Résumé anxiety
February 2, 2012 11:36 AM Subscribe
What strategies have you employed to get over the dread of updating your résumé? Has anyone had success with professional résumé services? Are they worth the price?
..."hit." "Hit" up your contacts.
posted by griphus at 11:48 AM on February 2, 2012 [17 favorites]
posted by griphus at 11:48 AM on February 2, 2012 [17 favorites]
I've had my resume done over by the professional services when I was out of work and my company had provided me with the placement services as part of the package. Really, eh. One of the key things is peppering your resume with the 'key words' and 'power words' which you can probably find on your own or in one of the many books written on the subject.
Best bet is what griphus recommends, especially if you have friends in HR or who are otherwise within the recruitment industry. I'd by a highly recommended book before paying someone, but then, I'd not buy a book and I'd bounce what I have off my network.
Most it might cost me is a beer, and it'd be more on target than anything some book or professional service could provide. (though I understand the urge to use something like that, the urge is best supressed)
posted by rich at 11:54 AM on February 2, 2012
Best bet is what griphus recommends, especially if you have friends in HR or who are otherwise within the recruitment industry. I'd by a highly recommended book before paying someone, but then, I'd not buy a book and I'd bounce what I have off my network.
Most it might cost me is a beer, and it'd be more on target than anything some book or professional service could provide. (though I understand the urge to use something like that, the urge is best supressed)
posted by rich at 11:54 AM on February 2, 2012
Here are some suggestions:
* update your portfolio and resume once a year. Look at it as an opportunity to actually chew on what you have done, accomplished and learned in the year. By making it an annual thing it is designing and digesting without the stress of having to make a mortgage payment;
* Research other people's resumes. You want to see what the keywords are and what is up and coming with people in your field or even in fields that are not yours but of interest. Find the person who has your dream job and seriously look at their resume to see what you have and don't have; this becomes your action plan for planning and learning.
* the more eyes you have the better you can see the flaws of the document from simple mechanics to design -- what Griphus said.
* Keywording is effective and to do that you need to look at position descriptions in your field. Each field and company has its own set of keywords. You need to research those and put those in your resume and cover letter.
* If you are looking at a job posting be sure to have ALL the minimums in your resume/cover letter and many if not all of the preferred; use exact phrasing.
Doing a resume is fraught with stress and baggage. The thing is to have a method, practice and reduced stress factors. People under stress make errors. Do it as part of a regular cycle and treat it as a detailed research project.
posted by jadepearl at 12:08 PM on February 2, 2012 [3 favorites]
* update your portfolio and resume once a year. Look at it as an opportunity to actually chew on what you have done, accomplished and learned in the year. By making it an annual thing it is designing and digesting without the stress of having to make a mortgage payment;
* Research other people's resumes. You want to see what the keywords are and what is up and coming with people in your field or even in fields that are not yours but of interest. Find the person who has your dream job and seriously look at their resume to see what you have and don't have; this becomes your action plan for planning and learning.
* the more eyes you have the better you can see the flaws of the document from simple mechanics to design -- what Griphus said.
* Keywording is effective and to do that you need to look at position descriptions in your field. Each field and company has its own set of keywords. You need to research those and put those in your resume and cover letter.
* If you are looking at a job posting be sure to have ALL the minimums in your resume/cover letter and many if not all of the preferred; use exact phrasing.
Doing a resume is fraught with stress and baggage. The thing is to have a method, practice and reduced stress factors. People under stress make errors. Do it as part of a regular cycle and treat it as a detailed research project.
posted by jadepearl at 12:08 PM on February 2, 2012 [3 favorites]
Motivate yourself by working out the difference between how much you could earn in a job where you need a crappy resume (or none) and the amount you could earn with an outstanding one. Divide that by the amount of time it will take you to make an outstanding resume (sure, the productivity curve flattens out - but probably not until you have been working on the problem for at least 40 hours). You will probably find that resume polishing pays off at an hourly rate higher than just about any other activity.
posted by rongorongo at 12:10 PM on February 2, 2012
posted by rongorongo at 12:10 PM on February 2, 2012
Echoing what griphus says. I did exactly that a few months ago, and used it as an opportunity to catch up with those people and do some minor networking. One of them gave me his resume (we have very similar backgrounds and similar lines of work) and we put them next to each other and compared and contrasted them which was very handy.
Also find someone who would be similar to your audience (assuming this is a resume targeted at a specific employer) is and structure it toward what they want to see.
posted by Big_B at 12:28 PM on February 2, 2012
Also find someone who would be similar to your audience (assuming this is a resume targeted at a specific employer) is and structure it toward what they want to see.
posted by Big_B at 12:28 PM on February 2, 2012
Response by poster: Thanks, griphus and rich. I have a good friend who is a C-title recruiter in NYC and has offered to review my résumé. That was two weeks ago. My problem is that every time I sit down to update the damned document, I get completely overwhelmed and undone by the language required for self-promotion. (Self-promotion is not my strong suit.) This is why I'm tempted to go to a professional writer, discuss with them my experiences/accomplishments and ask them to "tell my story." I'm aware that this is something I should be able to do without hiring a service, but for the life of me...I'm seemingly unable to do so.
posted by wensink at 12:30 PM on February 2, 2012
posted by wensink at 12:30 PM on February 2, 2012
Some good recommendations upthread, but I think the salient point is the dread. I know for me, it's the dread and psychological resistance to doing my resume that made it painful and hard to even start. I paid a professional to have mine done several years ago and it was money well spent. See my post about it here.
posted by bluejayway at 12:35 PM on February 2, 2012
posted by bluejayway at 12:35 PM on February 2, 2012
Would it help if you split it into two tasks?
One - just get down what you have written. Don't worry about writing it in self-promotiony language, don't worry about the proper key words, etc. Just concentrate on getting the facts on the page with approximately the right organisation. Write as colloquially as you need to - as if the question was just, what was my job and what did I do in it, and you want to explain it to your mom.
Two - once it's all down, you can go through and clean it up, editing out your colloquial speech and replacing it with keywords and the right phrases, etc.
That at least should leave you with a good enough draft that you can show people like your friend, and it might help you past the psychological block. I often find that the block comes from trying to start it with a very perfectionistic mindset. But if your first goal is just to get it all down regardless of quality, that can sometimes break it.
posted by forza at 12:43 PM on February 2, 2012 [1 favorite]
One - just get down what you have written. Don't worry about writing it in self-promotiony language, don't worry about the proper key words, etc. Just concentrate on getting the facts on the page with approximately the right organisation. Write as colloquially as you need to - as if the question was just, what was my job and what did I do in it, and you want to explain it to your mom.
Two - once it's all down, you can go through and clean it up, editing out your colloquial speech and replacing it with keywords and the right phrases, etc.
That at least should leave you with a good enough draft that you can show people like your friend, and it might help you past the psychological block. I often find that the block comes from trying to start it with a very perfectionistic mindset. But if your first goal is just to get it all down regardless of quality, that can sometimes break it.
posted by forza at 12:43 PM on February 2, 2012 [1 favorite]
As for updating an existing resume when you're not in between jobs - I try to do it when I get my performance review at work. That way, I've already been thinking about what useful and notable things I'd been doing.
posted by rmd1023 at 1:18 PM on February 2, 2012
posted by rmd1023 at 1:18 PM on February 2, 2012
I had response a slump back in 2003 (dotbust), and so I hired a resume specialist - who took one look at my resume (every client/employer, tool, methodology and technology used) and stated: you just have to get this down to 2-pages.
So - I paid my $250, she helped me chop it up.
My response rate got worse...
I revised my old resume and things improved - worst $250 I ever spent.
If you are a technical person in IT, do not believe in the "short-resume-is-better" myth - the right people want to see depth and breadth.
Current resume length? 17-pages - and that is the short-version (I have another that is case-study based, project-by-project that is dramatically longer... and I stopped updating it 5-years ago)
posted by jkaczor at 1:23 PM on February 2, 2012
So - I paid my $250, she helped me chop it up.
My response rate got worse...
I revised my old resume and things improved - worst $250 I ever spent.
If you are a technical person in IT, do not believe in the "short-resume-is-better" myth - the right people want to see depth and breadth.
Current resume length? 17-pages - and that is the short-version (I have another that is case-study based, project-by-project that is dramatically longer... and I stopped updating it 5-years ago)
posted by jkaczor at 1:23 PM on February 2, 2012
Yeah, generally, if a person who has the same job as you do/hires for the sort of job you want tells you one thing and a Resume Professional tells you another, go with the former unless you know for a fact that Resume Professional is correct.
posted by griphus at 1:34 PM on February 2, 2012
posted by griphus at 1:34 PM on February 2, 2012
overwhelmed and undone by the language required for self-promotion
Same here. I got past this by brainstorming my resume in a bar after a few drinks. (I get a little cocky after the booze.)
posted by travertina at 1:38 PM on February 2, 2012
Same here. I got past this by brainstorming my resume in a bar after a few drinks. (I get a little cocky after the booze.)
posted by travertina at 1:38 PM on February 2, 2012
You might try jotting notes whenever you make an accomplishment - it can be a time/effort saver whenever you next do a full resume update.
posted by asuprenant at 2:50 PM on February 2, 2012
posted by asuprenant at 2:50 PM on February 2, 2012
I used Blue Sky Resumes to help spruce up the presentation and expressiveness of my resume--it was extremely bland, non-descriptive and boring previously. I haven't gotten a new job since using them, since I got my last job with my old resume, but their price was quite reasonable, they were very helpful and prompt and my new resume certainly reads better and actually contains more info (on a single page no less!). I would give them a thumbs-up, qualified only by the fact that it hasn't specifically done anything for me thus far.
posted by redondo77 at 5:01 PM on February 2, 2012
posted by redondo77 at 5:01 PM on February 2, 2012
Go to your closest library (university or public) and get the newest books on resume writing that they have. Shouldn't be anything over 2 years old. Get a few of them and you'll see how styles of writing resumes have majorly changed if you haven't redone yours in the past 5 years. Save your money and do NOT go to a professional resume writing service, as I used to work at one and it's nothing you can't do yourself with the examples you find in the books. Good luck.
posted by july1baby at 5:39 PM on February 2, 2012
posted by july1baby at 5:39 PM on February 2, 2012
I think it helps to break rewriting a resume/CV into four separate tasks. Complete them at different sittings. I think it takes most people between 10-15 hours over a 2-3 week period broken up into no more than 45 -60 minutes at a time to do the work they need to create/revise a well written resume.
What messes people up is that they try to do all four of these things simultaneously, and it starts to feel overwhelming. People get lost. Instead, split it up like this:
1. Select Section Headings: Look at friends' resumes, at samples from the library, at university career centers' websites - many of whom have resume samples, at your professional associations' career pages on their website, or just google resume and whatever field you are in. When you find these samples, look at them to determine section headings that are relevant for your field. Select a few section headings, and then just cut and paste your information from your current document into the appropriate sections.
So, rather that just have a Work Experience and/or Activities section, find descriptive section headings that actually help the reader see your range of experience by just reading the heading, rather than having to read all of the information in the section. Together these serve as the back bone or skeleton outline of your CV. Sample descriptive section headings could include:
Qualification Summary
Education
IT Experience
Project Management Experience
Health Related Experience
Research Experience
Teaching Experience
Customer Service Experience
Advocacy & Outreach Experience
Significant Trainings
Supervisory Training
Languages
after you do this - leave it alone. You'e done. Finding and reviewing resumes, and selecting headings, and cutting and pasting usually takes 1-4 hours, and 2-3 sittings. If you're lucky, you have a good friend in the field with an awesome resume.
2. Format: In a perfect world, the next time you sat down you'd go into each section, one at a time, and clean it up. That means write up the descriptive text of each experience you list. But that gets tedious for people. So it's much easier to clean up the formatting, using some resume sample you've seen where you really like the format. Bold the job title or organization, line up all of your dates, make the font and size the same, clean up the caps, etc. Just make it professional looking, even though it might still be too long, and the descriptive text still sucks. Once it looks professional, leave it alone again. You're done. This might take 1-2 hours, and 1-2 sittings.
3. Clean Up Descriptive Text: After your headings work and your formatting is tight, then go in and tackle the descriptive text. To make it easier on yourself, go find 5-10 job descriptions for jobs that you're trying to get anywhere in the world, print them off, grab a highlighter, and highlight the descriptive text they use that you feel is relevant to something you did. Then alter your descriptive text based on that sample language. Using 5-10 descriptions will stop you from flat out lifting the text from one example, and help you mix it up a bit.
So if a job description says: Must have demonstrated experience designing study protocols for clinical trials - and you've done that in one of your jobs - you can say in a bullet or paragraph: Designed study protocols for multiyear clinical trials researching insulin resistance, asthma and sleep apnea. So you use the skeleton of their text, and add your own personal details. Voila - relevant, detailed and personal!
In short - don't start with the empty adjectives and blather, start with evidence. Don't say that you are a highly motivated game changer able to leverage resources to create win-win opportunities between key stakeholders. Start with a bullet that says that you managed six staff on three multiyear marketing projects. Give another that says your specific responsibilities included designing the overall strategy, and managing the implementation, including identifying key milestones and delegating tasks. Say what you actually did in 2-5 bullets/sentences for each experience, using the language of the job descriptions you printed off.
This usually takes 2-4 sittings, and maybe 1-5 hours, to find, read, highlight and rewrite the descriptive text. This takes the most time.
4. Final Formatting: Go back again and do final formatting - if people say don't go over one page, keep slicing descriptive test from each of your experiences until you get down to one page (rather than drop any one experience). Make sure everything is spelled correctly, and aligned, and ready to go.
This usually takes 1-2 sittings, and about 1-2 hours.....and you're done.
Then share with friends and colleagues for feedback, and edit the overall outline, descriptive text for format based on their recommendations. Then you're done again, and ready to submit.
To answer your final question: in general, resume services only work if the person doing the resume knows your field. For example, I can write pretty effective resumes/CVs, but only in the 5-7 fields I know like the back of my hand. I have no idea what content is relevant for a CV in say, architecture. Or investment banking. I don't even know how long the document would be, or what language works best. So even if a service could do your resume faster, in say, two hours, rather than 10, it wouldn't necessarily be effective. Since they wouldn't know the content, it would feel slick, but empty and have bullets like, "expertise in leveraging dynamic resources with big impact outcomes, using high touch and high tech strategies", and it's for like, a library sciences job or something. Any librarian would look at it and say, "whaa..???"
So before going that route, take a shot and about ten-15 hours over 2-3 weeks, and let friends/colleagues give you constructive feedback first. You'll probably be happier with the results, and they will feel more authentic.
Super good luck to you. Really, I know you probably feel about this the way you'd feel about slamming a hammer on your thumb - not fun at all, but often it's because people don't know how to tackle it. But you can do this, and it really is worth it.
Just break it down into steps, don't work on it for more that 45-60 minutes in one sitting. That's about two episodes of Fraiser, or Parks and Recreation, or Misfits, or the Lowdown, or half of the latest Sherlock Holmes on BBC. (It really helps to have something on in the background, or to be in a cafe while updating your resume. Really. I mean it. Really.)
Hope this helps. Good luck whatever you do!
posted by anitanita at 10:17 PM on February 2, 2012 [7 favorites]
What messes people up is that they try to do all four of these things simultaneously, and it starts to feel overwhelming. People get lost. Instead, split it up like this:
1. Select Section Headings: Look at friends' resumes, at samples from the library, at university career centers' websites - many of whom have resume samples, at your professional associations' career pages on their website, or just google resume and whatever field you are in. When you find these samples, look at them to determine section headings that are relevant for your field. Select a few section headings, and then just cut and paste your information from your current document into the appropriate sections.
So, rather that just have a Work Experience and/or Activities section, find descriptive section headings that actually help the reader see your range of experience by just reading the heading, rather than having to read all of the information in the section. Together these serve as the back bone or skeleton outline of your CV. Sample descriptive section headings could include:
Qualification Summary
Education
IT Experience
Project Management Experience
Health Related Experience
Research Experience
Teaching Experience
Customer Service Experience
Advocacy & Outreach Experience
Significant Trainings
Supervisory Training
Languages
after you do this - leave it alone. You'e done. Finding and reviewing resumes, and selecting headings, and cutting and pasting usually takes 1-4 hours, and 2-3 sittings. If you're lucky, you have a good friend in the field with an awesome resume.
2. Format: In a perfect world, the next time you sat down you'd go into each section, one at a time, and clean it up. That means write up the descriptive text of each experience you list. But that gets tedious for people. So it's much easier to clean up the formatting, using some resume sample you've seen where you really like the format. Bold the job title or organization, line up all of your dates, make the font and size the same, clean up the caps, etc. Just make it professional looking, even though it might still be too long, and the descriptive text still sucks. Once it looks professional, leave it alone again. You're done. This might take 1-2 hours, and 1-2 sittings.
3. Clean Up Descriptive Text: After your headings work and your formatting is tight, then go in and tackle the descriptive text. To make it easier on yourself, go find 5-10 job descriptions for jobs that you're trying to get anywhere in the world, print them off, grab a highlighter, and highlight the descriptive text they use that you feel is relevant to something you did. Then alter your descriptive text based on that sample language. Using 5-10 descriptions will stop you from flat out lifting the text from one example, and help you mix it up a bit.
So if a job description says: Must have demonstrated experience designing study protocols for clinical trials - and you've done that in one of your jobs - you can say in a bullet or paragraph: Designed study protocols for multiyear clinical trials researching insulin resistance, asthma and sleep apnea. So you use the skeleton of their text, and add your own personal details. Voila - relevant, detailed and personal!
In short - don't start with the empty adjectives and blather, start with evidence. Don't say that you are a highly motivated game changer able to leverage resources to create win-win opportunities between key stakeholders. Start with a bullet that says that you managed six staff on three multiyear marketing projects. Give another that says your specific responsibilities included designing the overall strategy, and managing the implementation, including identifying key milestones and delegating tasks. Say what you actually did in 2-5 bullets/sentences for each experience, using the language of the job descriptions you printed off.
This usually takes 2-4 sittings, and maybe 1-5 hours, to find, read, highlight and rewrite the descriptive text. This takes the most time.
4. Final Formatting: Go back again and do final formatting - if people say don't go over one page, keep slicing descriptive test from each of your experiences until you get down to one page (rather than drop any one experience). Make sure everything is spelled correctly, and aligned, and ready to go.
This usually takes 1-2 sittings, and about 1-2 hours.....and you're done.
Then share with friends and colleagues for feedback, and edit the overall outline, descriptive text for format based on their recommendations. Then you're done again, and ready to submit.
To answer your final question: in general, resume services only work if the person doing the resume knows your field. For example, I can write pretty effective resumes/CVs, but only in the 5-7 fields I know like the back of my hand. I have no idea what content is relevant for a CV in say, architecture. Or investment banking. I don't even know how long the document would be, or what language works best. So even if a service could do your resume faster, in say, two hours, rather than 10, it wouldn't necessarily be effective. Since they wouldn't know the content, it would feel slick, but empty and have bullets like, "expertise in leveraging dynamic resources with big impact outcomes, using high touch and high tech strategies", and it's for like, a library sciences job or something. Any librarian would look at it and say, "whaa..???"
So before going that route, take a shot and about ten-15 hours over 2-3 weeks, and let friends/colleagues give you constructive feedback first. You'll probably be happier with the results, and they will feel more authentic.
Super good luck to you. Really, I know you probably feel about this the way you'd feel about slamming a hammer on your thumb - not fun at all, but often it's because people don't know how to tackle it. But you can do this, and it really is worth it.
Just break it down into steps, don't work on it for more that 45-60 minutes in one sitting. That's about two episodes of Fraiser, or Parks and Recreation, or Misfits, or the Lowdown, or half of the latest Sherlock Holmes on BBC. (It really helps to have something on in the background, or to be in a cafe while updating your resume. Really. I mean it. Really.)
Hope this helps. Good luck whatever you do!
posted by anitanita at 10:17 PM on February 2, 2012 [7 favorites]
Response by poster: Thanks all very much for your comments, support and advice. Much obliged.
posted by wensink at 4:57 PM on February 3, 2012
posted by wensink at 4:57 PM on February 3, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
Someone with an equivalent job to then one that you are applying to.
Someone with a managerial, directorial or hiring position in your field.
Someone who is very good with the written English language.
Someone who works in hiring in HR, regardless of the field.
They will all have valuable feedback based on their areas of expertise.
posted by griphus at 11:47 AM on February 2, 2012 [4 favorites]