Job Advice! (Resume related)

[aduidarnenye]

I quit my boring, horrible job in December and did some things. Sadly, savings is starting to run down and I shall need to find a new job.

I've looked at my resume and it's really awful. Over the years I've lost phone numbers or places I've worked have gone out of business. I worked for a few years in South Korea and don't have contacts for the schools I was at. I really don't know how to make this look acceptable and not like I'm making shit up. Does anyone have any good suggestions as to what to do with an empty resume?

Also, I'm a terrible cover letter writer. My cover letters tend to be three lines long and consist of "I want to apply for this job. I'd be good at this job. Please interview me." Has anyone got any suggestions for cover letters or a really good template that I could plagiarise?



Thanks for any advice that does not include becoming a prostitute.

[wop]

Post your CV here and we will see what we can do.

99% of CV's have lies anyway.

I'm sure we can whip up some scenarios or achievements for you.

[Acturus]

This was a resume building website I was turned on to: http://emurse.com/

I don't know if it'll help, but it's worth looking at.

And your cover letter is supposed to say "I want this job, I'd be good at this job, please interview me." You just need to do it in more than three lines.

When posting a resume, with or without a cover letter, you need to be able to communicate not just what you want, but what you can provide the company you're applying to.

And listen, don't freak out about references. In my experience, your resume shouldn't include references anyway. Keep them on a separate piece of paper, and be ready to provide them upon request. Besides, most people interviewing you for a job expect you to have "references available upon request". You want to be able to provide a minimum of 3 professional references. Or, barring that, 2 professional and 2 personal references.

Also, I don't know much about you or your history, but you should really try to limit your previous experience to jobs held in the last 5 years (assuming you floating a bit), or jobs where you showed skills similar to skills needed for jobs you're applying to. More than 5 years previous experience isn't considered "current", unless you happened to work at a job for 10 years or something. Longevity looks good, hopping around a lot doesn't.

As far as resume writing goes, learn your Action Words. Be descriptive without boasting, unless you have good reason to boast. Don't use personal pronouns. Don't make it longer than two pages, and try to keep it to one if you can (most resumes are submitted online these days, so if it bleeds into a second page, it's not necessarily a horrible thing). There are a ton of resources out there.

Sometimes, it's even worth looking at the templates in Microsoft Word. I like to review those because they are clean and generic.

[Guitarman]

http://career-advice.monster.com/res...s/careers.aspx

This will help you. I totally redid my resume based on the tips here. No idea if it helps because the job market is so bad, but my resume certainly looks more professional now.

[Takedown3]

definetly lie, like wopa said every resume has lies or 'embelishments' on them. If you don't have the contact info just list the school names you worked at in SK. Same for your other jobs, just because they no longer exist doesn't mean you can't use them. Put them on and list them as Bankrupt or Closed or w/e.

Never EVER list references on your resume just say "References available on Request" and if you do get a call back or an interview you better make sure you have some references on hand just in case they do ask. Use friends or family with a different last name and make up roles for them. Make sure you tell them you are doing this because it sucks when the employer calls and your married sister says "ya thats my bro he's cool"

cover letters are easy, go on google and search for a couple of good examples, copy paste, and change what you think is applicable to the position you are applying for.

i just got a new gig in April and I jacked up my resume like crazy, most of it is true but i added some interesting job titles and roles/responsibilties where none really existed just to look like a champ. it helps if you can also act the part, if you are going for an office manager job and you've never had any exp doing that, look it up check what they do and memorize that shit.

[Mizango]

Rivers, they shall run red.

[Melena]

Depending on the job, you may need to go back further. For my cushy IT job with the county, I had to go through a background check since I work in law enforcement and I had to go back 10 years for my jobs. Like you, i had a dicey bit of history with some places out of business, and others I lost contacts for. Just be honest and don't be afraid to look up previous employers online to find their numbers and call them to ask what number you should put down for previous references.

[*Shinzon*]

Depending on the job, you may need to go back further. For my cushy IT job with the county, I had to go through a background check since I work in law enforcement and I had to go back 10 years for my jobs. Like you, i had a dicey bit of history with some places out of business, and others I lost contacts for. Just be honest and don't be afraid to look up previous employers online to find their numbers and call them to ask what number you should put down for previous references.

^This. If you're applying for a state of federal job job or something with government or big business ties don't lie. Most those will do a full background check before you can even be considered so they'll know nearly everything about you. And even if you don't get that particular job and apply for one down the road and lied, they'll automatically disqualify you from anything else because you lied once before.

[Iono]

Not sure how much help I'd be. I was searching for a stable job for around 2 years after getting laid off lol...

An interesting objective probably helps. Most people Lie like a mofo here...

Main piece of info I can give you is make a resume so your 10 most transferable skills are on top. If you're changing careers tailor the skills to each job you apply to.


But then again I decided to take a job at pizza hut, and go back to college , so wtf do Ino....

At least it's for something I actually wanna do ._.a

[kyod]

Objectives are useless. They just take up valuable real estate on your resume. You think the HR person cares what your objective is? No, he/she is trying to fulfill the position with the best candidate.

In many jobs, lying on your resume is immediate grounds for no consideration. Many employers will actually call your former employers and say, "Did Person A work here from x time until y time?" If there's any discrepancy, it will usually immediately remove you from consideration. In this economy, HR people are trying to find ways to weed out potential applicants so they don't have to interview a ton of people. Lying at any point makes it real easy to take you out of consideration.

Additionally, 99/100 anytime you apply for a job online, an automated HR system scans your resume for key words related to the job posting. If your resume doesn't flag those key words, you're automatically not considered.

For positions where you need 5 or less years of experience limit your resume to one page.

I advise not putting 'references available on request' on your resume because the HR person assumes you have references anyway. Professional references are 10000000x better than personal references. Professional references speak to your ability to perform the job while personal ones are just kind of useless. Also make sure you've cleared being a professional reference with people first. So many times people just list contact information for a professional references without ever talking with that person. Then the professional reference doesn't give you a glowing recommendation.

Your resume should be results-oriented. Quantifiable results are key, specific numbers are great. Your cover letter should explain why you're a good fit for the job and what you bring to the table. A good cover letter will get someone to look at your resume, a bad cover letter will make someone not look at the resume.

Your resume needs to be tailored to each position you're applying to with applicable skills. There is no such thing as a one-size fits all resume or cover letter.

[Hyan]

Can't really go wrong with this at the end of the resume.