Advice / Tips on writing a Job Resume?

[Alishkah]

I'm currently trying to type one out now but I'm no good at these things.

 

If anyone could give me some tips, I would be beyond grateful.

[Xepha]

Last time I gave tips to someone, I ended up applying on jobs again and actually got a job!

 

Anyway. Try not to make it too long. 1 page, 2 pages maximum.

 

Mine goes like this:

 

Work experiences

 

Job title Dates

Company

 

Major tasks I was doing in that position. (e.g. Receiving service calls by phone, fax and email.)

I put one task per line, and try to keep it to maximum 3-4 major tasks per job.

 

Education

 

Title of the formation Dates

Name of the place where I was studying

 

Don't go back too far with your education... you don't need to state that you finished elementary school for instance. XD (Yes I have seen that on resumé before!)

 

 

Make sure to understand the job(s) you are applying on. Re-use keywords from their ads! And you will also want to write a letter to go with your resumé that target a specific position and job. Show them why you are awesome, based on what they are looking for. You have to be confident in yourself!!!

 

Remember that the objective is to get them to call you and have a chance to meet them in person.

Depending what you are targetting, don't hesitate to play with fonts and even add a touch of color. Recruiters are likely to receive a fair pile of boring resumés to read. Make sure yours grab their attention in a way or another.

 

Also, have someone proofreading it before you send it to recruiters. ;)

[Alishkah]

Last time I gave tips to someone, I ended up applying on jobs again and actually got a job!

 

Anyway. Try not to make it too long. 1 page, 2 pages maximum.

 

Mine goes like this:

 

Work experiences

 

Job title Dates

Company

 

Major tasks I was doing in that position. (e.g. Receiving service calls by phone, fax and email.)

I put one task per line, and try to keep it to maximum 3-4 major tasks per job.

 

Education

 

Title of the formation Dates

Name of the place where I was studying

 

Don't go back too far with your education... you don't need to state that you finished elementary school for instance. XD (Yes I have seen that on resumé before!)

 

 

Make sure to understand the job(s) you are applying on. Re-use keywords from their ads! And you will also want to write a letter to go with your resumé that target a specific position and job. Show them why you are awesome, based on what they are looking for. You have to be confident in yourself!!!

 

Remember that the objective is to get them to call you and have a chance to meet them in person.

Depending what you are targetting, don't hesitate to play with fonts and even add a touch of color. Recruiters are likely to receive a fair pile of boring resumés to read. Make sure yours grab their attention in a way or another.

 

Also, have someone proofreading it before you send it to recruiters. ;)

 

 

Thanks for all that. Helps a great deal.

:)

[Rebecca~]

Xepha has amazing advice. :D

With my most recent job hunts, I utilised bullet points to highlight exactly why I even have that thing on my resume. Why am I listing the university courses I took, when I am a baker? Well, I want to show that I am well rounded, so I said that the classes I did take were in a wide variety of courses. When I listed the baking program, I listed a lot more. I said what I specialised in, all the different things I gained experience doing, the special weird things (a bread sculpture), the additional courses I took (food safe), etc.

 

You want it to be easy to read. You don't want the people reading it to skim over all the things you've done.

I've noticed that basically all resumes online have the same format- education, and then work experience. If your education is MOST relevant to the job you're applying, list it first. If you have work experience that is more relevant, list that first.

 

Don't underestimate any jobs you have had. Yeah, you may have worked at McDonalds, but that doesn't mean that you didn't learn anything. Valuable customer service skills. Did you open the place? That's a skill. Same with closing. etc. You may have hated your previous jobs, but every job has something of value in it.

I am pretty sure that the bit of my resume that got me my current job was this bit, "... encouraging return visits through engaging customer service". I am a skilled baker, but many bakers and chefs don't work well in open kitchens, like the one at my work place. They needed someone that could engage, could be friendly, and could make our bakery different from the one accross the street.

 

Good luck! If you like, I can share my resume template with you. :)

 

EDIT: And yeah, ALWAYS use a cover letter. If you found the ad for the job on Craiglist, make the first line saying that you are contacting them in regards to that ad. Your cover letter doesn't have to be long (actually, don't make it too long- the last thing the people reading these want is a page long life story), but quickly talk about the key things that make you perfect for that job.

[hanalways]

Keep it clean! Stick to only one font and only change the font size for your name. Keep the formatting consistent - bold the company's name/school's name and that's it. Try not to repeatedly use different styles of italicising/underlining.

 

Block out areas visually in the resume, sort of like little chapters in your resume. The average statistic is that an employer looks at your resume for eight seconds maximum so you want to make sure that everything is easy to read and easy to locate.

 

Use an objective - and if you know exactly what job you are applying for, include it in your resume. For example

 

OBJECTIVE

To obtain a full time position as a Concierge for the Aegis of Shoreline to further gain experience and expand my education in customer service, administration, and health care.

 

This will give the impression that you are doing more than just mass applying to whoever will take you - you took the time to visibly write their position and company, and glean what the big key points of the job were - for me it was customer service, administration and health care.

 

If you need an example, let me know! I can definitely share my resume template with you :)

[Mouseykins]

A couple years ago when I was kind of desperately looking for a job. Being in a small town, options are limited.

We had a career center and one of ladies there helped me with my resume. Basically under the job descriptions part of my past jobs she used action words to spice things up and to keep it clean. She only kept it to 3 main points to emphasize my skills and experience. The end result was amazing and it landed me a good job. Because of my resume I was hired right away without having to go in for an interview.

 

Good Luck!

[The Bandit]

Good advice above.

 

One other important thing - be honest!

 

And definitely get it proofread!

[Emily]

When I worked at Customer Service, I also had to semi-screen resumes before handing them in to personnel for consideration. The instructions they gave me were to discard any with spelling mistakes, missing contact information (in this case, address, phone number and full name, but throwing an email address on there, as long as it's semi professional and not babycake4u@hotmail or something doesn't hurt), anything longer than 2 pages (this is very subjective, but generally, for a resume, any more than 2-3 pages is way too much) and anything not printed (not handwritten, which is probably pretty obvious) on plain white, standard letter-size paper. Anything that didn't meet these base criteria didn't even make it to the personnel office.

 

Not sure about other provinces/countries, but in high school, it was compulsory for all Grade 10 students (15-16 year olds) to take a half-year "Careers" class. We learned resume writing skills, interview skills, job search skills, etc. The one thing I really remember them stressing in resume writing, in addition to making sure your spelling is all correct and your font isn't say, lime green Metallica font, is spacing or blocking. They really stressed this because, as young teens, we had very limited work experience. What was stressed was to make sure the resume, including header, filled at least a full page. Even with just education and maybe one or two volunteer experiences (or jobs like baby sitting, dog walking, etc), utilizing bullet points, indents, bold or italic fonts and section headers, you can make a very limited amount of work experience look like more, which is always a plus.

 

Additionally, depending on the job and how much experience you have, including too much information can also be a problem. The guidelines we got were to include either your 3-4 most recent work experiences or the 3-4 that pertained most to the job you're applying for (or a mixture. If you have only had one or two jobs relevant to the position you're applying for, list those first from most to least recent, then follow that up with your next most recent, non-affiliated jobs. OR list the combination chronilogically, but make sure you include the jobs you've held that pertain to the applied-for position). If you've worked 7 or 8 jobs, you don't need to list all of them, especially those that have nothing to do with what you're applying for