How about some resume advice?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m just over a year out of college (12/2002), and I’ve been at my first “real job” out of school for about 9 months now. This is the only real full time work experience I have. Definitely an entry level position; besides my boss, I’m the only one of my about 15 co-workers with a degee.

I also work a part time job that I’ve had for the past few years, including when I was in school. Nothing special.

Besides the two jobs that I have right now, I have one other job that I would consider listing. This was a very part time job that was almost an internship but not really. This job sounds/looks a lot better than it was which is why I’d list it on my resume.

Besides the above jobs, my only work experinece is a bunch of different part-time jobs during school or summer jobs. They go back to when I was 15 or so, but none of them are the kind of thing I’d list on a resume now (they are more fast food, grass cutting, etc.).

As far as educatin goes, besides my degree I don’t have anything great to list. My GPA ended up about 2.75 which I think is average at best. No extracurricular activities since high school. No awards or special achievements since high school.

My degee itself is business administration, with a MIS major. So, technically I should be looking for an IT position, but I seriously doubt that will happen. Really I doubt I could get any worthwile IT position based on my education or experience, and to be honest I don’t think I’d necessarily even want one.

Now, the positions I plan on applying for will be more busines in general, or pretty much anything that sounds interesting, but definitely not necessarily IT related. Basically I’d consider any position that I didn’t think I’d hate, which paid at least decent, and which hopefully had some kind of future. Most of the jobs I’ll apply for will be more or less entry-level.

For writing my resume, the main thing I’m looking for right now are examples of similar resumes for me to get ideas from and/or base my own resume on. Any one have any good online examples of resumes for a recent college grad with less than a year of “real world” experience?

Other than that, I’d be looking for any advice in general that could help me find a better position. Any do’s or dont’s for making my resume? Any ideas for finding positions besides the traditional newspaper ads, or online postings? Any other advice?

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot,

Blunt

2

I haven’t any examples I can show you, but here are a couple of suggestions from someone in the business world who (until recently) had to go through a lot of resumes:

Don’t head your resume with an objective – I assume that your objective is to avoid becoming a hobo – it wastes the time of your hopeful employer.

If you don’t have a lot of work experience then list a summary of your skills/qualifications before you list your experience.

Find a job description of the position you are applying for (company website, literature) if possible. Then tailor your resume to show how you can fit into the provided description.

Don’t lie. You will be found out. Putting your best face forward is ok, but claiming to have experience that you don’t have will end up wasting everybody’s time and money.

3

Find out what sorts of skills are valued in the jobs you are seeking. Then structure your resume to highlight how you have in the past provided those skills. And don’t get stuck in thinking that only paid positions can be put on a resume. At your point in your career, anything is pretty much fair game. Obviously don’t lie, or even stretch the truth, but just look at your past in terms of what you are trying to project into the future.

It’s also probably a pretty good idea to seriously consider what you will “find interesting” ahead of time instead of just taking a shotgun approach at finding a job. If you are missing some critical skill set to get the job you want then think now about what you can do to add those skills. Volunteering some time on nights or weekends is a great way to augment your resume.

Really what you are trying to do is to stand apart from others who are applying for the same job. Don’t try and convey that you’re something that you’re not, or you and your future employer will likely both be unhappy.

4

Don’t list your GPA. They don’t care.

5

what a timely OP! Thanks, as I lost my job three days ago and am in the process of tryingto make my resume look better. I feel my biggest problem is that I’ve had lots of job in the last 5 years and they are all substantially the same. How many different ways can I describe being a Prject Manager or a Kitchen Designer?

One thing I have done is I only list the years I worked there, any more specific questions Ianswer in the interview. In my history I spent a good bit of time working for myself consulting, or doing one off projects, That makes it look like there are employment gaps.

Sorry to but in on the OP but I suppose these answers will help lots of people. I know I took the objective off mine after reading this, I always thought it looked lame and the resume does look better without it.

What are people’s opinions on the length? If I go back only ten years, I leave out my time I owned my own business which I think looks good. Keeping it in makes it run about an even two pages.

6

I have heard the one page thing isn’t quite the rule it was a while ago, since most resumes are emailed and run through programs anyway.

For the resume I used to get the job I just got, I used…

My info centered

SUMMARY[ul]
[li]3 bulleted points summarizing my qualifications for that particular job. I actually had four or five resumes, based on the field I was applying in.[/li][/ul]

RELEVANT EXPERIENCE
Place Dates
[ul][li]2 or three bullets stating what I did there, using keywords I thought would come up when they scanned my resume. Think like Yahoo or Google, that’s basically what the scanning program works like, I think.[/li][/ul]

Repeat until all that’s covered, then…

OTHER EXPERIENCE
Place Dates (I didn’t use a description here, this is just to fill in any gaps).

EDUCATION
I didn’t usually put this on here, but if I did, it was basically Colleges-Dates and then any relevant coursework.

7

I’m just finishing grad school, so I’m in a somewhat similar position. It’s a career change for me, so while I have severa years of experience, it’s in a different field than the one in which I’m looking for employment.

I just recently sat down with one of the campus librarians, and we re-did my resume, because honestly…it wasn’t great.
The basic areas of my resume are:

Summary of Qualifications
This may change for each job I apply for. What I do here is sit down with the job ad, highlight the required qualifications and use this section to highlight the fact that I meet the qualifications for the postion

Education
That I’m getting the Master’s is very important, so education got moved back up for this resume - when I was changing jobs in my last field, it wasn’t as important. Now it is.

Selected accomplishments
This section picks out things I’d done at each of the jobs I’ve had, particularly things that apply to the new field. It doesn’t include that I can audit manufacturing facilities - but does include that I’ve trained employees, developed training manuals and the like.

Employment history
This just lists my employers, the dates of employment and my title. If I listed everything I’d ever done at them, I’d have a 3 or 4 page resume. Instead, I’m down to two.

Professional memberships
Including the dates of membership.
By sitting down for each job ad and revamping it, I’m able to aim my resume specifically at a job. I never lie, I never stretch the truth even, but I describe what I’ve done in terms of the job that I want.