Resumes

Your resume is the most important document that you will write for your job search.  There are hundreds of resume formats and many are career &/or industry specific.  There are also countless resume resource sites available (at least it feels that way).  As with most things on the Web, some are free and some are pay sites.

Whether or not you pay someone (or some site) to help with your resume (this is a personal choice), you should take the time to get it right.

Another very important document is the cover letter.  This is used as an introduction to your resume (whether electronic or sent via snail-mail).  Other important documents include Thank You letters which will be covered in a future post.

As with all of the topics that are covered in this blog, my list is the “tip of the iceberg”.  The purpose is to get you started.  I will build on all of these lists in future posts.

For this post’s topic, I’ll list a few sites and resources and add additional sites in future posts.

A Few Resume Sites:

• Resume-Resource.com – This is an excellent site and one of the best I’ve seen and it is definitely worth spending some time here.  There are numerous articles and tips for almost every aspect of the Resume process (writing, cover letters, thank you letters, etc.)  It provides:
  • A broad range of tips and articles
  • Sample Resumes for many careers / industries
  • Resume writing tips
  • Resume templates (for a fee)
  • Cover letter examples
  • Thank You Letter examples
  • Follow-ups
• Monster Career Advice – Monster offers resume, letters and some career advice.  Not nearly as comprehensive as Resume-Resource.com and it looks like the bulk of services are fee based.
• eResumes.com – Another comprehensive site which offers a broad range of samples and advice.  There are also quite a few recommendations for fee-based resume services.  High level, this site provides:
  • Resume writing advice and examples (including a tutorial on writing your resume)
  • Sample cover letters
  • Numerous articles and advice including links to third party services

Some of my own thoughts:

1. It is not unusual to have different versions of your resume depending on the type of position (although all factual content should be the same)
2. Most resume posting sites, headhunters/recruiters and company career sites scan electronic resumes for keywords.  Ensure your resume contains the action words which best describe your background and skills.
3. Resume posting sites (and employers/recruiters who use them) scan for the newest resumes first.  You should periodically refresh your resume so that it gets noticed.
4. Not covered in this post (but will be in a future post) are the career centers and most universities and colleges.  You should try to leverage these career centers at the university or college where you graduated.  Most have online sites as well.  Many allow some access even if you are not an alumni.  This is an example of Pace University’s career services website ===>> http://www.pace.edu/page.cfm?doc_id=1398
5. Whether you use a fee based service or not, ask your friends and family to review your resume.
6. Last, but not least, your resume should be perfect – no spelling errors, no grammatical errors, all prior work experience and educational degrees MUST be factual (they will check, sometimes after you’ve already started working at the company)

Related posts:

1. Resumes, Cover Letters and Interviews, Oh My!
2. Looking for Jobs One Job at a Time
3. The Best Job Search Sites – Vol 2
4. Job Search Marketing Toolkit for College Grads & Entry Level Job Search
5. Dealing with Job Loss