Resume Tips!

[James]

Please post some Resume Tips you have learned . . . as well as cool sites or books that may give some inspiration . . .

[SilverTurtle]

I don't know if this would work for everyone, but I have a friend who loves working on other people's (his friends' & family) resumes. So occassionally we'll rotate with a couple of friends, and get feedback from all of them.

It helps with the "little" stuff, like "This looks to cluttered" or "I wouldn't want to read this, there's too much"... that kind of thing. After 2 or 3 people have read it, it can look completely different.

[Thrillhouse]

The campus career center has people that will read your resumes and give tips. also, teachers that teach in your field might know what and what not to put on a field/non field related resume.

[APhi]

My best resume advice:

First, buy a book called Resumes That Knock Em Dead. It really taught me how to turn one 'real' job plus years of customer service jobs into a very professional looking resume that highlights how those school jobs helped build many relevant skills.

Second, after you're done send it to your school career counselor and your smartest friends and beg for honest and constructive criticism.

[James]

The best advice I have ever heard is: One Page.

I watched someone with 20 years proffessional experience distill it down to: One Page.

I had a friend in Harvard Law School beat out the competition for a highly coveted government internship primarily because his resume didn't exceed: One Page.

He talked to his boss later and he said they threw away every resume over One Page just to start.

[CC1GC]

I've heard that it's important to only put down your work experiences applicable to the position you're applying for. Makes sense, but i'm sure a lot of us are guilty of not doing this....

[violets]

My biggest Resume tip is: Keep your Resume Consistently Current, even when you're at a job you love.
Carve out at least an hour every month to look over and add or change your resume.
You cannot determine when opporturnity will knock on your door, and when it does you want to answer with an updated resume in hand.

[James]

Anyone have online Resume sites that are any good?

[lionlove]

One tip that our career center gives is that it's not necessary to add the phrase "references available on repquest", the employer is probably going to request them anyways and it looks like a space filler.

My mom reads dozens of resumes of people who want to be on different comitees in the company and she says that the biggest mistakes are:
- Longer than one page. She scans all resumes onto her computer to file them and emails them to commitee members and when it's more than one page, she only scans the first page.
- Too much personal info. She once read a resume where a guy listed all his grandchildren and his golf scores. Never include marital status, health and birth date info. An employer can only ask health related question if they are necesarry for the position (i.e. "this positions requires that you be able to lift fifty pounds, can you do that?)
- Too vague. Try to write your objective to fit the position you're applying for.

Don't forget a cover letter.

[KappaStargirl]

These tips are great. I want to share my two favorites:

1) Always provide as much contact info as you can. Cell phone, fax, email, etc.

2) About email: Think about the email address you use. If you were an employer, would you hire someone who had your email address? It might be cool to you to have an email address of imtoosexyformyshirt69@...com, but would you want that on your resume? Pick something easy and professional, like your first initial and last name, or your initials and birthday. You can set up an email address just for work-related things and use your imtoosexy address for fun.

Currently trying to convince my sister, tenjousan@...com, to get herself another email address. Call me old-fashioned, but it's better to be too conservative on a resume.

[violets]

KappaStargirl,
Your tip was both useful and funny as hell. "imtoosexyformyshirt69.com" -- LOL!

It's such a good point though, I've worked in a "creative" industry and the emails on top of the resumes have really been "too cute for words". I always put those at the bottom of the pile.
violets

[aephi alum]

Originally posted by KappaStargirl
2) About email: Think about the email address you use. If you were an employer, would you hire someone who had your email address? It might be cool to you to have an email address of imtoosexyformyshirt69@...com, but would you want that on your resume? Pick something easy and professional, like your first initial and last name, or your initials and birthday. You can set up an email address just for work-related things and use your imtoosexy address for fun.

Too true. There's a story at my school... MIT Information Services *hates* changing people's email addresses, and even if you have a legitimate reason (e.g. you get married and your maiden name is part of your username) it can take up to a year to process the change ... so they warn people to think carefully about their usernames. They tell a story about a guy who was chuckling over the "really cool username" he'd picked for himself, until he sat down to write his resume and realized "Email: shithead@mit.edu" didn't look very professional.

My resume tips:

1. One page. (Unless you're applying for a job in academia, in which case you really want a CV listing your research, publications, etc.)

2. If you're in school or newly graduated, list your education first. If you're experienced, list employment first unless you went to an Ivy+ school.

3. Education and employment should be in reverse chronological order.

4. Employment should be relevant. If you're applying for a software job, don't list, say, your old paper route.

5. If you've volunteered at controversial orgs like Planned Parenthood, don't list them. Other volunteer work is ok if it's relevant.

6. Leave lots of whitespace. Recruiters and interviewers love to make notes in the margins, and no whitespace leads to a cluttered look.

7. Include buzzwords. Many employers scan in resumes and then do keyword searches on them, and/or do keyword searches on monster.com, hotjobs, etc. If your resume doesn't have the right keywords, they'll never see it even if you'd be a perfect fit.

[ansturge]

what are some good keywords

[chitownxo]

This may seem really basic, but double-check your spelling! Spell check does not catch everything. Our company is looking for an admin. assistant, and you would not believe how many people misspelled either a) our company's name, or b) my name (I was listed as the contact person). If you really wanted to work here, I think you can take the extra five minutes to check your spelling.

[G8Ralphaxi]

Originally posted by violets
KappaStargirl,
Your tip was both useful and funny as hell. "imtoosexyformyshirt69.com" -- LOL!

It's such a good point though, I've worked in a "creative" industry and the emails on top of the resumes have really been "too cute for words". I always put those at the bottom of the pile.
violets

I ABSOLUTELY have to say that this cannot be emphasized enough - seemingly tiny things can SABOTAGE you.

I was the office manager for a small financial services company for awhile and my boss told me to find my own replacement - he placed the ad but I went through all the resumes, made the initial phone calls, and did the initial interviews. In a one month period, I learned more about interviewing than any book could have ever taught me.

EMAIL - Absolutely NOTHING scandalous, racy, political, controversial EVER. My boss threw out one resume where the applicant was perfectly qualified for the position but her email was something like "sk8erchick@email.com"

Keep it short and simple. If they want to contact you that way, make it easy for them - not a long string of letters and numbers that stand for something clever that your friends think is funny. The employer will make a typo, and you won't get the message.

make sure the email address is current - along with all your contact info, for that matter.

STRUCTURE - no typos or grammar. period. no excuses. if you aren't clever enough to find someone who will read one page for you and fix the typos, then you are too lazy to deserve this job. sorry.

ANSWERING MACHINES - guess what? sometimes, the employer might actually like your resume and want to meet you for an interview. 9 times out of 10 - they will use a telephone to contact you. so then they call and they hear some crazy music and you and your roommates screaming that "Sorry! we're too damn drunk to answer the phone right now! Leave us a message or just stop by with more beer!" Congratulations - you are on the Fast Track to the World of Unemployment.

LESS THAN ILLUSTRIOUS JOBS - ok, we're all college students. chances are, not all of your paychecks came from prestigious research assistantships and fancy law firms. that's ok. and obviously you want to show yourself in the best light, but for goodness sake, you are fooling NO ONE if you say you were a "customer service specialist" at Burger King. Dude, you were selling fries. get over it.