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Help me learn to job-hunt!
Trowizilla
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Okay, so I graduated from college in May of '07. I still don't have my physical diploma due to some missing paperwork I didn't know about, but that's getting sorted out.
However, I've been out of college for over a year and still haven't found work. Here's what I've done so far:
- Had mono for the first two months and was recovering for several weeks after that.
- Signed up to work for a temp agency. Asked them numerous times to email me with jobs because my phone never got reception in my apartment and I check my email a million times a day. They'd agree to do that, but never did, so I'd eventually get voicemails with assignments way too late to do anything about them. On the times that a phone call came through, they'd often ask me to send them extra information or fill out what was essentially an editing sample, but never get back to me and would mysteriously forget about the original assignment when I called them. Very frustrating. I only ever worked one assignment for them, and that was only for a single day.
- Got a "job" as an administrative assistant to a guy who did consulting for call centers. Flew out to a different city because he supposedly wanted someone to take notes for him. Turns out he wanted a hooker and didn't want to pay full price for one, so I had to quit. That lasted all of a week.
- My current job, which, while I like it a lot, is totally under-the-table, in Atlanta and not DC (so I'm living with my parents and paying rent for the DC apartment), and only temporary. It'll last another week or so, but then I'm back to looking for work. Sadly, although my boss loves me, the under-the-table-ness means I probably can't put it on a resume.
So, yeah. An employment gap of over a year is going to look pretty terrible, right? Before that, I worked, but only during the summer because I was in school.
Here's my qualifications: Bachelor's degree from a good but not terribly well-known liberal arts school, four years editorial and journalistic experience on the school newspaper, lots of writing and academic awards, tutoring experience, volunteering with Alpha Phi Omega, substitute-teaching preschoolers, childcare, and working at a grocery store deli. I don't think I interview badly, but I could probably do better. I'd like to go to grad school eventually, but that's in the long-term-plan bin.
Oh, and I'm planning on moving to Baltimore in the near future.
TLDR: Help a jobless English major with a big employment gap and not too much experience figure out how to get a job. Advice ranging from the basic to the super-advanced welcome/desperately appreciated!
However, I've been out of college for over a year and still haven't found work. Here's what I've done so far:
- Had mono for the first two months and was recovering for several weeks after that.
- Signed up to work for a temp agency. Asked them numerous times to email me with jobs because my phone never got reception in my apartment and I check my email a million times a day. They'd agree to do that, but never did, so I'd eventually get voicemails with assignments way too late to do anything about them. On the times that a phone call came through, they'd often ask me to send them extra information or fill out what was essentially an editing sample, but never get back to me and would mysteriously forget about the original assignment when I called them. Very frustrating. I only ever worked one assignment for them, and that was only for a single day.
- Got a "job" as an administrative assistant to a guy who did consulting for call centers. Flew out to a different city because he supposedly wanted someone to take notes for him. Turns out he wanted a hooker and didn't want to pay full price for one, so I had to quit. That lasted all of a week.
- My current job, which, while I like it a lot, is totally under-the-table, in Atlanta and not DC (so I'm living with my parents and paying rent for the DC apartment), and only temporary. It'll last another week or so, but then I'm back to looking for work. Sadly, although my boss loves me, the under-the-table-ness means I probably can't put it on a resume.
So, yeah. An employment gap of over a year is going to look pretty terrible, right? Before that, I worked, but only during the summer because I was in school.
Here's my qualifications: Bachelor's degree from a good but not terribly well-known liberal arts school, four years editorial and journalistic experience on the school newspaper, lots of writing and academic awards, tutoring experience, volunteering with Alpha Phi Omega, substitute-teaching preschoolers, childcare, and working at a grocery store deli. I don't think I interview badly, but I could probably do better. I'd like to go to grad school eventually, but that's in the long-term-plan bin.
Oh, and I'm planning on moving to Baltimore in the near future.
TLDR: Help a jobless English major with a big employment gap and not too much experience figure out how to get a job. Advice ranging from the basic to the super-advanced welcome/desperately appreciated!
Trowizilla on
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Get a friend to go over your resume with you. A good resume is your first step. You may be a talented writer and a nice guy, but if your resume looks crappy it'll just get thrown out.
Here's a few tips: Take any job of less than six months off your resume. It doesn't have to be an exhaustive list, accounting for every second you've been alive since High School. It should highlight your skills - bonus points if it gives the impression that you're working toward something.
Spend a lot of time on your layout. It should look clean, concise, and professional. Use the Microsoft Word templates if you're like me and are crappy at design.
Don't just list your responsibilities. Use full sentences to convey what you actually did at the job, and pay special attention to anything you did to help the business. If you've just worked retail, I know there isn't a lot of space for brilliance.
You should also focus your resume around your school and your volunteer work. Not only does it show that you're a conscientious public citizen, but you haven't been wasting the past year and a half.
Now that the resume is out of the way, you have to know where to look. Online job banks are kind of a waste of time - On average it takes two days for them to get back to you, then another day or two for the interview, and then another three to seven days to hear back from the job. That's not to say don't try - I've gotten lots of jobs online.
On top of searching online, keep an eye on the want ads in the paper, and even trot around the major office buildings. A foot in the door there might lead to something more in line with your expertise, such as a proofreading or copywriting position.
Persistence is key, man. Just keep at it, make sure your resume is good, and interview as hard as you can.
You may also want to take a look at your references to make sure they're up to date. I've lost a couple of sweet opportunities due to inaccurate references.
Best of luck.
Thank you, Rubacava!
As far as I can tell, my resume is pretty polished-looking. My boyfriend's high-up-in-government-contracting dad went over it for me and rearranged some things. I could post it here if that would help?
I'm a girl, by the way.
The job gap isn't great, but its not the end of the world.
First things first. Do you have any idea what kind of job you want? If there are different types of jobs you are willing to do, you will need different resumes emphasizing different skills. The resume you hand in for a job working in child care is going to be somewhat different than the resume you hand in for a job at a newspaper, just to pick two things out of your history.
About skills, you need to emphasize them. Your qualifications aren't going to win you a job on their own. A Bachelors degree in Arts just doesn't do that, as I know from experience. You need to list your skills, and back them up with examples.
For some reading material, I've found Martin Yate's Knock Em Dead very helpful.
Temp agencies can be very helpful for finding short term work, but get a phone that works if yours doesn't, unless this is an overall problem with reception where you work. You pretty much have to be available by phone, and to be able to say yes quickly to an assignment to temp. Unless you are getting continuous assignments from a temp agency, don't just sign up with one of them, in a reasonably sized city there should be at least a few of the international agencies and some local ones you can sign up with. Sign up with all of them, and be proactive about calling them.
While not entirely worthless, job ads are often the worst way to find work. Many, many jobs are never advertised. Whatever you do, do not devote the bulk of your work search time to them.
You don't have a lot of work experience, so you may have to start off in a lower level job than you may like, and I understand the overall job market in the US isn't great right now.
My Name Here
Address Address
More Address
Phone Number
MyFullName@gmail.com
EDUCATION
Oglethorpe University Atlanta GA
Bachelor of Arts in English May 2007
Honors and Activities:
• Dean’s List
• Editor of the Opinions, Features, and Hindsight sections, university newspaper
• Awarded for Best Opinions Article, Best Features, and Best News Article
• Winner, Mohadai Writing Contest
• Winner, Anne Rivers Siddons Writing Contest
• Tutor, university writing center
• Inter-Chapter Liaison, committee head, and Brother, Alpha Phi Omega Service Fraternity
• Layout Editor, university literary magazine
EXPERIENCE
ATLANTA METRO CLEANERS Atlanta, GA
Associate June-December 2006
Responsible for cleaning services in office buildings
• Worked with associates and management to coordinate duties
WONDERFUL DAYS PRESCHOOL Marietta GA
Substitute Assistant Teacher May 2006
Worked in tandem with Lead Teacher in class for disadvantaged children
• Assisted in the creation of lesson plans
• Worked with students to help prepare them for kindergarten
• Maintained classroom discipline
• Provided information to parents in English and Spanish
• Responsible for timely preparation of breakfast and lunch
PUBLIX Marietta GA
Deli Associate May-August 2005
Responsible for customer service and on-schedule production of stock
• Provided customer service in person and over the phone
• Answered customer queries about deli and general store stock
• Collected and recorded data about stock sold for database
• Maintained the cleanliness of the facility
This is after my boyfriend's dad messed around with it.
My phone not working is a problem with the reception, not the phone: we're in a creepy near-total dead zone. However, I'll be moving soon, so that won't be a problem anymore.
I've been looking for editing work (which is what I have the most experience doing), and also basic admin stuff.
Note to self: bookmark this thread and review it in a year when I'm in the exact same boat.
A friend of mine got a not-terrible secretary job for a small local company through Craigslist. She might be one of the few lucky ones, but it can't hurt to skim for a few that look promising and get in touch. I don't imagine you'll find anything really awesome there, but if it pays the bills and pads your resume it's a good start.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
It is the youtube of documents :P
That way we can take a look at it as recruiters.
As there are two women in my life that work as organisational psychologists, I can safely tell you that is not a good idea. That's what cover letters are for.
Check for jobs every Friday night, or Saturday morning, because that is when they all go online. Then apply for everything you might be remotely qualified for (don't be shy!) Don't let up unless you've applied for let's say 5 for this weekend.
Write up a cover letter. Make it generic as possible. In my Google Docs folder I have a file called cover_letter_template with this as the first paragraph:
<<XX January, 20XX>>
<<Recruitment Company Name>>
Attn: <<Consultant Name>>
Re: <<xxx role, reference number xxx>>
Hi <<Consultant>>,
I would like to submit my resume for the <<xxxx>> position advertised <<today/Saturday>> on <<careerone.com.au>>. As you will see from my CV, my most recent experience was in the role of <<role name>> for <<previous company>>. This entailed <<doing stuff>>. Together with my current studies in <<degree>> at <<university>>, I believe that I have developed the basic skills required for <<Insert appropriate text here>>.
It goes for another three paragraphs which I can post if people don't consider this a complete waste of time but they involve describing what interest me about their company, which means I always do about 5 quick minutes of snooping around on their site, and squeezing everything they might want out of them and putting it on paper and saying I have those things. I then send that along with my CV to the company (whether by email or whatever)
I'm admittedly more reserved than my own advice would suggest (only apply for 2 - 3 a week), but I get a surprising amount of interviews out of it this way. Now as far as interviews go you're probably already way more qualified than my pale nerdy self to handle them. :P
What my sister does, being the business-savvy shrink that she is, is actually individually call the person in the company offering the job (through their work phone of course) to ask a few questions about the specifics of the job. This is simply a matter of getting the person to remember you, so that when your name comes up on the resume they recognise you and subconsciously give you more priority.
EDIT: I just remembered in addition to my first paragraph that a resume should be easily readable, hence bullet points, and preferably short, 1 - 2 pages, with the important shiny stuff on the first. I personally don't put my references on it, but instead put "List of referees is available on request" This way they know they can get references and put off the wankers that won't consider you but will call your references anyway just to see what kind of people are applying for their job.
Stylistically it's a little plain but I wouldn't worry about it. Content is more important anyway and anything not-terrible is good enough. I personally like to keep everything at either one indent or zero, and I do use a little color (in section headings), because it gives you more options for emphasis other than boldface and italics. Like I said style isn't all that important and you can overdo it really easily, but it never hurts to have something that looks like you put effort into it.
When you listed work experience you've used verbs like "assisted," "worked," "maintained," and "provided," followed by a noun which actually describes what you did. This isn't effective language on a resume. Instead of "Assisted in the creation of lesson plans" you can say "Created lesson plans" (and maybe expound a little on it). Were you solely responsible for all the lesson plans during that job? Maybe not. Did you create lesson plans? Yes.
"Responsible for" is always worse than using active language. It doesn't say whether you did something, it just says whether someone expected you to do it. It's a weasel word, even if you don't intend to use it that way.
Basically you want each of your bullet points to make you look like a super-smart super-motivated super-active worker who had a lot of responsibility.
Don't be afraid of a little exaggeration. You are free to make your job sound cooler than it was, so long as you don't put down anything misleading. You want to demonstrate that you're a confident, responsible person. Even if all you did was flip burgers, it tells people how seriously you took your job that you thought of your position as more than just flipping burgers. You want your resume to get you an interview, and while you do need to be able to live up to the hype (so to speak) in person, you might not get there in the first place if you sell yourself short.
You only have one item listed under the most recent job, which looks weak compared to the others. If you can get that to three points it looks better, and also it lets you exaggerate a little more about how awesome you are.