Hi all. After ten+ years as a freelanceer, I happened upon a job posting at an entertainment company that I greatly admire, for a position that – swear to God – looks like something I created myself after hacking into their server in order to match my own skills, experience and ambitions. For this job I’d give up my luxurious freelance schedule (ha!); hell, for this job I’d even move across the country, and as a born-and-raised New Yorker that oughtta tell you how awesome this job would be.
But. It’s been about thirteen years since I’ve had to create a resume. Also? I’m old, probably older than most people in this particular industry except the founder and his friends. So I’m nervous about what is a la mode regarding resume style and content.
This is especially tricky because this is a creative job (it’s for a writer – and not advertising/copywriting, but honest-to-goodness storytelling sorta writing). And unfortunately most of the resume guides I’ve seen online are either for administrative/corporate jobs or aimed at fresh-faced college grads.
Anyway I would be most grateful if anyone, particularly creative types, would be willing to help / offer advice to me. I’m not gonna post a link to the resume here, because OMG search engine indexing :D, but I will send a slightly edited version (omitting my name/address, obv.) to anyone who’s kind and generous enough to lend an eye and advice. Just let me know if you’re willing and I’ll PM you a link to the file. Comments can go here in this thread or through PM or really anything you like.
Hm, maybe I should’ve posted a link after all. Okay, I’ve made a password-protected version so maybe people will be willing to check it out for & offer some advice. The username is “sdmb” (no quotes) and the password is the Straight Dope’s own Mr. Adams’s first name (lower-case letters only).
Hope someone will give it a look-see and offer any suggestions (especially if you find a typo or error… not good for a writer/editor to be sloppy!).
Oh – btw, I’m aware that it’s very easy to find out my RL name from the info presented in the resume. But I still removed the main identifiable info just out of paranoia’s sake.
I’ll give it a read through on my main computer later…for technical pieces. I can’t help much on the creative side.
I just glanced at it, and was confused by the change of fonts. Almost everything but the last line of page one is in one font, the rest is in another. I get the fonts in the first section for titles…but the shift partway through looks like a mistake.
-D/a
Thanks so much! But… I’m confused by the font issue. The only font I used was Georgia. What font are you seeing, do you know?
Hmm on looking at the PDF I do see that when it first downloads I get a brief flash of a different font altogether… sort of a thin, wide sans serif font. But that’s definitely not what I intended when I created the doc in Word. Bizzare… shouldn’t a PDF preserve my formatting?
Okay, I recreated the PDF this time using Adobe’s PDF creator (rather than the one that comes with Word 2010). I think this may eliminate the problem. Thanks for pointing that out!
Actually I would probably send a Word version rather than a PDF to a prospective employer, but I don’t want you to get a false impression that I was trying anything too fancy (or worse, using inconsistent fonts).
I always submit a Word document…but I’m in such a different field, I wouldn’t have a clue what is appropriate in yours. I don’t judge creative people in how they present themselves to each other. A thin, weird font is a good description of what I saw..but it wasn’t just a flash.
All in all, I don’t see a whole lot that needs commenting on.
The first bullet - about the books you’ve written - is a run-on sentence. I’d split it into two at “All published..” With a slight reword to make it stand on it’s own, perhaps.
Most of your bullet items start with gerunds..this is fine. But not all. In the resume classes I’ve taken, I was taught to maintain parallel style..so either start with action verbs, or gerunds, or whatever works for you..but consistency is supposed to be good. You also do this inside the first bullet under Carnegie Hall. You have developing, writing, correspondence, managing, identifying, researching, creating, and maintaining. One of those doesn’t match. I won’t be offended if you ignore this as personal style..just pointing it out for discussion.
Are all the web sites you reference still alive? If so, you should copy them individually and paste them into a browser to make sure there are no typos…you can stare at them forever and not see something, but the web browser won’t lie.
Other that that, I think you’re good to go from an editorial perspective.
Ah thank you so much, Digital is the new Analog. Or D/a, for short. So I assume the font issue was indeed cleared up for you in the current PDF? That’s really weird, whatever that font is…
Good point about those parallel construction issues. I’m never sure if I should be using gerunds or past-tense verbs. I always try to imagine an invisible “Responsible for…” in front of each line, which is probably why the “correspondence” phrase seemed to make sense. But if it stands out like a sore thumb, I definitely need to make it consistent.
Also, great tip on the URL-checking. They are all active, though one of them (TFANA) has been redesigned since my involvement with that company about twelve years ago, so I wasn’t sure if I should link to that or not. (But it’s a good credit so I hate to give it up…)
Lemme think about that first line re: the books. I don’t think it’s a run-on, just a somewhat lengthy sentence with several clauses. However, I’ll try to rewrite it in some way so it doesn’t give the reader pause. Even grammatically correct sentences can be poorly constructed, and one that makes the reader think “wow, this is going on forever” is probably a not-very-well-written sentence, even if technically it’s According to Hoyle. Like that last one, f’rexample.
Thanks again for your help, D/a. I really appreciate it!
A thin, weird font is a good description of what I saw..but it wasn’t just a flash.
So I assume the font issue was indeed cleared up for you in the current PDF? That’s really weird, whatever that font is…