I have been helping a lot of friends and acquaintances with their resumes. If you have been somewhere a long time or always just seem to have your opportunities ‘land in your lap’ due to your network and your resume is a ‘formality’, here are some basics for you to work with as a template. This is based on today’s resume standards and technology, the two things anyone writing a resume needs to know.
One friend has been with the same company a dozen years, and I put this together for her. First, don’t worry about the format: content is king. Second, your best strategy is to do an information dump, and the most important things to focus on are:
1) Your most current job/s for the last 5-7 years. This is where you need to concentrate your efforts.
2) What is most important to you in your job that you want to emphasize for your next opportunity? Be realistic. Something you did on one project three years ago that you really enjoyed but only worked on for three months is *not* going to make you qualified for a career transition. Stick to things you have been doing fairly consistently, then try and build your experience around them.
3) *What is the value* each experience brings to the business? In simplest terms, how did your activities help the bottom line? (This is what hiring managers and recruiters care about.)
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Here is a rough template:
Company Name
Title and dates from – to (repeat this as many times as needed for internal promotions/moves)
List out your primary duties in order of time spent then on down to even the most trivial activities.
After you have listed them out, put a point after them as to whether there was a benefit or accomplishment that helped the company/client
List out projects separately, as well as what their value or purpose was.
This is for someone that has been in a corporate, career series of jobs. Another person I have been helping has an unusual background. She has been a costume designer in the local theater scene, which is both highly competitive and drying up with the economy lately. She is looking to move into the local apparel industry (which is actually a decent goal in terms of opportunities), but is having trouble figuring out how to build out her career that is in essence a series of short-term contractor opportunities (this falls under one of those ‘portfolio careers’ where a functional resume or combo is appropriate). In her case, one of the main issues is filling out online applications. So here is my suggestion in such a situation.
Professional Experience:
Independent Contractor ‘ 1998-Present
Apparel and Costume Design
Skill set: these are your functional skills and should highlight those that are asked for in the job description(s).
Projects include: (this is where you where you will talk about the types of projects you have worked on such as period design such as Shakespearean and Italian Opera, modern musicals, mid-twentieth century fashion, etc.)
Representative clients: Seattle Opera, Issaquah Community Theater, ACT Theater, etc.
Portfolio URL: http://myportfolio.com
Education: This is actual matriculated or relevant continuing ed classes, not seminars or non-industry-standard training.
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Professional Affiliations and Recognition: In this case, it would be the local union or other organizations.
This works for any sort of industry that includes a multitude of clients where you exercise similar skills across the board. Any sort of actual portfolio you have is going to be your selling point, more than just your client and project list.
The most important thing to remember is you are trying to align your resume and experience with the job/s you are targeting, and that means mirroring the job requirements and desired traits as closely as possible. You need to use the industry keywords and concepts the job posting has. This is what is going to at least get you into the actual resume review.
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