What's in a name? (depressing rant)

Ps: not trying to be a bunch of asshats here either, at least not on purpose.

mtn wrote: But yes, they do care about the specific classes.

Not on the resume or LinkedIn page. Totally wasted real estate.

Perhaps in the interview.

Wow I learned a few things from SVreX's posts in this thread, and I think I can sum them up in a couple of easy-to-remember tips.

First, that when you're writing a resume, you should act like the person in HR who will read it is the devil himself and will use it to write a humiliating story about you. The longer the story he can write, the worse you're doing.

Second, that the value of LinkedIn is a quantum superposition. It's a vital resource that some companies use as their sole source of recruitment and not using it is reason for suspicion. And it's also a total waste of time that ain't worth E36 M3. The wave function collapses when the devil writes his story. You just gotta take the hit.

With this in mind I think some of the applications I sent out that I previously thought were circle-filed due to "long-distance job hunting" may have been due to problems with my resume...damn, that just makes me feel more discouraged...

This has nothing to do with the OP's situation, but while LinkedIn might be the newest greatest job hunt thing out there as I noted a while back it does not impress me a bit. After getting on it I got hit with advertising and I don't mean for a job, I'm talking people trying to sell me stuff. I yanked my profile immediately.

Methinks I need to be working on my linkedin... I put one up a few years ago and haven't logged in since, probably a travisty.

One thing I want to throw out my experience on (and information given from others I work with in the government). Applying through USAJOBS for government stuff is counter-intuitive to industry. Long resume embraced, format your resume to use all of their buzz words and terms or you wont make it through their screeners.

SlickDizzy wrote: Duly noted, time for another rewrite I guess. I don't even know what I'm trying to do anymore. It's just a bit discouraging when school tells you it's wrong, so you do it the way they say and the feedback seems to be positive, then the professionals tell you it's wrong. Agh! Luckily I have tomorrow off...

I know exactly how you feel cause I had the same thing happen but in the end the rewrite helped get me interviews.

I don't know anything about your field so I have no idea about the graphics but I would say to things right away the font for the headings is way too hard to read. Remove college start date. Also I agree with Paul_VR6 the about me doesn't grab my attention.

Also network network network. That will be ten times more likely to get a job then your resume.

Think of the psychology of the person who will be looking at your resume. They have a hundred to look at today. They are not going to read them all. They will glance at it and skim a couple sections just like you would skim a boring chapter in a text book. Figure out what their attention will be on first and make as much impact as you can in that little space as possible.

I'll echo a couple points other people made above. I don't necessarily think the color is bad, but the layout is too busy. My eye is drawn first to a bunch of arrows that point... off of the page. What are you trying to make me look at?

Remove the "about me" section. This isn't a personal ad. Make it something like "core skills" and put it at the very bottom. Lead with tangible, provable things: education, then work experience. In your new "core skills" section, lead with things that can be demonstrated and open with action verbs (basically the opposite order from how it is now. Open with: "Trained and experienced with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, Apple Final Cut X Pro, Microsoft Office and similar business suites". Then, "Developed on multiple media platforms including: WordPress, Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and more." (Actually... unless you have written ad copy on those or used them for event promotion, leave them out and just provide a link to a WordPress page that you have developed. No... really leave these out. You're just advertising that you spend a lot of time on Facebook and Twitter.) Then, "Write and edit following AP guidelines."

Whenever possible, make your point in the first couple words of the line. Not "Utilized technical aptitude to..." but instead "Troubleshot and repaired equipment..."

Do not use weird fonts. Not even for your name.

You do not need your GPA on your resume.

Do you have any special technical certifications? Is that what "Digital Arts & Culture certificate" means under your education? Put that, or anything similar, under a "Professional and Technical Certifications" heading.

I'll agree with the "be brief" sentiment. The goal of the CV is to get you a phone or personal interview. Period.

As someone who hires tech consultants to sublet everytime we get a new contract ... I like a summary at the top listing skills and experience. I don't read anything else to decide if a phone interview is warranted. I'm not in HR (we don't have any) and I have other E36 M3 to do. I call the recruiter guy and give him what I want. He sends me a pile of CVs in an email. I click thru and delete anything that doesn't give me a reason not to in the first section. I reply to set up a 15 minute call for whatever is left. No matter how many he sent me... there typically aren't going to be more than 5 left.

What are the top three things that make you a good candidate?

Write your resume so whoever reads it sees those first. Write them concisely enough for them to get the full impact in under 10 seconds.

Me: Brewer
Formally educated in Germany
Several years work experience including shift supervisor at world renowned brewery (North Coast)
Taugh junior high science before going into brewing

Also... you're 24 years old. What have you done with your time besides going to school? Have you cultivated any hobbies or interests that you've need to work hard, train, and maybe learn useful skills or habits from? You have owned and sold a lot of cars. Have you taught yourself to diagnose and repair things? Have you gotten good at advertising and selling cars? Try to put that under headings like "technical skill" or "advertising, marketing, and sales experience".

36 years old...My resume just bled over into a second page. Some of my friends my age are starting to remove references to bachelor's degrees (if they have a masters) because it's pretty easy to do the math and figure out how old someone is from that. Sure, you can't legally discriminate against someone because of their age...just like you can't because of someone's race...or perceived race...

In reply to volvoclearinghouse:

You are right- those are some of the items employers use to determine age.

It's not discrimination to decide this position needs a mature person with at least 5 years experience in the field, and therefore we cannot accept applications from anyone with less. A screener's job would be to eliminate resumes that do not fit the qualifications. That would include recent grads.

I don't mean to harp on this, but bleeding over to the second page is almost worse than filling it. It makes me wonder why you cod t edit just a little more, or fill the second page.

With 37 years professional experience in multiple industries and several countries, I keep mine to 2 pages. But I can also do it in only 1.

FWIW on the resume more than 1 page thing, I am 24 and can see how you can have that issue. I had 2 jobs before I started my professional career, and one of them I had many accomplishments and had a LOT that I could put on a resume. When I was applying for my first job, I had 6 or 7 bullet points, for that job, because that was all I had on my resume. But I've dropped those bullet points to 2 or 3, because it doesn't matter any more. The folks hiring me are much more interested in my current job, which actually is part of my career.

So your pizza delivery job? Take it off of the resume. Doesn't apply.

EDIT: Not sure if you ever delivered pizza. Just using it as an example. Lifeguard wouldn't apply either.

Mark Twain once said, "If you want me to give a 2 hour presentation, I am ready today. If you only want a 5 minute speech, I will need 2 weeks to prepare".

Being concise is hard. That's the point.

The resume is your opportunity to show the best you can be in a concise, careful, and focused manner when you have all the time in the world to prepare. 1 page.

The interview is your opportunity to use more words, with less preparation.

Your post reminds me of me from 12-13 years ago (same degree program, different city but about the same size, same results on my initial foray into the job market…), so I wrote you a bible here. Sorry for the length.

From the “everything old is new again” file: Maybe it’s not you, or your name (though that’s definitely a distinct possiblility), maybe it’s your degree. Advertising/media is a cutthroat business to go into to begin with, and advertising in Milwaukee has got to be especially terrible. Small-ish local industry in a not-big city (1.5 million people is not a big town), everybody knows everybody else in the industry, business is thin and hard to come by, etc. Correct me if I’m wrong- if Milwaukee is a hotbed of the new age of advertising, I’d love to know, as that would be a fascinating development.

If you want to go creative side, the resume might fly, maybe – but honestly it’s hard to read. My god that font is terrible. If you’re going to be weird you have to be AWESOME first. Along the same “know the rules to break the rules” front, you’re breaking the cardinal rule of typography design, your heading fonts are that weird serif thing and your body font is a sans serif. There’s bold italic mixed in down the page, etc. Overall it’s just a jumble. The arrows pointing to nothing are a killer, too. You’re visually, almost physically, pulling the reader’s eyeballs off the page to… …what? The next guy’s resume, that’s what. Get rid of those, yesterday. I have to know who told you that was a good idea.

Accounts is sales– sales guy resumes aren’t made with colors, they’re made with numbers and words like “sales of $40M for FY 2013” “exceeded sales targets” “drove revenue” “developed new markets” etc. If that’s the side you want to get into, it’ll be tough without interning on accounts somewhere, I’d think, or at least getting your foot in the door somehow. See network, below.

The alphanumbericsoup@whateverschool.edu email address subtly indicates that you haven’t thought ahead to a time when you’re going to want an email address that’s easy to remember, or one that isn’t connected to the school. Not great for someone looking to get a job helping people remember to buy something on either side of the house. Gmail, outlook, or your own webdomain, all highly preferable to anything @edu. Right now you’re trying to get somebody to buy YOU.

You need to be out in the community networking. Find a local cause that you want to help (maybe that way it doesn’t feel so much like work- stuff like a parks board, some charity organization, etc), go to a meeting and see if you can redesign a webpage, start/run a blog, help in any way. Do it for free, because you’re not working for the money, you’re working to meet people and see what’s what. Side benefit, this is how you make friends/acquaintances post-college, and that’s equally important- if you build the habit now, an hour meeting one night a week and a few hours of work given away gets to be a thing you can build your resume with and constantly build your personal network – and not a hard thing to do or a big deal. Some of those people may hire you one day, and if not you get to keep a finger on what’s up in your town, at the very least.

If your portfolio is awesome, you need a link to it anywhere you can put one. Top line on your LinkedIn page for starters. If your book sucks, you had 7 years to get it awesome, “what the hell were you doing in all that time” is not a harsh question, it’s reality. Spend the time between now and graduation making it sing- you’ll never have more time than you do now.

Design a clean business card as part of your personal stationery/collateral (portfolio project, if you haven’t already done it) and get some. They are cheap. Vistaprint will sell you 250 for $10. Put your electronic portfolio’s web address on there with your contact information, linkedin page, etc., and hand one to your interviewer if it’s an actual decisionmaker instead of an HR screener. Businesspeople hold onto cards. It’s a thing. Resume copies go in the trash once we’re done looking at them, normally, if they ever get printed to begin with. Downside here is that it can come off as a bit cheeky (sorry to insert the Brit slang, but it’s closest to what I mean) if you pull it off badly or have a crappy/ugly one, but it’s a thought.

Find a young in-need-of-work professional photographer (you know about 14 if you’re in an advertising program) and trade web-dev services of some sort (or hell, a case of beer) with them for an actual, real headshot for your linkedin page. Casual-leaning conservative business dress- blue jacket, open collar shirt, beige or pale but BLANK background. All that instead of a badly lit webcam pic. You’re introducing yourself to the world via that page, you want a positive first impression, same as you’d have when going on an interview. Done right it should be a high-quality, handsome picture- not sexy, just “nice.” You’re not a bad looking kid, and a lot of HR people are women. It can help.

If your Facebook page is full of junk from college, wild party pics, etc- groom that. Go back and hide anything less than flattering – get in the habit of it, too. As we all live in a connected digital world these days, you have to kind of be careful about what you put out there- you’re dreaming if you don’t think an employer is going to look it up and see what they can find at some point in the process.

That’s all I’ve got for now. I’m not trying to rain on your parade or be too harsh, but like I said, I have been where you are. Things were different but the same 15 years ago, and probably 115 years ago, too- like I said everything old is new again.

A couple of more notes on resumes. The reason you get conflicting advice is because there is not one right format. Every recruiter, hiring manager, and "expert" has their own preferences. Unfortunately, many present their preferences as the "right" way to do it. There is no one right way for every situation. You have to experiment until you find the one that get you called for interviews for the jobs you want.

Depending on the job and the employer, You should be ready to create customized version of your resume. I have a six page long document that I call my "Master Resume". It has details on projects and results from every where I have worked for the last 15 years. No one ever sees the whole thing. When I am going after a job, I get a the job description, along with any other information I can gather about the company and the hiring manager. I then save copy of the the master resume and cut out everything that is not directly related to the job I am going after. When I am done there is usually two pages where everything relates to to the job.

Does your university have career fairs for your field? I have gotten all my positions through the engineering career fairs my school puts on.

That one is easily a thousand times better, if for nothing more than formatting and ease of reading.

One other section that you might want to have and CHANGE for every posting is a purpose/goal that matches that posting well, and link that to your previous experience/skills.

Much mo bettah. Only some minor edits:

Previous supervisors and contact numbers for them are not necessary at this point (someone may know better than me though).

Justify margins below bullet points so that second lines align under the first letter, not bullet.

Edit: I would also put you degree and job titles in a larger font. Maybe same size as company names, but not bolded. I am actually of the school that what degree you have is more important than where you got it from. So, I would put degree title above the school (something else an h.r. person would likely know more about).

Double edit: I said something about action verbs vs. adverbs. Really only two lines where I'd make some wording tweaks:

From, "Skilled communicator with strong writing skills, experienced in AP style writing and editing" to > "Experienced in AP style writing and editing" ...and... from, "Quickly and accurately created closed captions of telephone calls to assist the deaf and hard of hearing" to > "Created closed captions of telephone calls quickly and accurately to assist the deaf and hard of hearing"

Much better.

A million times better, at least.

I like the newest resume much better. Good use of action verbs in the duties, well laid out. I would personally drop Desmond. It will certainly make a difference, which sucks but there it is. Also I would get a professional sounding gmail address, like "initial jones" if possible. Of course having jones as a last name doesn't help.

Yes, Slick... you new resume is much more slick, and much less dizzy.