resume help

[bohman]

Where is a good source of info for help in writing a resume? I'm working on mine now after not having to do so for a long time, and it needs a serious re-write. I have great experience to put in there, but I'm a financial guy, not a creative writer. This thing needs to jump out and grab a hiring manager, and at the moment it's just a laundry list of things I know how to do. Not very exciting.

[SAWK]

Keep it short and concise. It sounds like financial analyst would be your primary focus. Try indeed.com and simplyhired.com. Keep an eye out on somd to see the new contracts that the Navy announces. You goal is to sell yourself and your abilities. So these are what you highlight. No matter how much experience you have try to keep it to 2 pages.

If you are out of work you need to get aggessive in your search. Keep an eye out for job fairs. Best of luck!

[edinsomd]

The interwebs are your friend. Google (I use Bing, actually) "resume builder" and off you go.

Tailor it to your audience, keep it short, and by all that's holy SPELL CHECK! You’d be amazed…

Good luck!

[tuffenuff2]

I would recommend you look for jobs and then tailor your resume for each job. Look at the top five things the employer is seeking that match your experience and highlight those first. Then just try to tailor your resume for that job. If you are just writing a general resume to post on a site like Monster, I would recommend you build it on the site. Once you get on, most of the sites will offer resume help. Career builder.com is a good one that I have used. Good luck and don't forget USAJOBS.gov. I think the government is always looking for financial analysts.

[glhs837]

Originally Posted by edinsomd

The interwebs are your friend. Google (I use Bing, actually) "resume builder" and off you go.

Tailor it to your audience, keep it short, and by all that's holy SPELL CHECK! You’d be amazed…

Good luck!

Damn Ed, I would never have picked you for a "Please spoon feed me the Internet, Mr Gates" sort of guy

[bohman]

Thanks everybody. I am hitting up Google for help, just wondered if there was any particular resume builder site that stood out as better than the rest. There's a lot of them out there. I'm looking at resumebuilder.org at the moment, and it's already helping to break up the writer's block.

I'm trying to re-write for two purposes. I need to show how I'm better than the other people that do the same job as me, and I need to grab their attention right from the beginning. There's all kinds of studies out there showing that managers only look at a resume for x number of seconds before moving on, and the managers I've talked to back that up.

[edinsomd]

Originally Posted by glhs837

Damn Ed, I would never have picked you for a "Please spoon feed me the Internet, Mr Gates" sort of guy

Heywood Jablowme. They can't afford me, and they may learn something by doing they're own research.

Back to the buoy locker, Bill.

[Dixie]

Originally Posted by bohman

Where is a good source of info for help in writing a resume? I'm working on mine now after not having to do so for a long time, and it needs a serious re-write. I have great experience to put in there, but I'm a financial guy, not a creative writer. This thing needs to jump out and grab a hiring manager, and at the moment it's just a laundry list of things I know how to do. Not very exciting.

I used to be a hiring manager and looked at resumes (ad naseum).

From personal experience:

White space - Don't cramp up your resume - it makes it look tedious and chaotic.

If possible start each bullet out with an action verb.

A good opener - this is really valuable and will invite the reviewer to read more. Title it something like Summary of Qualifications and pack it with three to five lines of your qualifications for the job you're applying for. Tailor it so that it reads with language from the actual ad.

I know this sounds hard but write one huge "master resume" that really isn't going anywhere but lists everything you do. It's really easy to pull bullets from that to create a resume that is tailored to what a company may be looking for.

Reread, reread, reread yourself. Read it again - out loud - that's a really good way to find your errors. Don't read it when you're tired of reading it - Clear your head and re-read.

Get a co-worker to evaluate. I'm in the same boat you're in come the end of December. My resume is done so I'm re-writing for my co-workers. I'm amazed how many of them tell me you're making me sound better than I am - I've watched some of these people in action - they were terrific! Smart, helpful, consistently went the extra mile just couldn't say that about themselves - I'm not talking overdone either. I had a female co-worker of mine say that "Accomplished" Acquisition Analyst was too much. She is accomplished - "go to" person for PIDS, contracts, CDRLs - smart cookie.

I'm rattling. I wish you the very best.

[bohman]

Originally Posted by Dixie

I used to be a hiring manager and looked at resumes (ad naseum).

From personal experience:

White space - Don't cramp up your resume - it makes it look tedious and chaotic.

If possible start each bullet out with an action verb.

A good opener - this is really valuable and will invite the reviewer to read more. Title it something like Summary of Qualifications and pack it with three to five lines of your qualifications for the job you're applying for. Tailor it so that it reads with language from the actual ad.
I know this sounds hard but write one huge "master resume" that really isn't going anywhere but lists everything you do. It's really easy to pull bullets from that to create a resume that is tailored to what a company may be looking for.

Reread, reread, reread yourself. Read it again - out loud - that's a really good way to find your errors. Don't read it when you're tired of reading it - Clear your head and re-read.

Get a co-worker to evaluate. I'm in the same boat you're in come the end of December. My resume is done so I'm re-writing for my co-workers. I'm amazed how many of them tell me you're making me sound better than I am - I've watched some of these people in action - they were terrific! Smart, helpful, consistently went the extra mile just couldn't say that about themselves - I'm not talking overdone either. I had a female co-worker of mine say that "Accomplished" Acquisition Analyst was too much. She is accomplished - "go to" person for PIDS, contracts, CDRLs - smart cookie.

I'm rattling. I wish you the very best.

These are exactly the problems I'm trying to fix. Months ago, I was employed under what seemed to be a very stable contract, and started tailoring my resume for an attempt at getting a government job. Resumes are a lot different for that. Now, that "stable" contract isn't so stable, so I'm back to looking for the contractor gigs and my resume was all wrong for that.

Thanks for the help, I've started over from scratch and things are looking better already. Good on you for helping your coworkers, I'm hoping to do the same once I get my own situation straightened out. I feel terrible competing against people that have been great team mates for years.

[Dixie]

Originally Posted by bohman

These are exactly the problems I'm trying to fix. Months ago, I was employed under what seemed to be a very stable contract, and started tailoring my resume for an attempt at getting a government job. Resumes are a lot different for that. Now, that "stable" contract isn't so stable, so I'm back to looking for the contractor gigs and my resume was all wrong for that.

Thanks for the help, I've started over from scratch and things are looking better already. Good on you for helping your coworkers, I'm hoping to do the same once I get my own situation straightened out. I feel terrible competing against people that have been great team mates for years.

Send a PM if you get stuck - I might be able to help you over the hump. Hard time to look for a job isn't it?