All right, most of you are aware of my nearly two-year long job search.* I’ve been sending out my resume and filling out applications like crazy, but with very few catches, and I figure maybe I need to fix my resume itself. Maybe that’s the problem?
I’d like to post it on a local job website, when I get it finished. But I’m not doing so until I’m satisfied.
*Please, I do NOT want this to turn into a thread about how I’m being lazy and that I spend way too much time online and how I don’t take advice. I KNOW something needs to change. I don’t want to start that all over again, I just want advice on my resume. IF said hijack starts, I’ll ask a mod to close this.
I’d be happy to take a look at your resume. I seem to recall that you’re not the engineering type, so I don’t know if I can offer really specific advice, but I’ve seen a few resumes and might have something to say.
Have you put every little bit of any kind of volunteer work you’ve ever done on there? I got my current job becaues of some volunteer work I did at a disabled children’s home. It caught the resume readers eye and got my foot in the door.
I’d be willing to take a look at it.
One thing I had to learn in my most recent search, though, was to develop your resume for each job. That doesn’t mean that you completely redo your resume each time, but that you look at the job and the qualifications and tweak it so that it fits the job - not lying, but emphasizing those areas that the job ad has as required - put them up top, address them specifically in the cover letter, whatever.
Anyway, my e-mail should be available - just make sure it’s got something obvious in the subject line.
As an academic advisor at my Uni, I do nearly all of the resume guidence for our senior students here are some helpful hints.
[ul]
[li]Think of your resume as a bulletin board for your skills. You want the employer to know if they want to keep reading after the first 6 seconds. [/li][li]Many large companies use something calles rez-trac. This is an auto matic scanner that weeds out specific resumes based on the words you are using.[/li][li]Some of the rez-trac words include: Change management, management, multi-task, team oriented, Energetic, powerful, alert, adept, aptitude, conscientious, skilled, dynamic, oraganizational…[/li][li]The first paragraph must incorporate exactly what you can do and towards the end of that paragraph, who you have done it for. List your “Vast computer experience with…” [name of programs here][/li][li]Then list your latest job, job titie, month you started and year then year you left only. [/li][li]List what you did for the company NOT YOUR JOB DESCRIPTION. But what you specifically brought to the company. For instance, "implemented Big Program X, which saved our the organization X thousands of dollars by streamlining the X system into a working set of protocols easily understood by management and staff.[/li][li]Do the same for one or two more jobs previous. [/li][li]List your schooling/degrees and if you were cum laude, magna or suma…[/li][/ul]
Lsura had it right. Resumes should be slanted towards what job you are applying for at a specific company. I just finished up a job search three months ago, and had several versions of the basic resume (technical, managerial, etc) that I would bring to the interview.
Also, you might want to try a headhunter service. But don’t use ones that charge you money. Any reputable company won’t have you pay a penny.
I don’t have any advice that would be better regarding content than what has already been posted, but I have done about a million resumes so I’ll be happy to help with formatting and overall appearance if you need the help. I can try snazzy stuff in a page layout program if you are looking for something in an ‘arty’ field or standard Microsoft Word business look for a more traditional job.
**Phlosphr ** - I put my job titties on my resume and none of my bosses seem to want to look me in the eye when they talk to me!
I agree that your resume should be tailored for the job. If you are applying to a large company, you definitely want to include all the buzz words for that field, since that will get yours pulled out.
But - you should do some other stuff also. I’ve seen studies that show job boards are very inefficient for getting jobs. (I can look up a cite if you wish.) You need to figure out something that distinguishes you from everyone else, find a few companies that seem to be good matches, and study them. Figure out where in the company you’d fit in, and find the name of the hiring manager for that job. See if they have job postings on their web site. Those won’t have the right name, but if you find someone who knows someone who knows someone in the company, he or she could look up the post internally and find the name and number. (I just did this for someone). The posts may be out of date, but they might be able to find a job that is new. Call up the hiring manager, or anyone in the company, and ask about what kind of stuff they do that might be interesting.
This won’t work 100% of the time of course, or even 10% of the time, but it puts you above the random resumes. Personal contact does work. Someone I was on an industry committee with sent me his resume. As I was reading it a manager came in looking for my help in defining the requirements for an opening he had. I showed him the resume, which was a perfect match, and bingo, the guy was hired in a few days.
Oh, and don’t worry too much about bugging the managers. I’m pretty visible in my field, and no one calls me. Call, don’t email - it gets a lot more attention. You can email your resume if there is a match. People love talking about their jobs, after all.
I think this will work even if the job is fairly generic. If a manager could hire anyone, who would they choose - a random person from a resume pile, or someone with the initiative to actually call?
I’d be glad to take a look at your resume and give some suggestions. It sounds like a lot of people have more experience in hiring than I do, but I’ll help if I can.
I can help too… I’ve plenty of experience in the resume packaging department from when I was looking for a job in Europe. I got plenty of interview calls (which was surprising - I didn’t think there’d be much demand for an automotive engineer from India in Germany!), so it does seem I did at least a semi-decent job.
Thank you, everyone. Please don’t think I’m ignoring this thread-I just haven’t been on as much, because I’ve been a wee bit busy, and we’ve had some nasty storms. I’ll address everyone who wanted an e-mail in the morning, if that’s all right.
Plus, another friend who’s helping me with this just sent me the file back. (Long story, but guess who forgot to include her resume in the files she backed up when she had to do a recovery?)
