The purpose of this blog is to sift through and gather only the best job hunting potatoes online and bring you the distilled, slightly flavoured, but oh so gooood skinny on the art of resume-writing, good enough for the Łańcut of resumes.
So here go it:
The resume, those one or two pages we use to summarize our selling points and hide the unattractive gaps or weaknesses. Is that really the most effective starting point? There should be more strategic planning and analysis involved before we try to fit ourselves on this piece of paper. Ideally we could double up and start getting the word out, letting everything that hath breathe know that we're on the job market. This is the most effective but underutilized method that should be used in conjunction with the resume.
A Career document
The very knowledgeable guys at manager tools recommend having a running master document where you list all of your accomplishments. You should be continually updating this document while you are employed, interning, volunteering etc so you can refer to when you are editing your resume. The benefit is you have a global document that will have accomplishments of varying relevance to the posts you will be applying for over your career. You can pick and choose the specific achievements to make those critical bullet points that your potential employer will be most interested in. If you haven't been making a document like this all along, as I suspect you haven't it's time to jog your memory, make an exhaustive list of everything you actually did, initiatives, relevant or irrelevant. This brainstorming session will help you understand who you are and give you a more accurate picture of what experiences you can leverage when marketing yourself to prospective employers.
How do I measure up?
In conjunction with this I recommend a gap analysis approach: take time to look at sample resumes of other candidates in your field already in the position you want to be in. How do you measure up? The smaller the 'distance' between your current state and your desired state (having the specific experience the employer desires) the less risk that is perceived by potential employers in hiring you. So for instance, in my last semester I noticed I was missing experience using a software program that was consistently on most sample resumes I saw online for the level I was applying for. Luckily I found an organisation on campus that was looking for a volunteer to do some work using the software. I downloaded a video tutorial and ended up teaching another guy who was helping me on the project. Not only was I able to add that experience onto my resume but I was also able to add a leadership position as well.
Reduce risk for the employer
A portfolio is tangible proof of your work. Employers consider all candidates risks until proven otherwise so samples of your work go toward reducing this risk. (tangent ahead>>>) This is why referrals are golden opportunities. Your advantage is that hiring you is 1. not seen as risky as the next random candidate and 2.there is pressure to actually hire you because of the third party recommendation. This is why networking and seeking referrals is one the most effective ways to land a job and I recommend this above all else in terms of success rate. Make sure you have a relevant portfolio or examples of what you have already done. If yours is an industry where this is not possible then you need to have a resume which speaks to your accomplishments in a clear way that the employer knows exactly what you did and not what you were supposed to be doing i.e. DO NOT copy and paste your job description into your resume bullet points. The structure for your accomplishments below each position held should be...
what you did, how well you did it and what the beneficial result was
If the result is quantifiable i.e. percentages, monetary, time etc then all the better. The point here is that by including the result of this activity you not only show what your specific initiatives were but that they benefited the company. It goes without saying that not all initiatives are beneficial.
Be a Problem SolverFind out what employers are currently looking for. The amount of research you can do is dependent on the amount of time you figure you have to find a job but useful resources can be trade magazines, head hunters, recruiters, agencies. Online trade magazine forums are a good place to get insider info about what skills new candidates can benefit from having. Though you might not want to claim to be fully equipped to deal with a particular problem it goes a long way to be able to demonstrate an understanding of current trends and the acumen to be suggest a possible solution to something your employer is presently facing.
Put it all together
Once you have an idea of what the rest of the market looks like (from looking at sample resumes),what you look like (from your career document) and what your employer wants/values (industry professional hubs, forums, magazines, recruiters, associations) then you can begin the process of persuasive truth.
Resources:
smörgåsbord of sample resumes
Tomorrow: The resume format
So here go it:
The resume, those one or two pages we use to summarize our selling points and hide the unattractive gaps or weaknesses. Is that really the most effective starting point? There should be more strategic planning and analysis involved before we try to fit ourselves on this piece of paper. Ideally we could double up and start getting the word out, letting everything that hath breathe know that we're on the job market. This is the most effective but underutilized method that should be used in conjunction with the resume.
A Career document
The very knowledgeable guys at manager tools recommend having a running master document where you list all of your accomplishments. You should be continually updating this document while you are employed, interning, volunteering etc so you can refer to when you are editing your resume. The benefit is you have a global document that will have accomplishments of varying relevance to the posts you will be applying for over your career. You can pick and choose the specific achievements to make those critical bullet points that your potential employer will be most interested in. If you haven't been making a document like this all along, as I suspect you haven't it's time to jog your memory, make an exhaustive list of everything you actually did, initiatives, relevant or irrelevant. This brainstorming session will help you understand who you are and give you a more accurate picture of what experiences you can leverage when marketing yourself to prospective employers.
How do I measure up?
In conjunction with this I recommend a gap analysis approach: take time to look at sample resumes of other candidates in your field already in the position you want to be in. How do you measure up? The smaller the 'distance' between your current state and your desired state (having the specific experience the employer desires) the less risk that is perceived by potential employers in hiring you. So for instance, in my last semester I noticed I was missing experience using a software program that was consistently on most sample resumes I saw online for the level I was applying for. Luckily I found an organisation on campus that was looking for a volunteer to do some work using the software. I downloaded a video tutorial and ended up teaching another guy who was helping me on the project. Not only was I able to add that experience onto my resume but I was also able to add a leadership position as well.
Reduce risk for the employer
A portfolio is tangible proof of your work. Employers consider all candidates risks until proven otherwise so samples of your work go toward reducing this risk. (tangent ahead>>>) This is why referrals are golden opportunities. Your advantage is that hiring you is 1. not seen as risky as the next random candidate and 2.there is pressure to actually hire you because of the third party recommendation. This is why networking and seeking referrals is one the most effective ways to land a job and I recommend this above all else in terms of success rate. Make sure you have a relevant portfolio or examples of what you have already done. If yours is an industry where this is not possible then you need to have a resume which speaks to your accomplishments in a clear way that the employer knows exactly what you did and not what you were supposed to be doing i.e. DO NOT copy and paste your job description into your resume bullet points. The structure for your accomplishments below each position held should be...
what you did, how well you did it and what the beneficial result was
If the result is quantifiable i.e. percentages, monetary, time etc then all the better. The point here is that by including the result of this activity you not only show what your specific initiatives were but that they benefited the company. It goes without saying that not all initiatives are beneficial.
Be a Problem SolverFind out what employers are currently looking for. The amount of research you can do is dependent on the amount of time you figure you have to find a job but useful resources can be trade magazines, head hunters, recruiters, agencies. Online trade magazine forums are a good place to get insider info about what skills new candidates can benefit from having. Though you might not want to claim to be fully equipped to deal with a particular problem it goes a long way to be able to demonstrate an understanding of current trends and the acumen to be suggest a possible solution to something your employer is presently facing.
Put it all together
Once you have an idea of what the rest of the market looks like (from looking at sample resumes),what you look like (from your career document) and what your employer wants/values (industry professional hubs, forums, magazines, recruiters, associations) then you can begin the process of persuasive truth.
Resources:
smörgåsbord of sample resumes
Tomorrow: The resume format
"The structure for your accomplishments below position held should be what you did, how well you did it and what the benficial result was. If the result is quantifiable, i.e. percentage, monetary, time etc then all the better"
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