To blog or not to blog...it appears everyone is writing blogs & I am feeling under a little bit of pressure...ok alot to write one. I decided to take the plunge and to learn how to tie it to my business website www.lakeerietechnical.com. With the help of Cheryl Sadler at the News Herald I was able to put at least put a blog together. Now the question is what to write about. I own a permanent placement service so I could write about resumes; how to write one, prep for an interview, questions to ask an interviewer, etc. But how many times can you do that? I teach people how to get and stay organized. How about that? After much thought I decided to stay versatile and to ask opinions from my readers too. I'll blog about something and maybe continue it on to the next week or not. However, at the end of each one I'll let you know what the following blog's topic will be so you can tune in-same bat time, same bat channel.
This week's topic is resumes. It can appear daunting to write one but it isn't as painful as say....a root canal but not as casual as a breezy walk in the park. The most important thing is to have one. You may never leave your place of employment, however, they may leave you or someone may call and give you an offer you would be silly to refuse.
The beginning is to make a rough draft. You may be thinking YUCK but it WILL help you collect your thoughts and keep them in one place.
First step is writing down each of the companies you have worked for and the dates (month & year).
Second step is to write your title there. If you did promote and change titles in the same company show a date beginning and end for the old title and use the end date of the old title as the beginning date for the new title. (ei: June 1990 to Aug 1990 Assistant Branch Manager August 1990 to present Branch Manager) DO NOT embellish it. When any type of reference check is run and they find out the true company title it will make you out to be a liar. Never a good reflection on you. If you would embellish with one small item, can they trust you with a major item. They may not think they can.
Third step is to put down absolutely everything you did at that job. All these items are not necessarily going to be in the final resume but it is important to put them in to remember what you did do in case you are ever asked. Item examples are machines operated (postage machine to CNC or CAD equipment), software run (microsoft outlook, excel, powerpoint, etc), filed papers, customer or outside business interaction, employee training, chamber of commerce rep, etc.
You will need to drill these down to one page by the time you're done. In this current economy companies are looking for very distinct skillsets and you will need to modify your resume to reflect that per job application. Having one grand resume written will give you a blackboard with which to pull from.
Next week we will take a look at your experiences, figure out what is the most important and put it into a tidy resume along with writing a summary of experience.
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