Jobs (and resumes)

[Veho Nex]

Ok, as for my working life I have been kind of lucky, my first job at McDonald's I walked in and said I want a job. I got it without even doing anything, I think it had to do something with being the only fluent English speaker. My second job I got while working at my first, I was over loaded with screwed up orders and the cooks weren't making my job any easier. I handled all of the delays with expertise and finesse, all the while I was unaware I was being watched. After I was done and went on my break this guy comes up and offers me a job in a moving company. I accepted it and became their tech specialist. I loved that job, a lot unlike my first one, but there was one flaw. When the housing market crashed so too did my job. We started getting less and less moves until he couldn't afford to keep me on anymore.

Well since then I have been doing odd jobs to get money and now I need to get a part time job for a more stable income, and to get my dad off my back when it comes to me not working. (Despite the fact that I haven't asked for money from him since my sophomore year.) Well the last three jobs I have applied to have shot me, the first one cause I bombed the interview and the next two because, of all reasons, this thing called a resume! I was in shock, I knew we had covered this somewhere in school but I couldn't remember much about it. So after doing a lot of research and learning what it was and how to write one, I'd like to get some tips from my fellow Orgahs on how to make my resume spotless. Also I need help and tips in a cover letter.

In these hard economic times I know it might be crazy to give others advice on how to make them more desirable for a job when you could be wanting it, but please be generous. Knowledge is, after all, the beginning of me getting money... I mean a job.

Edit: There is also a lack of internet in my room because my dad hates me using my computer. Getting a job and paying for my own will solve that problem in a heart beat.

[pevergreen]

I'll shoot you an email later on with my resume. Got me dad to help out, he knows what hes doing (running his...third? business now) and it works well. I walk in, they go "WOW nice resume" then interview "Nice interview pever!" then "Oh sorry, we can't hire anyone now. no money"

Sad pever.

[Veho Nex]

Sweet, that would be most appreciated. I've been reading on what you should look for when you hire employees and what I should be looking for when trying to find a job I could stick with till december. Its been crazy hard just to find a place that says hiring.

[pevergreen]

Ignore if they say they are or not.

I went around just handing in resumes.

They will take them, and keep them on file (more on that in a sec).

I walked into a place, game them my resume and they said that they had just hired, i walked out.

Got a call a few days later, got a job the next week. Worked there for two years.

Points to note: The empolyee you give it to, even if not a manager, will be judging you. When we took resumes, we noted down our approval or lack of, and notes about how the person acted. Many were thrown out because they were simply rude etc.

When a resume goes on file, chances are it stays there. I helped the manager look for a new employee. resumes over 10 years old were there...

[Lemur]

Don't know if this is helpful or not, but there are fashions in resumes. I can never keep track of it. Last time I had to do one, I asked a relative who does HR, and she forwarded me a recent example that was considered appropriate.

There are probably websites devoted to this subject ...

[GeneralHankerchief]

Keep it to one page, first of all. When listing your tasks you did for prior employment, list it in the order of awesomeness/relavence, not the amount of time you spent. For example, I had an internship last year where I mostly read the day's news and opinion updates on a subject of interest, and sent/summarized the relevant articles to my boss. Did I put that first? Heck no, I put the more interesting stuff I did on a far less-regular basis.

Also, you never handled a cash register, you "were entrusted with the safekeeping and accurate accounting of thousands of dollars in cash on a daily basis".

[pevergreen]

Keep it to one page, first of all. When listing your tasks you did for prior employment, list it in the order of awesomeness/relavence, not the amount of time you spent. For example, I had an internship last year where I mostly read the day's news and opinion updates on a subject of interest, and sent/summarized the relevant articles to my boss. Did I put that first? Heck no, I put the more interesting stuff I did on a far less-regular basis.

Also, you never handled a cash register, you "were entrusted with the safekeeping and accurate accounting of thousands of dollars in cash on a daily basis".

Nononono. At least to the first part. One page resume = bad.

You don't want it a thousand pages but you want the part they really need to see brief. Then the boasting begins.

However, your last point is correct. Make your jobs sound good.

You'll see when i forward you mine, I'll throw in what I actually did as well. I didn't dress mine up too much though.

[Lemur]

This is what I'm talking about. I've always been a one-page rez kinda guy. You want an in-depth look at my life? That's what the curriculum vitae is for.

But then some people swear by the long resume. Go figure. And for those who are dumping their rez online, apparently keyword searches are all the rage with recruiters, so the goal is to have a .txt or .doc that's filled with every possible keyword that might relate to anything you've done.

Gah!

[pevergreen]

It does differ from country to country, but the standard is definately going away from the one page.

[miotas]

The words CV and resume are interchangable here.

I agree with just dropping off your resumes everywhere you go, I've had 4 jobs in my short working life, 2 from resumes and interviews and 2 from knowing people. My second job came from a resume that I'd dropped off 6 months earlier and forgotten about.

[Yun Dog]

Lie your ass off

no one will ever prove otherwise and by the time they figure out you lied you already been there 3 months

its all true you are that awsome

if you believe it - its not a lie

[Banquo's Ghost]

Lie your ass off

no one will ever prove otherwise and by the time they figure out you lied you already been there 3 months

its all true you are that awsome

if you believe it - its not a lie

Very, very bad advice.

Employers do check, and if you get found out not only will you lose your job immediately, any reference you might have hoped for will disappear. In some countries, if you have been in the job any length of time, you can be sued for fraud.

Another piece of advice for the internet age: Make sure your resume/cv matches your Facebook page - and that said page is sober and sensible. Employers increasingly check such public outpourings for evidence of character and lies on the cv.

Final point: resumes written in crayon don't really make the right impression. Nor do comedy email addresses. We got a lime green crayon application the other day for a chambermaid position, now in pride of place on the steward's office wall. Not so long ago, an otherwise sober looking cv from an ex-policeman requested responses to "lardyfatbastard@*****.com". That also hit the shredder.

[Xiahou]

Nononono. At least to the first part. One page resume = bad.

A resume should be as long as it needs to be.

If you've only worked a couple of jobs, you should have no problem fitting it all on one page. If you have an enormous depth of experience and a long job history, you shouldn't be afraid of using multiple pages. It's really that simple. A needlessly wordy resume is just as bad as one painfully lacking any detail.

[pevergreen]

True, but I am heavily biased towards the method my father taught me, seeing as it worked for me.

Don't outright lie, you can lie a little bit, but nothing major.

Be prepared to back anything up in an interview, and have questions beforehand. Beyond that I can't help, interviews are just easy for me.

[Fragony]

Resume fraud is a national sport here, just take a bankrupt company and make up a few years of excellence. Want to be a professor? Buy it!