Resume help.

[GreenLantern]

Hi friends, I am graduating this year with a four year Bachelor of Arts Degree with Human Geography as my major. I figure now is a good time to start applying for jobs, but I have a big problem, my resume sucks!

My work experience is one thing, we can't solve that problem, but the template in which my resume is presented is horrible. I have had this template for years, since high school I think, and I need an upgrade for the professional world.

I am not very eager to post all of my personal information here, so I was wondering if anyone had a good blank template they could send me or post here, or just any tips in general. Something with an organized layout, unlike the mess of words that I am currently using. I am not expecting anyone to write a cover letter for me or anything like that, but a basic template would really help me out.

What say you?

[iggypop]

Where are you graduating from? Go to an advisor there.
This past Wednesday night I attended a 3-hour workshop on how to write a resume and how to act in an interview. It was well worth the time.
Book an appointment at your school, they will be able to help you more than we can on CP.

[RedHot25]

Iggypop has the best advice. Go to your career centre at your school. Alternatively there are a ton of gov't sponsored (i.e. free for you) career centres/employment counseling etc - where you can go and take a resume class or even see an employment counsellor 1 on 1.

1 piece of advice though - don't use a template.

[Ashartus]

I don't really have a template handy, but my suggestion would to be to keep it simple and organized, without a bunch of extraneous information. To some extent resume formats will depend on the type of job you're applying for though.

I'd suggest having education at the top (university/college degrees - when I'm looking at a resume I don't care what elementary school some one went to), along with job experience. You should also have sections highlighting key skills you have that are relevant to the job you're applying for. Major activities unrelated to the job could be added to demonstrate that you're well-rounded, but don't put down every single club you belonged to in university or every sport you've ever played. Use lots of point form/bullets, and don't have it all crammed together. For an entry-level job usually 1 page or a bit longer would usually be enough.

[GreenLantern]

All good advice and I will look into the services on campus here. I attend the University of Saskatchewan and our Arts and Science staff are very big jerkfaces to put it nicely.

But I think within my department I should be able to locate some help as well, thanks again I appreciate the help.

[RedHot25]

Ashartus has some good tips there.

It kind of depends what type/format of resume you should put out there, which depends on your specific situation (which is why its easier to go and see someone or take a thing like iggypop did).

Some random pointers:
-your name and contact information goes up at the top. For a resume, make sure your e-mail address is "presentable". Sorry no "fuzzybunnyslippers@hotmail.com".
-After your name and address, you will need an objective. Your objective is one sentence, max. What you put here depends on your situation. If applying to a specific job it could be something like "To obtain the position of ABC, Reference Number XY-23". However if you are wanting work in an industry, or if you want just about any job as long as its at a specific company, your objective will be different.
-It depends on the type of resume you are doing, but next you could put a "Highlights of Qualifications" Heading. Here, in point form and concise, you list your big achievements, your particular strengths, etc. If you have a particular certification that will be very relevant, put it here. If you achieved a major award at school, put it here. This is your time to really sell yourself. If you have experience (whether its volunteer or work or in a student club or whatever) in a particular area that is quite important, put it here. Not specific to your past job here - just something like "Have past experience in such and such (website development, counselling, whatever it is). If are strong in a certain skill set, refer to that here.
-As Ashartus mentioned, you will likely put your education next although again this is dependent. If you don't have much past work and volunteer experience, you want to stress your education, training, etc. So that is why you put it first.
-Then onto your employment...
-You definately want to use action words throughout though. E.g. "Achieved this...." or "Responsible for .... " or "Organized this..." or "Prepared this.... " or etc.

Anyway, I could keep going but my hands are getting tired from typing . Its best to go and see someone like iggy mentioned.

[RedHot25]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern

All good advice and I will look into the services on campus here. I attend the University of Saskatchewan and our Arts and Science staff are very big jerkfaces to put it nicely.

But I think within my department I should be able to locate some help as well, thanks again I appreciate the help.

Sorry for yet another posting - its the Redhot25 show in this thread - but I would suggest seeing Career Services (or whatever its called at the U of S). This is not department or faculty specific - rather it is university wide for students. There should be a career centre or some such thing for the whole university. That is who you should go and see. They'll have this type of thing as well as numerous workshops etc on everything from resumes to interviews to...

[GirlySports]

What do you guys think of a resume like this?

http://www.resume-resource.com/before-after/ba-ex04.pdf

I know it looks professional but doesn't it look too busy?
Would an employer really read through all this?

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

What do you guys think of a resume like this?

http://www.resume-resource.com/before-after/ba-ex04.pdf

I know it looks professional but doesn't it look too busy?
Would an employer really read through all this?

In thinking about responding to this, it made me realize I have never needed a resume when I have gotten a job and would have no idea how to write a good resume for an office type job.

[fredr123]

http://barneysvideoresume.com/

[Swervin]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

What do you guys think of a resume like this?

http://www.resume-resource.com/before-after/ba-ex04.pdf

I know it looks professional but doesn't it look too busy?
Would an employer really read through all this?

Max I ever made my resume was 2 pages. Good to have breaks between the different topics and accomplishments. Also, try to make each resume personalized to the company you are applying for. I only gave in my resume to 3 places in my life and ended up working for all 3.

You have to be careful on over doing it all. Most people make up their mind about you in the first 5 seconds, so make sure the opening is the best. Personally i have it as personal details, experience, education, volunteering, qualities and hobbies. But each to their own.

[CaptainCrunch]

You totally beat me to it.

[ma-skis.com]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

What do you guys think of a resume like this?

http://www.resume-resource.com/before-after/ba-ex04.pdf

I know it looks professional but doesn't it look too busy?
Would an employer really read through all this?

That's pretty intense, generally 2 full pages for a professinal resume is the standard, but it also depends on what type of job you are looking for. Looking through that, personally, I can see a bit of fat that I would trim off, things like the CSR stuff at canon, just removing the bullets as it has little to do with the objective, but still state the position, and the pc skills that are stated are pretty generic, so those can probably be assumed of anyone in that field too.

The other thing is that with resumes, it should be highlight skills, in there I see a lot of paragraphs which is what makes it quite wordy and full. I would probably save that for the cover letter.

But the thing with resumes is that you could go to three different career practioners / employers and still get three different opinions.

[CubicleGeek]

Originally Posted by ma-skis.com

That's pretty intense, generally 2 full pages for a professinal resume is the standard

I thought that my entire life, but upon taking professional career counselling a couple of years ago, I learnt it doesn't matter. As a matter of fact, it is more beneficial to have longer resumes when you've been out in the work force for a while and targetting more senior roles.

What I've been told is that when dealing with large companies that have HR departments or dealing with professional job placement agencies, they don't shy away from long resumes. They understand that the more experience you have, the more you have to write. They actually prefer a long coherent resume so they know exactly what you have to deliver and focus more of the interview towards behavioural and situational type questions. Condensed resumes tend to lead to abbreviated sentences and missing content, resulting in more time spent during the interview critiquing your experience, which should have been accomplished by your resume.

What you need to draw them in is a short, effectively written cover letter, that highlights what you can deliver and a well written professional summary in the resume portion. Cover letters with T graphs that outline job requirements and what experience/skillset you have to meet that requirement is a very good tool.

I noticed a remarkably improved response ratio with the non-condensed 5 page resume compared the the 2 pager I used almost all my life. Not to mention, as my skillset and experience grew, it was very difficult fitting in everything I felt was relevant to the posting I was targetting.

[LChoy]

To be honest, I think it really depends on the type of job/industry you are applying to. Some professionals care more about credentials, other are experienced based and look to see your experience type.
In government, we don't read resumes or coverletters right away. Instead, the HR person goes through your resume and cover letter with a hilighter, and looks for all the requirments required from the job ad.

Ex.Do you have 2-5 yr exp ------*counts years of experience on resume*--YES/No

It takes about 30min for an HR person to go through a stack of resumes. Depending on the amount received, only those that fit the initial scan as having all the requirements, are sent through for more detailed screening.
The Feds and large companies also use electronic scanners, especially when the application is based online. These scanners pick up keywords as related to the job application. The resumes that score above a certain compatibility % are sent for further screening

Hence, my biggest piece of advice, make your resume and coverletter is easy to scan. Some people use the exact sentence from the job application into their cover letter. Use point form or a "Hilights" section in your documents, and it'll make the HR person's life easier

Times are tough right now, but the governement is still hiring right now. Especially for the O&G people, it's anticipated that AB Energy will looking for a bunch of Policy Analyst people in the near future.
PM me if anyone needs specific advice to get into AB Gov't jobs

[Matata]

Originally Posted by Lchoy

PM me if anyone needs specific advice to get into AB Gov't jobs

pm'd

[LChoy]

Oh I should specify that >90% of AB Gov't jobs are in Edmonton
Sorry

[FurnaceFace]

Originally Posted by CubicleGeek

As a matter of fact, it is more beneficial to have longer resumes when you've been out in the work force for a while and targetting more senior roles.

Interesting comment. We've recently been doing some interviewing for a senior role and we had someone apply who had a dozen page resume. Yep, 12. This was way too much detail and way too much stuff to even read. It was sort of like the one Girly linked to, but way longer and way more densely packed. In my view this was a huge negative because I would want to hire someone in a senior role who was sucsinct and should know what to highlight that would be important. The guy interviewed very much like his resume, his answers were long winded and didn't really tell me anything of value.

I think for a recent grad you get away with some more lattitude. In the last company I had we hired younger people and I looked at their resume less critically. That said, have as many people as you can proof it. Also good advice to get the career centre to have a look at it.

Key things I'd look for in a new grad are areas where you took a challenge. I did some interviews on the weekend and one of the guys worked at Starbucks. He started off as a Barista and in somethign like 6 months moved up to a shift supervisor. This shows progression and shows he went out of his comfort zone. Also make sure you indicate as many tangible things as you can. If you had a student painter business over the summer make sure you highlight the size of crew, the amount of work you did, the amount of revenue, if you were in the top 10% in the city, that sort of thing.

I have liked the format of:
200x-200x company
position held

description of your role

accomplishments:
<accomplishment 1>
<accomplishment 2>
<accomplishment 3>

I suppose if it was obvious you served coffee or delivered pizza you don't need a description.

I'm sure some of us "old guys" would be happy to take a look at your resume and give you feedback.

[CubicleGeek]

I didn't mean to say the quality of the resume improves linearly to its length, as there certainly is a balance. What I was eluding to was to not be afraid of going past the mythical 2 page industry standard if you require an extras pages. I can see a 10+ page auto-biography being an issue, but 4-6 page, including a page for professional development is quite reasonable for an individual with 10+ years of industry experience.

In my case, with around a decade of experience, the 2 pager hindered my ability to properly articulate my skillset relative to the job requirements. Granted that was personal experience as well as input from the professional recruiters that led some of the workshops I attended.

Just wanted to dispel the myth about the 2 page resume being the preferred format. It really depends on your background and what you're applying for. If you have just enough experience to fill 2 pages, it is probably detrimental to try to expand it to 4 adding fluff that serves no value. But it is equally detrimental to exclude relevent experience or to condense sentences and introduce room for ambiguity just to fit the 2 page goal.

The format I had the most success with included:

Objective: A statement summarizing the role and primary challenges.

Summary of Qualifications: A brief paragraph or bullets that outlines your skillset to the primary job requirements. Recruiters/HR usually look at this to determine if they will read the rest of your resume. This should take up no more than half a page so they can determine your fit at a glance.

Work Experience: All the roles you've had that are relevent to what you're applying for. This should ultimately support your summary of qualifications and be in the format of:

Role, Employer, Timeline
* Accomplishment
* Accomplishment

Education: Relevent schooling

Professional Development and/or skills matrix: Courses taken throughout your career, additional skills relevent to your role/industry.

[GirlySports]

Thanks for the feedback!

I will trying going the more detailed route. My resume is pretty old and looks like it was done by a 10 year old. No borders and too many bullets.