Sam (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
l33tminion) wrote2015-02-15 09:37 pm
l33tminion) wrote2015-02-15 09:37 pm
Resume Workshop Surrounded by Snow
After the snow last week, I got out to Olin for career fair, which was awesome! Also ran a resume workshop, which went really well.
I came up with a silly metaphor for my resume remarks, which I hope will stick in students' minds: A resume is like a cupcake, served upside-down.
You have the wrapper, essential but not exciting. That's name, contact information, what are you studying and when, and your summary of skills (useful, but that's a summary of a summary, so keep it short).
You have the cake, the main point. That's delicious work experience! Ideally, this section is the closest approximation you can muster to, "I did exactly this job, did it extremely well, and have the numbers to prove it." Prioritize discussing relevant paid work, followed by relevant close approximations of paid work and relevant projects that produced something concrete. Discuss unrelated employment if necessary, but more briefly. Use metrics to quantify your achievement (at least showing that you set goals and measured results, ideally show that your results were impressive). Estimate if necessary. On the job learning is a good thing to demonstrate, and that can be something to quantify as well.
Finally, you may want to add a bit of icing, some leadership position or award or hobby that makes you look cool or smart or interesting but isn't directly relevant to work. I don't think there's a real risk that the person who doesn't put any hobbies on their resume will be looked down on, but if you have something cool, it might help your resume be memorable and might help you have something good to talk about in interviews that have more social-skills-y "so tell me about you" sorts of questions.
The rest of the week was very busy, and this weekend is once again mired in snow. (With more scheduled for next Tuesday and then a significant amount next weekend.) I braved the snow to have Valentine's Day dinner with Julie at Cafe Artscience. We went out for brunch at Puritan and Co. and I made hot chocolate at home.
I'm glad to have the day off tomorrow.
I came up with a silly metaphor for my resume remarks, which I hope will stick in students' minds: A resume is like a cupcake, served upside-down.
You have the wrapper, essential but not exciting. That's name, contact information, what are you studying and when, and your summary of skills (useful, but that's a summary of a summary, so keep it short).
You have the cake, the main point. That's delicious work experience! Ideally, this section is the closest approximation you can muster to, "I did exactly this job, did it extremely well, and have the numbers to prove it." Prioritize discussing relevant paid work, followed by relevant close approximations of paid work and relevant projects that produced something concrete. Discuss unrelated employment if necessary, but more briefly. Use metrics to quantify your achievement (at least showing that you set goals and measured results, ideally show that your results were impressive). Estimate if necessary. On the job learning is a good thing to demonstrate, and that can be something to quantify as well.
Finally, you may want to add a bit of icing, some leadership position or award or hobby that makes you look cool or smart or interesting but isn't directly relevant to work. I don't think there's a real risk that the person who doesn't put any hobbies on their resume will be looked down on, but if you have something cool, it might help your resume be memorable and might help you have something good to talk about in interviews that have more social-skills-y "so tell me about you" sorts of questions.
The rest of the week was very busy, and this weekend is once again mired in snow. (With more scheduled for next Tuesday and then a significant amount next weekend.) I braved the snow to have Valentine's Day dinner with Julie at Cafe Artscience. We went out for brunch at Puritan and Co. and I made hot chocolate at home.
I'm glad to have the day off tomorrow.