Topic: Employment

Little help? I am trying to get a job in some aspect of creating websites in order to do more for myself than merely scathing past paying my rent and skipping all of my other bills.

Unfortunately, I have never gotten a job in this manner. I gained all of my initial experience in the Navy and once I left, finding the job market wanting (or not wanting me, as it were) I started a business and have gained much experience and a few portfolio pieces. But the business is not paying and at this point is pretty much fin. Furthermore, my experience does not seem to be impressing employers at all and my little girl is going to go hungry.

I am pretty sure that since I have never gotten a job with my resume skills that that might be the core of my problems in getting in the door. I was hoping that I could post my online resume and let you guys take a look and tell me what I am doing wrong. I can say right now with certainty it is not my interviewing skills because I have not been able to get to that point. Maybe you can tell me what skillsets I'm missing or if I just need to restructure the resume or whatever. I don't know.

Thanks in advance.

I have a big issue. If you are sending out the link to your website then you are going to have some trouble. I do not want to have to download your resume to see it. I want a resume easily available to me for quick viewing, so make a HTML version and place a link to it prominently, from that page supply a link to your other versions. Your using PHP so it would be nice to put your resume in XML format and then parse it with an XSLT which would transform it to a PDF, word, text, HTML ect. The next issue is that your website does not contain a .doc version the word link gives me the HTML file.

Since I could not see your word version I will go off of your text version which is far too long. I want a resume I read to be a page. If I ask for more information then send me your CV/portfolio. I don't want more info unless I need it. I generally handled about 5 resumes a week that got through initial reviews so I would spend a little more time on them but generally you get about 10 to 30 seconds. That is you get a quick once over to make sure everything is in order, and then you will get passed off.

Now, if you are just sending out your resume you will lose. I get a resume and generally I say, "I don't really need extra help." You need to make it a point to go into the business which you want to work with and ask for the person in charge of the area you are attempting to get into. You give them your resume and ask them some questions about the job, let them ask you some questions. If you are now a face with the resume it is going to give you an advantage. If you are justing sending out resume I am not going to even think twice about you if your resume isn't exactly what I want.

You have to see yourself the whole package not just your piece of paper.

-Dan-

Thanks. I hadn't noticed that that wasn't downloading correctly. Fixed the word document. XML is a good idea. I will implement that.

So, the resume is too long, but you aren't saying that it isn't a qualifying resume? Is that to say that my experience is a good start at this point? As for the length, you wouldn't have any examples of what a good brief resume looks like on hand, would you? I thought I made it as brief as I could considering all of the various things a person has to do in this field and an example would be useful. But don't put yourself out to provide one.

That last piece of advice is very good. I will begin to do that.

The best I can do is give you a peek at my resume, I cannot give out other peoples. http://www.cs.rit.edu/~drc7257/resume.doc

I also noticed that you put down your skill set and then skills used. I really am only interested in what you can do, not where you did it. For you jobs I want to know your responsibilities. You skill section is there to show me what you know, your work experience is there to tell me if you can cut it working with my company.

I also want to point out that I openned your resume with Open Office and it was a mess. Three pages for your resume is way too long. On your resume put down the most important experiences, leave out the less important aspect, don't be redundant.

And I can not stress enought how simply sending out your resume via email or snail mail is not going to work. I know people who have been in the industry for 20 or 25 years (not web but programming) and they will send out 150 resumes and not get a single call. You really need to put on your nice suit get in your car, hop on the bus, hope your dress shoes are good to walk in, and get yourself to the companies you are going to apply to.

Good luck,
-Dan-

This is hard!
I took a look at your resume and my first impression was this:
"This is not a resume, this is just a website, good looking, but still..."
It's not until I started to read the texts that I really saw what it was.

Beeing a Swede, I'm naturally used to "our" way of doing it and here, a resume can be long or short, doesn't really matter.

What matters here is your first introductory letter where you briefly state who you are, what position you are applying for and what you can offer that will give "my" company a better edge in business.

Last you include a link to your online resume, at this point it's really important that it is concise and filled with facts. Personally I don't really care about your education, I first need to know what roles you have had in different projects, what skills you employed in that role and you'd better be willing to provide personal references for at least some of the projects if I call you for them.

This is my personal CV http://www.dmsproject.com/cv2002/index.html (swedish only) which has gotten me a lot of interviews and some jobs.
Quite different from WarMage's, but it works here.
/Dan

{cell 260}
-{ a vibration is a movement that doesn't know which way to go }-

One of the things WarMage perhaps implied, but didn't really touch, is the issue of personalization.

A resume (at least in the States) is a quick, 20 second tool to make sure you have all the buzzwords. WarMage said "I am not going to even think twice about you if your resume isn't exactly what I want", and that is so absolutely true.

The first filter of your resume is usually a secretary within the HR dept. If you think a secretary in the HR dept has any clue of half of what you do, you are wrong. If you think a secretary in any dept has nothing better to do than sit around and read your resume, think again. S/he is looking for a checklist of buzzwords, given to him/her by a manager, period.

The real key to a successful resume is personalization. You have to find out exactly what a particular company is looking for and then build a resume specifically to fit that scenario. This is really a case of 'who you know, not what you know.'
It's not 'who you know' in the sense that your buddy is going to get you the job...but you must have inside information to know for what words the HR secretary is looking.

Just next door we're having a discussion about all the roles we play in our jobs. I have five seperate resume templates I use (marketing, web applications, on-line training, corporate communications, generic web programming), and then I generally tweak each one for the particular case.

Sitting down for a cup of coffee, a sandwich, or a beer once a week, with all sorts of people, will put you far more ahead of the game than your resume alone ever could.

Most excellent. I've really learned alot here. Thank you for your excellent help. I really didn't know that my word resume looked like that. If I had, I never would have sent it along. On MY computer, it only sits at two pages. I can't imagine what the rest of it looks like. That could be a big problem right there.

I am definitely going to go into the businesses now. Once again, thank you for all of your help. I think I've got quite a bit that I can work on now. And thank you for the excellent resume examples.

On that note, I thought it might be a funny oddity in my job hunt to share that I got a call from the National Security Agency. That's fun.