dvance your position in the mind of the reader. If it's not, cut it out. This ensures that all ten seconds are spent soaking up precisely what they are looking for. Here's what they're looking for:

• Key #1: People Skills Claims adjusters should possess excellent people skills and hiring companies will certainly take notice of a resume that paints a picture of superior interpersonal communication. You don't have to be Dale Carnegie, but you do need to demonstrate an ability to deal with a wide variety of people in various stages of stress, anxiety, and agitation. Emphasize in your resume the polite, professional, and cordial manner with which you have effectively dealt with people under such conditions. Along with excellent people skills, it's becoming increasingly important to hiring companies that you exhibit a willingness and docility to do things their way. You may know everything in the world about how a house is put together but if you let that go to your head and delude yourself into thinking you suddenly know more about the claims process than your employers, your time in this industry will be short-‐lived. In your resume you want to communicate confidence and competence – not arrogance and stubbornness.

• Key #2: Construction/Engineering Experience

If you are applying for a position as a residential property adjuster, you will most certainly want to highlight your experience with residential construction. Do you have a working knowledge of how a house is put together? Do you know the


difference between soffit and fascia? If so, how do you know? Have you worked on a construction crew? Operated as a general contractor? Helped your uncle out with building his deck? Adjusting firms in particular do not want to devote significant amounts of time in training their adjusters in basic construction terminology. Allay their fears immediately by highlighting your facility with the property construction pertinent to the position you are applying for. TIP: For those seeking positions in health, liability, and/or Workers' Compensation claims, carefully consider what knowledge you have that is related directly to the position you are pursuing. Typically, there is a reason you are pursuing a particular niche within the claims industry – an attraction that is often rooted in experience of some type. Find that experience and be ready to express it.

• Key #3: Computer/Technical Skills

The days of hand-‐written estimates are over for the professional insurance adjuster. Estimates are written and submitted electronically and if you know your way around a computer it will be greatly to your advantage as you put together your resume. Most independent adjusting firms will not even consider a new hire unless he or she is comfortable using the latest version of Xactimate or Symbility (the most commonly used residential property estimating programs). If you don’t know these programs well, consider taking a course to sharpen your skills. If you are unable to take a course, at the very least you should express clearly in your resume an ability to use Windows-‐based software. If you are completely computer illiterate, you may consider taking a Basic Computing course before

you seriously pursue a career in claims.

• Key #4: Insurance Policy Knowledge Knowing how to read and apply an insurance policy is very important for any adjuster and hiring companies know it. If you have worked in the insurance industry before and have a basic knowledge of insurance terms and concepts, don't fail to portray as much in your resume. Even if it is as simple as having read your own homeowner’s or auto policy (more than most do!), you will want to let your prospective employers know about your comfort level with insurance policy jargon and interpretation.


TIP: Most folks getting started will need to be licensed. Taking a pre-‐licensing course or studying for your state's exam will necessitate learning a great deal about insurance and insurance policy interpretation. You'll want to mention this in your resume and I'll show you how to do so most effectively later on.

• Key #5: Time Management & Personal Accountability

Working as a claims adjuster, especially if you want to be an independent, requires outstanding time management as well as personal initiative and accountability. In composing your resume, think about various episodes in your professional history in which multi-‐tasking and personal accountability were required and met. Within reason and your own honest ability, project the most professional, capable, can-‐do image possible. This will leave a positive and lasting impression on your future employer. TIP: Being an independent adjuster means you are effectively running your own business. If you've been a business owner and are getting into independent adjusting, you'll certainly want to draw attention to your past experience.

You have ten seconds to make an impression. By restricting your focus to only those things that are of direct interest to your reader, you can be confident that you're making every second count. I mentioned earlier the now common phenomenon in which large companies use bots to crawl sites like Monster and CareerBuilder, scanning all the resumes for keywords related to the position for which they're hiring. If your resume contains the right keywords, it gets flagged for follow-‐up. This is yet another reason to distill your resume's content into the most potent language possible and focus on language appropriate to the 5 Keys enumerated above. The bots will find you…and that's not a bad thing.


Part 2: Where it Goes Now you know what to put in your claims resume. It's time to think about where it goes and then in Part 3, just how to say it. I've helped hundreds of individuals write their resumes specifically for this industry and I've found two particular formats to be useful. There are countless formats with variations and nuances aplenty but I've found that these two really work. 2.1 – The Professional Style Format The Professional Style Format is my favorite. Reference Seamus MacGillicuty's resume in Word doc file "Seamus.Professional" to see how it all fits together. The format is clean, simple, wastes no space, and allows you to tell your story in a tight, high-‐impact narrative. If your work history is something you want to showcase, this is absolutely the style for you. If, however, you've had twelve jobs in the last five years or have the opposite problem of major gaps in employment or just an overall lack thereof, you'll want to look at the Skills Resume example of Ceasar Choppy called "Ceasar.Skills". But for the Professional Style, there are three parts that we'll examine, each in turn:

1. Qualifications The Qualifications section introduces you as a candidate for employment and allows you to summarize what value you bring to the table. First impressions are vital and making a strong one here in just a couple of sentences properly sets the stage for the more concrete, evidential statements that follow. The Qualifications area is NOT the proper place for humility and self-‐effacement. Let that come through, if appropriate, in an interview. This is the time to wax poetic and slightly grandiose about how utterly fantastic you are.

2. Experience The Experience section is probably familiar to you and appears on virtually every type of resume. Experience can be vital information but unfortunately, it's seldom expressed properly. The key to nailing the Experience section is not merely communicating what you did and when but more importantly expressing how well you did it. This distinction is key and worth repeating – articulate not just what you did but how well you did it. We'll get into some tips on how to do this in Part 3.

3. Licenses & Certifications


This is the most straightforward section and – if you've done your due diligence in licensing, training, and certification – it allows you to finish on a strong, objective, and authoritative note.

2.2 – The Skills Resume Format

For those of us whose work history is … err … a bit complicated, the Skills Resume is the perfect option. See Ceasar Choppy's resume. Rather than focusing on dates and places, which can get messy when there are too many in a short period of time or if you have significant gaps, you can rather draw attention to pertinent skills and character that you possess. That's finally what it's about anyway. The Skills Resume format is quite a bit more flexible than the Professional but the general structure is as follows:

1. Qualifications Just as in the Professional Resume, the Qualifications section introduces you as a candidate for employment and allows you to summarize what value you bring to the

table. First impressions are vital and making a strong one here in just a couple of seconds properly sets the stage for the more concrete, evidential statements that follow. The Qualifications area is NOT the proper place for humility and self-‐effacement. Let that come through, if appropriate, in an interview. This is the time to wax poetic and slightly grandiose about how utterly fantastic you are.

2. Skills Rather than jumping straight into your work history, turn an employer's attention immediately to those very skills they seek in an employee. Remember the Five Key Skill Areas from Part 1 above. List them, and plug in your relevant experience and accomplishments. It's really straightforward. Now, if you have absolutely zero knowledge of anything remotely associated with construction and building materials, you'll want to just omit that skill area


altogether rather than obviously straining to come up with three lame bullet points. Lead and conclude with your strongest skill areas.

3. Education and Accomplishments This is a fairly straightforward section where you list any educational achievements, certifications, accomplishments, etc. that support the narrative you've created of a skilled and reputable worker. This helps you end with very specific, concrete and objective information about yourself that validates what came before.

Part 3: How to Say It

Are you having trouble talking about yourself? Here's a little motivation -‐ imagine the thousands of people out there who are genuinely less qualified than you (many, many more than you may think). Now imagine that they are trying desperately to convince employers that the opposite is true – namely, how much smarter, more experienced, and better suited for the job they are. Are you going to submit meekly to that type of misrepresentation or are you going to make sure your voice gets heard? Let your competitive juices flow, take it personally, and speak up for yourself! 3.1 – Customizing Your Resume Any writer knows that one of the first considerations in creating an effective rhetorical piece is to know the audience for which it's intended. Obviously, in this case, we're talking about the claims industry and focusing on the skills and credentials that prospective employers within that industry are looking for. But I would challenge you to take it a step further. I would challenge you to develop and refine a particular understanding of each and every company to which you submit your resume. Ask yourself – what are their corporate values? To find out, check out the "Home" and "About Us" pages of their website or better yet, pick up the phone and call them! Are they very formal in the way they present themselves or more casual and light-‐hearted? Do they seem to tout their trustworthiness and high character or do they emphasize their speed and technical proficiency? In their HR content, do they put experience above all things or rather a willingness to be a team player? Listen to their voice, and you'll find your own voice. Find their pain and you'll know how to present yourself in a way that alleviates it. You don't need to re-‐write each resume from scratch. A few subtle modifications will have a big impact if you really understand your audience. It should go without saying but I'll say it anyway – this is not an invitation to fabricate credentials you don't have or create a fictitious persona that really isn't you. Not at all.


What it is about is achieving a heightened rhetorical effectiveness by emphasizing certain things that are already true about you. 3.2 – How to Say It: Qualifications The best area to customize your resume is in the lead-‐in Qualifications section. You have a real opportunity here to catch their eye. Have you ever won an award in your business? Then you are an "Award-‐winning business owner…". Are you a technical genius with an obsession for organization? Then you are a "Master technician with a passion for doing things right…". Sounds impressive right? You are! Ideally, your lead-‐in statement should articulate your Unique Selling Proposition or USP. What distinguishes you from the hordes of other applicants out there? What are you great at? What are you passionate about? The intersection of passion and natural ability is typically your sweet spot – where you are truly at your best, enjoying what you're doing while achieving maximum productivity. Find that sweet spot and express it as your Unique Selling Proposition in the very first sentence. Remember, ten seconds is all you get! No time for long introductions so just get right to the point. 3.3 – How to Say It: Experience Most resumes' Experience sections are a sleepy little trip through Dullsville. That's because they omit a few critical techniques that make all the difference between a yawn and yalp (imagine a yalp being an approving sound of excitement). The first is somewhat minor and subtle while the second is major and subtle.

First, start each bullet point under each listing with a strong action verb. Verbs like Direct, Lead, Deliver, Spearhead are all strong action verbs. By contrast, verbs like Receive, Handle, Process, Deal (with) are more passive in tone. Why does this matter? It's subtle, but it is the difference between appearing in charge of your job rather than your job being in charge of you. When you "direct" something, you control it. When you "handle" or "deal with" something, your place in the action is more reactive than proactive. You want always to convey a sense of being highly proactive. That lets employers know, if even on a subconscious level, that you are the sort of person that


owns your work. For many people with a j-‐o-‐b, work is something that happens to them. Who wants to hire someone who views life and their jobs as an affliction – something to be borne, suffered through? Second, and this is absolutely critical – don't simply describe what you do. That's what everyone does and it's boring. Why? Because employers honestly don't care about what you did. When an employer is looking at your work history, they are trying to read between the lines to understand if you're the sort of person that will be good at the job they have to offer. Just describing what you've done doesn't really do that. It's a subtle distinction. Employers don't care what you did -‐ they care about how well you did it. That's the key. Each of your bullet points must fundamentally express how well you did what you did. If you use three bullet points – make at least two of them about the results you achieved in your job. Here's an example. Let's suppose you worked as a manager in a button factory. You could simply fill up some space with a first bullet that read "Worked as a manager overseeing the red-‐button division for 3 years." That's true, but what have you really told the person who is reading your resume? Nothing. Or worse, you've told them you had a boring job and you were bored with it. Now, let's say you really loved that job and you were great at it. What a sad misrepresentation you've just given. What an opportunity missed! Try instead: "Championed the red-‐button team to 3 consecutive years of unprecedented growth while achieving efficiency ratings 40% higher than company average." If I'm your potential employer, now you've got my attention! Now I think I might want to know more about this person who just rocked his job at the button factory. Because maybe you can do the same for my business! See the difference? Bottom line: Don't describe what you did, describe how well you did it and with the strongest action verbs possible.

3.4 – How to Say it: Education & Certifications You've gilded the lily in your Qualifications section and you've employed subtle arts of persuasion in expressing your Experience. Now its time for some cold, hard facts to end on a note of objectivity and authority. Following the formatting example from Mr. MacGillicuty's resume, list all pertinent certifications, awards, educational achievements, etc. that you've acquired. There is no real trick to it – only don't forget to include items that may not be of obvious relevance but are nonetheless impressive. If you have a Black Belt in Kenpo, don't omit that.

It may not be of immediate consequence to handling claims, sure, but it does show you have the discipline and toughness to do something hard. That won't go unnoticed.


Part 4: Some Final Thoughts

Now that we've looked at what to say, where to put it, and how to best express it, let's address a few odds and ends that are important. 4.1 – How long should my resume be? First, with regard to length – I am a believer in the one page resume. Remember ten seconds? It takes two seconds to flip a page. I don't want 20% of the time a potential employer spends with my resume to be flipping pages. And then they're only spending three or four seconds per page. That's tough. Plus, most employers are busy and, as wonderful as you are, they just don't care to read your life's story. At a certain point it can be downright annoying. Show that you respect your potential employer's time and keep it to a tight one-‐pager where every word counts. 4.2 – Never two resumes the same Every potential employer is different and each resume you send should reflect that. It's the lazy way out to shotgun one resume out to every company on your list. That spray and pray method is fast but it's not as effective. Take the time to research each employer and reflect that in your resume. How? Call up HR. Ask them point blank, "What are you looking for in a good adjuster?". Don't let them get away with a lame answer like "a Texas license". Press them to go deeper – you might be surprised how much information you'll get. 4.3 – Putting the resume in context A resume rarely gets someone a job. And frankly, that's not what it is intended to do. A good resume should serve the purpose of getting you noticed. Your resume will be successful when it consistently gets you interviews or invitations to the next step in the hiring process. That's it. But that's a big "it"! The key is to follow up with the same

attention to detail, professionalism, and confidence that you've shown in your resume. A good resume gets your foot in the door and makes a favorable impression prior to an interview. Once you're in, it's up to you to close the deal!

write a resume for the claims industry (proofread by ben) 1 · pdf...

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