Basically the title. Wanted to make a thread for those of us who are looking to get their resume up to scratch for the job hunt, everyone's welcome to post/commiserate/cry because job hunting fucking sucks. Anyway, my issue. My resume blows, and I can't really work out what's wrong with it. Or more accurately, I know exactly what's wrong with it but can't work out any other way to do it because I've never had a job in my field (which is what I'm looking for). That, and the jobs I have had make me look unreliable as hell because, with one exception which hardly counts, they've all lasted for less than a year. Some my fault, others were sort of out of my control. Does anyone have any advice? I know the skills section is basically really undesired because anyone can say they're a pro at communication (also that's a huge lie because I'm not), but I've got no actual achievements to list because, again, no job in my field. Ugh. Spoiler: resume
Assuming you're looking for more lab work, I'd beef up lab skills section if you can. Add a little more detail in your education section--some of the classes taken might be helpful.
Ask a manager has a lot of stuff on resumes :-D Alison is really nice, and she gives sound advice. Askamanager.org
This is more end-stage stuff, but once you've got the content fixed up, try to fit it onto one page if you can. A lot of employers skim resumes on the first look so they won't see anything that's written on the back/second page. Also, you wrote "referees" instead of "references," because typos happen--but fixing that up is an easy improvement too. I've gotten a lot of resume advice in my time, but I've never had full-time employment, only summer jobs and internships, so none of what I know is field-tested to the degree I'd like it to be.
Referee is used in the sense of 'one who provides a reference', it's pretty common usage here (Australia). But noted! I knew the one page resume was a thing, but I kept on telling myself 'oh it's only like a 1/3rd of a page, nbd'. I might be better off just doing the 'references available on request' thing to save some space. Hahaha yeah, I used to read that site religiously. Alison is pretty great. I find it really hard to put her resume advice into action though, so much of it seems to be reliant on 1. Having had a job in your field that relates to the job you're going for, and 2. Quantifying things you've improved on while in X or Y job. Like... my assistant project management position was basically just data entry, and I designed a filing system that would make it so that files would basically automatically be sorted into their correct folders so people wouldn't be spending hours on end moving things around. I could quantify that sort of thing, but how do you quantify the stuff you do working in an OP shop or other positions like that? It's hard :( It's also hard when I have no idea whether my system was kept in place, since my supervisor (who was very impressed with it) was laid off before I finished my work experience there. Still mad at that company for offering me a job and then being like 'oh nah sorry we've got no money, lol'. Assholes getting my hopes up. Thanks rigs! Do you think a short description of what the class entailed would be appropriate, or would the name of the class be enough? I'd assume the former, but space may become an issue.
I didn't know that about "referee"--now I feel silly. Some people I've talked to (professors, if I remember right) have said that it's starting to be common practice to just have "References available on request" instead of the references themselves, but, again, I don't have a lot of practical jobhunting tests to verify this through so--does anyone else know whether this is actually true?
In my experience (Software Engineer in the US) references are usually provided as a separate thing, not mentioned in the resume itself, although often provided at the same time in a separate document or part of the cover letter.
Or in fact provided when a company gives an offer, which is generally contingent on reference checks. References are increasingly worthless anyway; too many US companies have adopted a policy of not saying any more than "Yes, this person worked for us between these dates" for fear of lawsuits.
