Résumés

Sorry about that!

They also seemed to have nice lines separating the name and address part from the rest of it.

You should create a general resume for posting to sites like monster etc. and also specific, more in-depth resumes to send to any companies that you are particularly interested in (or that express interest in you) tailored to the position.

My initial posting on the web was little more than a brief outline. Of course, my resume is also subject to prepublication review so I don't end up giving away any secrets. So much fun.

I honestly don't know anyone who submits their resume in hard copy form anymore.

If submitting a resume electronically as a Word doc, it might also be an idea to save the file so that it is compatible with older versions or MS Word (a lot of places are still using Office 97). Make sure there is no change tracking or history embedded in the document (just in case). An additional plain text or RTF copy might not hurt as an additional attachment if you are sending via email.

...now i'm about to rant.....

i used to studio manage for a fashion photographer who was in need of an assistant retoucher. i received hundreds of resumes a day (mainly from out of work graphic designers who didn't know the first thing about photo retouching--let alone how to make a cracked out anorexic look like a gorgeous fasion plate) and it just messed up my inbox. even though opening one of those documents doesn't take long, multiplying it by the hundreds is a pain--and then forcing your prospective employer to use up all this colored ink just makes a bad impression. and considering that i even said in the job listing "please include resume in body of email or send as a word attachment. please, no large files--resume should speak for itself," it just showed these people couldn't follow simple directions. i also noticed a pattern where those who were qualified sent simple resumes, whereas those that weren't sent flashy ones....my patience wore so thin that i ended up deleting anything that wasn't on word or in text format.

but back to your original question....

as someone who was once put in charge of hiring, the most important thing i looked for was content. as far as eye-catching...a nice header and layout is a good idea--but if you're planning on emailing it, try to keep it in the confines of word. but overall, if the experience was there i could've cared less--there were resumes that were typed in the text of the email that shined far brighter than those on acrobat.

the best way to get an employer's attention is to call ahead, tell them you're interested and let them know you're sending a resume.

the biggest thing is to make it easy to glance at and see your qualifications. so bullet points, boldface on the key words are handy. know the buzzwords for your field and use them, and match it up to the job description. the problem with monster and other electronic job sites is that you get literally hundreds of resumes for everything and half or more are totally unqualified, and you don't want to have to waste a lot of time figuring out if someone is qualified. and you don't want to waste a lot of time figuring out if someone's resume matches the job description. Keep it one page if possible. I can't emphasize enough the matching to the job description part. if you can't make your qualifications match at all, probably it's not worth applying.

If you're going to be all perfectionist about the layout and appearance, making a PDF for electronic copies is a good idea, 'cause you never know if the word doc is going to appear the same way on another person's computer.

colored paper is bad. get a nice white/off white resume paper if you must. if you're mailing a hard copy get 8.5 X 11 envelopes, a folded resume coming out of a letter-size envelope looks like crap.

Mary, what is your field? if it's art/design/fashion all this advice might not apply at 100%.

Oh, and proofread, proofread, proofread.

One last question for you good people: Thank you letter: e-mail ok? or go the whole hog and send in a real letter?

as I recall Mediabistro.com has publications job listings, or did, that might be worth checking out.

246 Highland Ave. + Apt. 2 + Somerville, MA + 02143
(cell) 508 / 369.6624 + (home) 617 / 776.3588
jeremy7211@hotmail.com
-----------------------------------------

Objective
A position editing / publishing where varied skills can be applied.

Education
Hamilton College, Clinton, NY
B.A. in English Literature / Writing 5/03
Semester Abroad: U. of Anglia, England, 1/02 - 6/02

AREAS OF EXPERIENCE

Leadership
+ Managed 12-person A/V tech crew while a full-time student.Conducted weekly meetings, training sessions, oversaw staffing, budgeting and equipment purchasing.
+ Elected Special Events Manager for Campus Activities Board. Planned and supervised bus trips, special guests, all-campus parties, and bimonthly movie showings.

Responsibility
+ Designed and implemented ten week program in creative prose/poetry for third and fourth grade students. Instructed four weekly sessions, fifty children.
+ Assisted in the opening of a new upscale meat-market and deli. Responsibilities included initial menu planning, set-up, food preparation, and customer service for busy store in resort community.
+ Served as personal assistant to owner/manager of Coffee Bean, Inc. Position entailed marketing, banking, cooking, cleaning, chauffeuring, delivery and catering for 60+ person corporation.

TRAINING AND SKILLS

Editing and Writing
+ Skilled in many areas of professional writing process including proofreading, critiquing, manuscript submission, print and internet publishing. Received instruction and experience in New York, Norwich (England), and Rhode Island.
+ Wrote and edited multiple drafts of young adult novel The Nowhere Place (98 pages) and numerous short stories including Ineradicable, Blue (35 pages), recently submitted for national publication.
+ Rewriting for submission a feature-length dramatic screenplay, Grand Guignol: (111 pages/minutes).
+ Drafting third script, Cowboy Songs, (tentatively 120 pages). Coming-of-age, light comedy, with plans to produce as twelve ten-minute episodes for internet/DVD distribution.

Computer
+ Proficient using Mac OS 8/9/X and Windows Me/XP/98/NT 4/2000 and later releases. Experience with latest versions of Microsoft Office, Outlook, Clarisworks, AbiWord, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Premiere, Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Flash, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Microsoft Powerpoint.
+ Experienced internet user comfortable with all releases of Netscape/Mozilla, Internet Explorer, Opera, gopher and FTP clients and related technologies. Facility with many networking utilities and applications.
+ Graphic and video manipulation with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, GiMP, Jasc Paint Shop Pro, Final Cut Pro, Avid XPress and DV, Adobe Premiere, Adobe Aftereffects.
+ Fluent with HTML 4.0 / CSS , xHTML, RSS &ct; web page design and maintenance.

Other Audio / Video Production
+ Adept in the use of DV [digital video] camera systems, non-linear editing studios.
+ Practiced at sound/lighting design for in-college, local and national musicians, speakers, theater performances, entertainers, banquets and multimedia presentations. Operated, maintained and repaired audio, video and lighting equipment.

WORK HISTORY

+ Bose Factory Store, Wrentham, MA (Holiday 2003)
+ Borders Outlet, Wrentham, MA (Holiday 2003)
+ Town Meats, Inc., Wakefield, RI (Summers 02 - 2003)
+ Hamilton A/V Tech. Crew, Clinton, NY (1/01-5/03)
+ Clinton Central Schools, Clinton, NY (10/01-12/01)
+ Coffee Bean Inc., Narragansett, RI (10/95 - 6/00)

PERSONAL

Love to travel... recently drove and filmed 9000 mile road trip with college friends ... speak basic conversational Spanish... excellent cook ... participate in James Joyce reading group...avid fan of independent dance music.

Me neither...had a rough five month period of unemployment towards the end of 2001. Definite dud.

I am trying to be compact. I have about 5 lines describing each job, but I fear I am losing out because I don't go into enough detail. I've bullet-pointed my skills at the beginning for those who can't grasp the concept of the PTO.

Jeremy, I'm not trying to be facetious, cause I know how ignorant of geography Americans can be, but if you're looking for an editing job, it pays to get your own facts exactly right.

My question is: how strait should someone play their resume? Might not know it from my posts here, but I'm always w/the jokes. Also, self deprecation is a dud, right?

I meant to write a resume up earlier this month for prospective music related internships, but then...things...still need one anyway for when I graduate from college soon. I too am worried about the extreme lack of extra stuff as well as being a shit student and having very little job experience.

I always send my resume as a PDF because 1) it looks EXACTLY the same on everyone's computer 2) everybody has Acrobat 3) file size = 40k. It's very nice for printing, and there's something about the un-editable packaged-upness of it that feels tight and pro.

Mary, Mac OS X can make a PDF out of ANYTHING, so just do it up in Word or whatever and save as a PDF if you go this route. I use Illustrator just cause I'm an ass about spacing and stuff.

also in this section (Please provide a note of any other information which you wish to be considered in support of your application, eg research experience; other law-related activities; field of special interest; non-legal interests, etc.) what should I provide?

Like taking drugs, or shagging 15 year old girls, you mean?

"During the summer of 2003 I undertook a course of research for Professor L1nds4y F4rm3r at the University of Glasgow. My role was threefold: (i) to compile legalistic information on architecture of the Scots criminal law of possession (ii) to locate and summarise articles & books relevant to Professor Farmer’s study and (iii) to collect and analyse statistics pertaining to the law of possession. At the end of my term of employment, I supplied this information in report form for Professor F4rm3r. Further to this employment, I have also undertaken and completed six long-length research essays during the course of my two Honours years. Through my work on the editorial board of the Student Electronic Law Journal (based in the University of Glasgow), specifically researching my anonymous column (‘The Accid3nt4l Jur1st’), I have also developed my research skills."

is that too short / long? cover all bases? too informal? just right? ok? good?

You should probably drop the h4x0r speak, by the way.

Especially if the resume is being read by, or if you'll be interviewed by the person who will be your eventual supervisor, you want to tell them that you won't need a ton of guidance, that you know how to solve problems, and you know how to make THEM look good.

In Opera or IE, go to the View menu and Encoding. You've probably got it set to something like Cyrillic - KOI8 or Cyrillic - ISO-8859-5. Set it to auto-select, or if that doesn't work set it to, well, anything that looks appropriate for where you are and what you expect to see.

That'll change it just for the current window: if it's permanently set wrong then in IE you'll need to look at Tools -> Internet Options -> Fonts and change it to "Latin based" or in Opera Files -> Preferences -> Languages and look for something like iso-8859-1 or windows-1252.

Not sure where to look on other browsers but something similar probably applies. (OK, in Mozilla you want View -> Character Coding to set it for one page and to change it permanently try Edit -> Preferences -> Languages and change the Default Character Coding to something like Western (ISO-8859-1) or Western (Windows-1252).)

I would love it if any of you would send your rés's to my e-mail address so I could snoop further for ideas, if you like I could also do a read of it and offer editing suggestions.

whos mary?

Yeah AutoCorrect is crap, I turn off all the automated tasks I can. Word is so bloated.. Somewhere on the Web I recall seeing a screenshot taken of MS Word with every feature/toolbar open, and there were like two lines of workspace on the screen. hilarity.

Bottom line I suppose is that if it doesn't look good in 10pt Courier throughout, then it doesn't look good at all.

I agree with this on every level.

10 point? I just deleted half my résumé so that its letters would be big and punchy.

Like, flaky! And impatient! And a bit stupid!

She got an interview. The world continues to go mad.

I did point it out to my boss, and she said she hadn't noticed it, which kinds of makes you wonder why she was asking for CVs.

OBJECTIVE Entry-level employment in testing or design engineering.Willing to relocate.

EDUCATION University of Michigan, Ann Arbor - College of Engineering
- Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering
- Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering

COMPUTER SKILLS -Experienced in applying MATLAB and Simulink to design, test, and analyze control
systems
-Proficient with LabView to collect, sample, and analyze data
-Experienced in design, testing, and simulation of electrical circuits in HSPICE,
Accusim, and Mentor Graphics software
-Programming in C, HTML, Pascal
-Proficient in PC, Macintosh, and UNIX environments

ACADEMIC Designed a microprocessor-based environmental controller, a communication system of
PROJECTS a deep-space satellite project, single- and multi-staged CMOS transistor amplifiers, restored operation to a radar controller, assisted in the testing of a carbon nanotube fabrication project

RELEVANT VLSI Design Space Systems Design
COURSES Automatic Control Systems Aerodynamics
Digital and Analog Circuit Design Semiconductor Device Theory
Monolithic Amplifier Design Programming and Data Structures in C
Digital Signal Processing Large- and Small-Signal Circuit Analysis Rocket Propulsion Aircraft Structures

EMPLOYMENT Underwriter January '02 - Present
InterFirst Wholesale Mortgage Lenders Ann Arbor, MI
Underwriting loans, also tested new loan processes, wrote documentation for loan
programs, data analysis, and supported customer accounts

Project Engineer March '01 - September '01
Vector CANtech Novi, MI
Programming embedded Flash-based microprocessors, testing new methods of software installation, interfacing with customers, and supporting customer accounts

Data Operator July ’00 - March ‘01
The All Media Guide (through Manpower) Ann Arbor, MI
Integrating new information into databases, editing and processing
database information

Online Developer/Program Assistant September ‘98 - September ‘99
Center for Professional Development Ann Arbor, MI
Integrating database content and videotaped lectures into an online
university resource, developing distance-learning applications, directing the videotaping of lectures

Research Assistant Summer ‘97 Radiation Lab, Univ. of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI
Troubleshooting laboratory computer problems, restored operation to a
radar controller, assembling laboratory equipment

quantify your accomplishments in terms of time and money.

The most salient point is that, although I'm a PhD student, I'm looking for work outside academe, and a very specific job at that, one which I have as yet no professional (only coursework/hobby) experience in, and no relevant references either.

maybe everyone local is out at lunch.

It works like this, objective goes first because it is teh gay and that goes first, I dunno why. After that, you order it in the order of IMPRESSIVENESS. If you have really impressive job experience, that goes first (ie generally if you've had a couple decent jobs). If you have a PhD from MIT in xygloboical communication computer super spying fantasticasmo then that goes first.

For like 98% of the world that translates to OBJECTIVE -> EXPERIENCE -> EDUCATION -> KISSES.

Shit!

hstencil, I had your school confused with bnw's for a second.

http://media.greenskeepersmusic.com/lotionhigh.mov

I always put experience first and then use boldface to highlight words that match the job description. Recruiters are lazy. If only I knew what kind of job I wanted.. . Anyone here have work related to foreign policy or international development?

Send me $100 and I'll tell you how.

(Oh and haha, I didn't go to Bard but went to a school that is technically part of Bard.)

"t works like this, objective goes first because it is teh gay and that goes first, I dunno why. After that, you order it in the order of IMPRESSIVENESS. If you have really impressive job experience, that goes first (ie generally if you've had a couple decent jobs). If you have a PhD from MIT in xygloboical communication computer super spying fantasticasmo then that goes first."

i have no read any of this thread except for that selection right there, which i disagree with. it is a transparent hiding of shame. i am putting my education first but i dont know what to call a high school diploma, gd or something. i wish i could remember my gpa, it was pretty good. and should i put stuff like "i took a computers class and was in business club [even tho literally all we did was meet once a month and eat subway sandwiches this is true]" or just leave it [gd/whatever high school grad is called].

i am sad because my resume is going to consist of "high school diploma" and 3 jobs i held for a combined 2 months and nothing else. should i not even bother, seriously. this is just going to look pathetic.

Personal Profile

 European translator, professional copywriter and sub-editor with 10 years' industry experience.
 Modern Languages graduate: fluent German and English; qualified Quark XPress operator.
 Sound knowledge of international financial and business terminology and practices. Extensive grounding in music, TV, film, comedy, arts & culture; corporate and private clients catered for.
 Broad experience in journalism, translation, copy & layout sub-editing and public relations.
 Meticulous eye for detail in content and style; proficient data entry skills.
 Versatile, dedicated & enthusiastic lateral thinker; happy in an office environment or at home.
 Imaginative, energetic and friendly with a relaxed and approachable manner.
 Accustomed to working long and irregular hours under the pressure of strict deadlines.
 Features, interviews and reviews published in Th3 Fly, Pl4ylouder, UKTV, R0ck S0und, 3D W0rld, Mel0dy M4ker, Bull1t, X-R4y, MP3tv and Com3dy L1ve.

Office Skills

Experienced client service manager, able to adapt swiftly to the demands of large and small organisations. Always polite, well-spoken and cordial, whether face-to-face, on the phone or on paper. Equally accustomed to dealing with professional contacts or members of the public. Efficient desk worker: quick to pick up on specific requirements of role and office, and ambitious to learn new skills & disciplines.

Employment History

Translator, Summariser
Durr4nts M3dia M0nitors, Xtr3me N3ws Jun 2004-present
Completed initial contract at Xtr3me N3ws www.xtr3men3ws.co.uk as a summariser of UK financial, business and news stories for personal clients including Cl1fford Ch4nce, M3rrill Lynch, the G3neral M3dical C0uncil and H3wlett P4ckard. Promoted to the International department of Durr4nts www.durr4nts.co.uk, which acquired Xtr3me in October 2004. Completed contracts as a translator and summariser of German financial, business and news stories for personal clients including Astr4Zeneca, M0rgan St4nley and N3C.

Staff Writer, Copywriter, Sub-Editor, Press Officer
Th3 Fly, Pl4ylouder.com, Bull1t, X-R4y, UKTV, B3st PR May 2003-present
After returning from Australia, joined Bull1t as a music features writer (A5h front cover, L4mbchop, The D1vine C0medy, M3lissa 4uf D3r M4ur). Provided music & travel articles and copy/layout subbing skills to X-R4y, have written comedy and drama show synopses for the UKTV website www.uktv.co.uk (The R0yle F4mily, The B1ll, E4stEnders), and fulfilled short contracts as a national press officer for B3st PR. More recently, attained the ongoing position of Staff Writer at Th3 Fly (Int3rpol, The P0lyphonic Spr33, The Futur3heads).

Key Account Analyst
1ncNet M4rketing Or1entations – Australia Jul 2002-May 2003
Based in Syndey, 1ncNet www.1ncnet.com.au maintains the Austr4lian Bus1ness D1rectory, the largest and most up-to-date record of senior management information for Australia's top 1000 companies. Completed contract as part of a team, researching, fact-checking and updating the million-name database on a business-to-business basis; the role required extensive analytical skills.

Copywr1ter, Tr4nslator Pl4ylouder.com, 3D W0rld, C0medy Live Jul 2002-May 2003

Senior Mus1c Wr1ter MP3tv (N3twork Of the W0rld) Dec 2000-Apr 2002

L1stings Ed1tor, Club5 P4 L1stings www.p4.press.net Jun 2000-Dec 2000

Pr0motions Off1cer Av4l0n Promotions www.4val0nuk.com Jul 1999-Aug 1999

Freel4nce J0urnalist R0ck S0und, M3lody M4ker May 1999-Dec 2000

Pr3ss Off1cer Coal1tion Gr0up, C1rcus Mus1c, Phutur3 Tr4x Jul 1997-Apr 1999

Mus1c Edit0r, St4ff Wr1ter R1pple (Le1cester Un1versity) Apr 1994-Jun 1997

Comput3r Sk1lls

• Completed L0ndon Sch0ol of Publ1shing Qu4rk XPr3ss course May 2002. Well acquainted with various PC and Mac software packages including W0rd, Exc3l, Outl0ok Expr3ss, Ad0be Acr0bat, Fil3Maker, Q&A Dat4base, Ziss0r Med1a Summ4riser.
• Internet skills finely honed due to extensive journalistic research; 40wpm typing speed.

Education

BA (Hons) German
Le1cester University www.le1cester.ac.uk Sep 1993-Jun 1997
• Culture, history, language and literature, including one year as an English teaching assistant at a senior school in H4mburg.

'A' Levels
T0nbridge Sch0ol, K3nt www.t0nbridge-sch0ol.co.uk Sep 1988-Jun 1993
• German, Economics and History.

References

etc

Portfolio

An archive of my music-related written work is available to view at www.st4rs4ndh3ro3s.tk. Further examples of corporate, travel, TV and translation work are available on request.

"Hi I dont have a resume or bother to shave or like anything but you'll gimme a job anyway, right? Right? Hello?"

Sarah, can I be a bookbinder too?

I am sorting my CV out at the moment. I am going to put a 'personal profile' at the front, to tell people how GRATE I am at bossing tosspots about, that kind of thing.

Except I was in COLLEGE.