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June 24, 2004
Updating my Resume
I have been working on my resume lately. Really, I hired someone to work on my resume. Professional Resume Writers make it look so easy. They just ask a couple of questions to get you thinking in the right direction and then they write down what you say. It's sounds pretty simple. When I tried to do it on my own, it was not that easy.
Here is how it worked for me. I went to her house and took a couple of my "dream" jobs. She then asked me if I wanted to go the "traditional" resume route or go with a "functional" one. A tradition resume is your classic resume, where you list your job experience in chronological order with a brief paragraph about key responsibilities. Most traditional resumes are more than one page, while the functional resume tends to be a one-page resume that highlights your most significant accomplishments. Instead of a paragraph explaining your qualifications, short bulleted type information is used. The reader doesn't necessarily understand what you did in each job but it does highlight why you are qualified for a particular job. I ended up with a one page functional resume.
After deciding what type of resume to use, we took a close look at one of the jobs. The job I choose to concentrate on was for a Project Management position at a very popular company. We then took a look at the job qualifications and required skills and tried to customize the resume to that job. In most cases, we ended up using key words and phrase right from the Job Description. After about 1 1/4 hours, I had a rough draft.
The next week when we got together, we made a couple of little tweeks to the resume; nothing major. I walked out there with a beautiful one-page resume that highlights my qualifications for a Project Manger position. She emailed me a copy and printed several copies on "Resume" type paper.
I was so proud of my resume; I decided to look for more jobs. This time I found a couple of QA Testing positions that sounded good. (My next post will be about why I am thinking my next career move should be a QA Tester.) Unfortunately, my new and improved resume did not best highlight my testing skills. So I went back to Marcia, my Resume Writer. We took my Project Manager Resume and moved items around and expanded on others. After about 45 minutes, I had a wonderful new resume, which I used to apply for several other positions.
So I have now applied for 3 positions using a new resume format and have not heard from anyone. I keep telling myself that I have to be patient while at the same time checking my email every 1/2 hour.
Posted by crumrine at June 24, 2004 10:53 PM
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Comments
When are you going to update your weblog next honey?
Posted by: Lucien at September 17, 2004 4:40 PM
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