My job at wal-mart has been fluctuating and bipolar that it’s making me want to potentially seek out other jobs. I’ve acquired a few certifications with them that enables me to operate some of their machines like electric pallet jack, sit-down forklift, a walking stacker .etc
Unbeknownst to me, I am not allowed to carry these certifications outside Wal-Mart to use. But I know I can at least mention on my resume that I am capable of using these machines.
How would I word this on my resume?
Describe the work you are doing and the equipment you use. Talk about the fact that you have received training to use this equipment. You don’t need to say anything else. If your next employer wants you to be certified on their particular machines they will train you.
If you use this equipment frequently, try to quantify them on your resume to show you have experience. You can ask chatgpt for better wording, but you might have something like “unload 20-30 trailers per week using an electric pallet jack.”
Create a list starting out of everything you might want to tell a future potential employer. The original list can be messy and have awkward wording, but try to list all of the useful skills you have and wherever possible, quantify your impact. Once you have that, then go to your AI of choice and practice some different prompts to see what kind of results you get. You’re not going to get a great or even necessarily accurate resume on your first try, you have to put in some effort to edit and re-prompt for improvements. Here are some possible prompts to play with starting out:
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“You are an experienced recruiter helping me craft a resume to get a job in a warehouse. Review this list of experiences and recommend better wording to show that I have the skills to be an effective warehouse employee.” <paste your list that you created>
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“For this experience, recommend how I can quantify my impact to show that I added value.” <paste a bullet that you want to improve>
If you find a job description that represents the kind of job you want, you can also provide that to your AI friend to get even better results. Something like this:
- “Using the following job description recommend changes to my resume that better reflect the role.” <paste the job description>
Once you’re done editing your resume to fix any errors the AI gave you or to change the wording to be a better reflection of your writing, you can paste the resume in again and ask for a final review.
- “Review my revised resume to improve readability and recommend any changes to better fit the job description.” <paste your updated resume>
The first time you do this, you’ll probably think “wow, this is so much better than what I started with” or possibly, “this is garbage, it’s making things up that aren’t even true.” Either way, if you keep playing with it, you’ll start to get a feel for a good balance of words that reflect your experience, but also connect well with job descriptions for jobs you’re interested in. Or maybe you’ll get lucky and get a job offer right away and not have to think about it again for years!
Some bonus prompts for when you get an interview:
- “You are an experienced recruiter helping me prepare for a job interview. I have an upcoming interview with a <recruiter/hiring manager>. Based on the job description, what are 10 questions they are likely to ask me. Explain what the purpose of the question is.” <paste the job description>
You can take it another step and provide your resume and ask it for suggested answers to the question. Careful here though because you don’t want to try to memorize the answers. And finally, you should always ask questions in an interview (ALWAYS), try this:
- “What are some questions that I can ask in the interview to show that I am engaged and very interested in the role?”
Good luck with your job search!
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You’ll be recertifying at every company you work for (pretty sure that’s an OSHA requirement). Start making a list of all the equipment you’ve used with dates and certs, and let that grow on your resume. The longer that list gets, the more people you’re going to beat out for jobs. Just the fact that the list exists will put you over the majority of warehouse applicants.
Operated [equipment] at Walmart.
Trained to use a variety of pallet organization machinery.
Handled a high volume of goods skillfully operating motorized forklifts
Or even “experience using …”
reach out to every warehouse within a comfortable drive of you, whether or not they have a job posted. a local librarian can help you make such a list. call and email each of them saying ‘i heard you’re looking for good people’. you’ll be making much more money soon and likely with benefits.
Please don’t use bipolar as an adjective to describe anything but a person with the diagnosis.
And even then, consider that many people prefer person-first language to be more appropriate (I personally refer to myself as being bipolar, but to others as having bipolar disorder).
I will continue to use bipolar as a word to describe an environment because it is still applicable. You are just gate-keeping it to where it can only describe the mental diagnoses of individuals. I am sorry your mental capacity can only register one definition.
Please refer to your nearest dictionary to discover that it has another meaning.
Wow, I thought you were just ignorant, but it turns out you’re just a piece of shit
Edit: While the term “bipolar” has broader dictionary definitions beyond the clinical mental health diagnosis, using it casually to describe non-medical situations like the weather or jobs is insensitive and trivializing of the experiences of those living with bipolar disorder. The mental health connotation of the word is so strong that even if other definitions exist, the language can perpetuate stigma. The goal is not to restrict language use, but to encourage more thoughtful and considerate terminology, especially when it comes to mental health-related words
The disorder isn’t even in the top 3 definitions. Take a deep breath.
adjective
- having two poles, as the earth.
- of, relating to, or found at both polar regions.
- characterized by opposite extremes, as two conflicting political philosophies.
- Electronics. of or relating to a transistor that uses both positive and negative charge carriers.
- Psychiatry. of, relating to, or having bipolar disorder: “His wife is bipolar.”
Bipolar junction transistor?
I give OP the bipolar pass
Just mention the Walmart™️ _______ Certification. They can’t stop you from mentioning you successfully obtained it, you just might not be able to have any papers with it.
If they ask you mention you can demonstrate proficiency if they need to verify that
received training to operate <insert machine>
Or
used <machine> to <complete task>
“Successfully completed training for the following equipment…”
Then explain the situation when you have an interview. Chances are they know about this and won’t care.
I am not allowed to carry these certifications outside Wal-Mart to use.
Says who? Will Walmart use a memory gun to erase your knowledge about which lever does what? If you find another job that uses those skills, they will do whatever they need to paperwork-wise to make you eligible.
Put it all down. Don’t use the word “certification” if it makes you feel better, but list all those things somewhere. Some people put a section with “relevant skills” at the end, you can list all the machinery you know how to use.
So if i remember my time at wal mart. They will in house certify you, which means you are not certified. They just kinda look the other way and claim there was an immediate need, then go back to justifying the immediate need.
So in order to be certified i think you need to take OSHA classes and be evaluated by a trainer to include classes and a practical.
In that case, OP should just be honest about the status of his certification. If other employers hire from WalMart often, they know their practices. The new employer may even want to pay for the classes, if they know the candidate has done the job before and is likely to pass. But I don’t know how much it costs and whether a company would normally pay for that.
For a new certification it looks like the online portion is $50-75 and the practical test is $150-200 so like $300 or so for the certification. It’s an investment, but qualified fork lift operators usually have better work conditions, better job prospects, better retention, and better pay than unqualified laborers. But that benefit comes with the responsibility of the equipment proper use, you can kill someone otherwise.
If I were hiring for a forklift operator, and someone was a good candidate who came with experience but their prior employer didn’t certify him properly, I would pay for the certification. $300 seems like noise compared with the general cost of onboarding a new employee. But it’s been a while since I worked in Manufacturing/Operations, and when I did the managers at that place were competent, so maybe my standards are too high.
Sure. But having the cert > ready for the cert. if only to cut out the chance of failure. Having it can give you a competitive edge. Unless you know someone. But to the individual, 300 ain’t nothing to sneeze at i know
