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Resume Writing Tips & Ideas
Posted in: Blog by admin on November 4, 2010
Make sure that your resume is up to date with your latest
job experience and educational accomplishments.
Have a friend or relative evaluate your resume to see if it
is clear, consistent, and fairly represents your skills and
experience.
Is your resume in a high impact format?
Be sure to do a spell check on your resume. Misspelled
works can reflect negatively on you and diminish your
prospects.
Many companies have a form on their web sites for
submitting electronic resumes. Have a version of your resume
that you can cut and paste into submittal forms. Create one
that doesn’t have columns and indents as these do not work
well when pasted into a form.
Let your family, friends, alumni groups, and industry
contacts know you are looking for a job. Send them your
resume. Many jobs are unadvertised and these people may know
of potential openings. Also many employers would rather hire
someone suggested to them by a person they trust.
Summit your resume electronically to companies rather than
via paper if possible. Check out their web sites to see if
they have a resume submittal form. Submit it through the
form, if not send them an electronic version in Word or as a
text file. Many large companies put electronic resumes into
a database which then can be searched by managers looking to
hire additional people. Using the database managers can do
keyword searches to quickly find candidates. Most managers
do not want to take the time to wade through hundreds of
paper resumes looking for candidates. Most paper resumes
never even get looked at in some of these large companies. A
local large airplane manufacturer and a local large software
company rely heavily on their resume database for new
candidates.
Post your resume to resume databases. Generally the posting
is free. This is a lot more cost effective then spending
hundreds of dollars in printing and postage costs blindly
sending out resumes to companies. Recruiters search these
databases looking for candidates to fill positions..
A potentially even more effective approach is to use a
resume distribution service. For a small price you can blast
your resume out to 1000′s of recruiters. This can be more
effective than waiting for a recruiter to stumble across
your resume in a database. It also only costs a fraction of
the amount it would for printing and postage to do a mass
mailing of your resume. Most of these services give you some
control over what industries and geographic regions your
resume is sent to.
Many jobs are unadvertised as employers don’t want to be
bombarded by thousands of resumes. Therefore it is important
for you to get your resume in the hands of your contacts.
Also get your resume into the databases that potential
employers can search.
Look in the job databases for potential openings. You can
search through thousands of potential jobs using field and
location selection criteria.. Many local employers post job
openings in this database because the state does not charge
a fee for the service.
If you are in college or have graduated from a local
college check out their career services department. Many
have web sites with links to recruiters, upcoming recruiter
visits, job postings, and much more.
Most major and even local newspapers have online editions
with help wanted sections. These can be superior to paper
editions because you can often do keyword searches allowing
you to zero in on potential jobs. This is much more
efficient than reading hundreds of job ads in paper
editions.
Landing that first job can be hard. Many employers look for
“experienced” candidates.
If you have had internships be sure to emphasize them in
your resume.
If you have assisted a professor in research or teaching
emphasize that in your resume.
Many of your smaller companies feel they don’t have the
time or resources to train you. They need someone that can
be productive now!
Generally your larger companies have resources and internal
training programs to get inexperienced employees up to
speed. Your may have a better chance getting on with a
larger company.
Your first job may not be your “dream” job. Look for one
that can give you experience and make you attractive to an
employer a few years down the road.
Large companies are often a great place to start because
they tend to be the most willing to hire and train new
graduates. Unfortunately they are often not the best place
to have a career. Many large companies are stagnant or grow
slowly. Promotions and career growth is often slow and you
have to wait for someone ahead of you to retire. If you go
to work for a large company do it for a few years to get
some practical experience to add to your resume. If your
career has not advanced significantly after a few years look
for new opportunities. It is often easy to get stuck at a
large company because they offer stability, decent salary,
and good benefits.
Once you have some experience look for a young fast growing
company to join. Often you can ride their success upwards to
a much higher position and salary compared to staying with
an older slow growth company. Look at what happened to the
people that joined Microsoft early on.
If you have visions of having your own business some day
find out who is the best company in your industry. Go to
work for them and learn what they have done to be
successful. Also look for how you could do things better
than they do. Then after a few years take the plunge and
start your own company.