Charlie Wade's Job Hunting and
Employment FAQs
Make no mistake about it: writing a good resume takes
work, attention to detail, practice, and knowing how to market yourself well with few
words. That's the bad news.
The good news is that there is PLENTY of help out there
(much of it free) to help you write an effective resume. There are countless
websites that will give you good advice and examples of effective resumes, many
of them targeted for people in whatever field you happen to be in. Because
there is already so much help out there on how to write effective resumes, it's
not going to be covered much here. You can start your search on writing
effective resumes by simply googling 'resumes' and 'how to' or something to
that effect.
Also, google for resumes for your position/job and check
out what others have posted. You can learn an awful lot just from studying examples
of resumes in your field or for your job. You don't have to be a resume 'expert'
to see what looks good and what doesn't. Use what you like and think will work,
avoid what you don't like or think will work. Trust your instinct, like I said
you don't have to be an 'expert' to see what will work and what won't.
With some help, some practice, some advice, some thought,
and a lot of feedback you can write an effective resume for yourself. But
there are some simple suggestions that you might keep in mind as you write and
refine your resume. If possible:
- Always have someone (or ideally two or more) whose
English skills you trust proof-read your resume. Proof reading for
grammatical and spelling errors is an obvious need. But it also helps
to get informed feedback about its flow and overall impact, too.
- Have people in the field you're looking to enter
also read your resume and give feedback. People already in the field
will have the best idea of what skills you possess that you should emphasize
the most or how to better format your resume.
- If something on your resume doesn't in some way enlighten
the reader and make him/her want to hire you, leave it off. Reference
information, hobbies/interests, irrelevant job history... leave it all off
your resume. With few exceptions, you get only one page and about
fifteen seconds or less of the reader's attention before he/she makes a decision
to include you for further communication or to circular file your resume. That's it. Make every word count.
- Specific is better than vague. Readers want
to know what specific skills you can offer them, not mealymouthed stuff
like being a 'people person' or 'I helped with....'. HOW did you help,
what EXACTLY did you do? You might be 'good with computers', but HOW
are you good with them and which types of computers or networks? Specific
can often be less wordy than vague anyway, which is valuable when writing
a resume.
- Scour the internet for resumes of people who are
looking for similar work and review their resumes. You don't have
to be a resume expert to pick out both what works well and what doesn't
when you see it, be it content or formatting.
- Typos are a resume killer. Lots of employers
will immediately circular file resumes with any misspellings just as a quick
way to initially whittle down a stack of them. Pay particular attention
to not letting typos end up in your resume.
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