f13.net

Some of us are grads and some of us just don't have a job, either way, I'm sure there are some people here with some bits of wisdom. I'm well aware that there's no sure fire way to get a job right now.

I'm using Workopolis, Jobboom, Monster and, an HR specific job site, Hire Authority. Any other suggestions? I hear Craigslist has something once and awhile.

My resume has been looked over by way too many people and I know all about "Networking."

My only help is for any Canadians looking for work: Comprehensive list of job sites for Canada (http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/showthread.php?t=267716)

I would say that it isn't worthwhile to apply to anything more than 2 days old, maybe 1 day, Craigslist makes this easy.

If you're in the general market and don't have a hot tip I would advise you to proceed thusly:

When looking for work, use a generic resume/cover letter.  Don't invest yourself overly in anything, just gets you down more when you don't get it.  Fire and forget them resumes, send 20+ a day.  Looking for work is work, don't think about it any other way.  You're just sending the resumes because you have to, you don't expect ever to hear back from any of them about anything, that way you don't have an excuse to give up.  Believe me, you'll want to give up.

This doesn't mean that you should be as generic as possible tho, I would use the cover letter to try and set yourself apart.  What is it about you that makes you more qualified than the next drone?  Can you sum it up in the cover letter in a nice way?

For interviews, dress to impress.  Wear the damn tie and the shiny shoes, even if it's not required for the job.  Act like a good drone, you'll follow instructions and not think too much.  Make a good impression, get along with the interviewer.  What you know isn't nearly as important as the impression you make (usually).

That sort of attitude kept me going most of last year anyway while I was looking.  Looking for work sucks.

Of course, if you have a hot tip/friend put you in for something/they are talking to you before posting job, etc... those are the ones that you want to invest heavily in, you'll just have to suck it up and suffer if you don't get it.

All just my opinion, feel free to disagree.

Also, even if you know more than the interviewer, don't show it. You don't want to even appear to be threatening their job.

And apply at places that aren't advertising for openings. Never know whos itching to fire that snotty jackass down the hall but doesn't feel like training someone. Give em a reason.

Send your resume to friends and family, because you just never know.

This.

Nepotism.

I've exhausted family and friend resources, I think. Hell, even some of them are in danger right now, working at places where people are getting dropped. I've been meaning to just say fuck it and work at a restaurant or something... But then, I say fuck it to that as well. I've been nothing but a bad influence in those settings.

I'll third this.  I've got people from my former company sending me all kinds of info on jobs.  I have jobs that I was told to apply for that require a PhD, yet I'm getting interviews for them anyway and even second ones.  Essentially if you know someone, chances are they know someone.  Of all the places I've sent resumes to, only the ones where I was handed to their recruitment group on a platter by friends and associates am I getting any hits on.  Believe me, the first place that offers a job I'll likely take.

indeed.com (http://indeed.com) is the big one among all of my peers, as is LinkedIn (strangely enough).  Knowing what people are looking for and their experience helps a ton (kind of a duh, but seriously it is important to know).

I, finally, for the first time since I was 15, asked my family for help on finding a job.

I feel dirty.

You and 30,000 other people will apply for every job on craigslist, hotjobs, monster, and any other public site.  Unless you think your resume is going to stand out, don't expect anything from that.  Your odds are much better when applying for jobs that never hit those sites.  If your work is specialized, bookmark the "opportunities" pages of the companies most likely to have openings, if it is specialized enough, consider some carefully crafted Google Alerts.

When you send in a resume, search your contacts for anyone you know who works there, or has a brother/sister/second cousin that does.  Especially when responding to something on the major sites, what you need most is for your resume to survive the first sort where they discard 99 out of every 100 of the several thousand they get, and all it will take is an internal email from *anyone* (even the janitor) to the HR people doing that sort.

--Dave

This.

You may still get dropped before a phonescreen, depending on what's being looked for and how your resume matches up, but having *anyone* do even a "hey this is the resume of {somebody I know, a friend of a friend, ...}" is useful to get past the initial discard phase.

Well if they can help, just roll with it. Actually, quite a few of my jobs were that way. It's just not an option now unfortunately.

In my work in the media we published this list of tips from a recruiter. Mostly obvious but may be something in it that helps: http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1013921/Ten-tips-to-surviving-unemployment

If anybody is new to this, welcome to networking. It nets more high powered jobs than any other method. When you are out of work, you should be calling or writing literally everybody you know. Everybody. That includes family, friends, former work colleagues and bosses, your doctor, your dentist, your banker, etc. Its not a silly as it sounds at first. If your doctor knows somebody who is looking for an IT employee and you ask him if he knows anybody who is hiring in IT, he'll likely put you in contact with the person in his personal network.

The hardest part of getting a job is standing out enough to get the first interview. Having a personal contact (even one that is one degree removed) increases the odds of being interviewed by a fuckton.


Only if you are looking for unskilled or trainee work. Very many professional positions have long recruitment periods. For positions that I have advertised for, I've been interviewing people for several weeks afterwards in order to get the best candidate.

Truth.  My former job was open for almost 18 months before they found me to fill it.  The same goes with quite a few of the jobs I am now applying for.  The companies flat out need people, but the skill level they are looking for just doesn't come around very often, so the jobs will sit open for a while as the recruiter and hiring manager are trying to determine who out there is telling the truth vs. stretching a bit on their resumes.  I've had some seriously nice resumes and "qualified on paper" people where the interview turned into drooling and "urgh?" when I started asking questions.

We've been interviewing for entry level customer service positions for a couple weeks. If you are looking for someone long term, you don't hire the first applicant through the door.

For those of you looking for work - my first hand experience as of late - it's all in the interview. We basically look over the resume, make sure it meets a few minimum requirements, and then go to the interview.

Anyone looking for software/tech sector work in western Canada let me know. I could use a finder's fee. :)

Yeah, after applying towards many jobs using all the usual methods, I'm going the nepotism/friend-of-a-friend route.  :awesome_for_real:

We'll see how that works out, though it looks like its going to work much better already.

I just wish I didn't suck at interviews so much.

I barely use it, but how do y'all feel about LinkedIn?

If you think it's not a completely useless resource I'm sure a few of us would be willing to add people to our lists.

I pretty much only use linked-in to track people I've worked with who I would want to work with again.   It's been useful for staying in touch with smart people who are doing cool things, who I'd definitely ping if I was job hunting (or sometimes ping if I'm looking to hire somebody).

I got my new job in December after a recruiter heard about me from someone else, then contacted me via LinkedIn. Except I ignored his message, a month went by, and he cold-called me at my old work and I got interested :-) So it wasn't exactly LinkedIn being useful, but he was using it.

A few days ago he emailed me, asking if I knew anyone suitable for another job. I knew someone good, so I looked her up on LinkedIn and it turned out she had a fully fledged profile, with recommendations from others. So all I had to do was send him her LinkedIn profile, and he had a candidate. I'm guessing the written recommendations from former colleagues on LinkedIn were VERY powerful for him. She's very good at her job, and they were prepared to say so publicly.

recession = stay in (or go back to) school on bank/govt dime

Once the recession is over you'll have a skill worth making money for and will actually be able to pay your student loans.
Training for something during an economic boom period is wasteful.  Doing it during a shitstorm is the way to go.

What if you finished up all the school and training you could right as the recession started  :awesome_for_real:

learn something new   :grin:

I just graduated with a BS CS in December, and just started my first post-college job on Wednesday. I had a couple of pretty great internships, which I incidentally landed through a previously internet-only friend that I met while playing DAOC - I think having some relevant experience helped me stand out from other fresh college grads. I can't recommend going the 'friends-and-family' route enough, especially if you've maintained friendships with particularly smart and motivated people.

Due to a hiring freeze in my old branch of the company, I wasn't able to go back to the position I was being groomed for as an intern, but I made contacts in other parts of the company who helped my resume get wide circulation throughout the company, and after interviewing for about a million different positions, finally found one that I was a good fit for. Even still, they're being super cautious - I'm getting hired as a contractor for 3 months as a trial period, and if I impress them enough they'll hire me fulltime at the end.

During the couple of months between graduating and starting work, I found a few freelance gigs via posting my resume on Dice/LinkedIn. It didn't come close to a 40 hour workweek, but it was enough to keep my skills sharp and keep me from getting too bored, plus it's always nice to make a little bit of money.

tl;dr version: be extremely proactive about asking friends/family/former co-workers if they know anyone who could use you, do something to stay busy in the meantime whether it's freelancing or just teaching yourself new skills

I told my wife I am going to go back to school to become either an economist or a meteorologist if I lose my current job.

Do both, you could be the wacky weatherman economist on the news.  You could give weather and financial forecast at the same time!  I bet they'd let you wear a funny hat.

I've hit up every contact I have. The biggest problem I'm finding is that most of my contacts are in my field and half of which were in industries that went lean as the recession hit, so they're looking for work too or recently hired. I've set myself up with an agency, but I'm not holding my breath for them to find me a job any time soon. It just might be a good idea for me to pick up some shitty summer job, apply for my university transfer and dump another 20K on my student loan to get my B-Comm.

That's what happened to me in 2002.  Sure, it wasn't as bad as it was now, but finding a job then wasn't easy either.  Graduate school for the win!  Or at least getting another degree in something useful (note the "useful" part, that's important).

I tried this here before and it didn't go well. A lot of people think you should NEVER add friends to your network. It really depends on how you view people from F13 and, as pointed out by one person, if they'll respect your 2nd degree contacts. You don't want some random contacting some high profile exec on your contact list, using your name and then making an ass of themselves.

Of course, I'm not of that school of thought. I'm in HR and they all tell you the same thing, a contact is a contact.

I stopped using LinkedIn for almost 3 years because I had a stalker who wouldn't leave me the hell alone.  They are gone now and I am much happier.  I still subscribe to the "I have to know you decently" before I'll add you.  Mostly it's ex-workers from my old job and the jaded few still there.

You had your stalker killed? Hardcore!  :drill:

We could use some IT that is in nursing.  Right now they suck, they just don't get how we operate and why we bitch about the programs being bulky and not user friendly.  Of course that is partially from HCA wanting to use MEDITECH in the most weird way possible, but still we need more tech friendly people designing and fixing computers and programs for health care.  Hell, we are supposed to go to a Electronic Medical Record eventually, and that keeps getting pushed back.

If Bob is coming over to the RN side, along with a ton of medics (plus a couple of police and firemen), you could come play in the 12 hour + madness that I luv  ;D

Oh yeah, health care in general is booming, I'm seeing about 25% increase in patients since last year.

I worked for an insurance company for a few months in AZ and if the programs on that end aren't user-friendly (and bulky, and on shit computers) I can't even imagine how bad they are in hospitals.

It's always good to pursue many options - but in the end you need to be places your peers are not.

Read the business section of your newspaper.  Read between the lines, and identify firms moving in directions that interest you.  Cold call them to be learn more about the project - informational interviews etc. - and see if you can angle in.  It's not easy to do this - it's the "hidden job market" or "creating opportunity" but rest assured your peers won't be doing it - so you will be the only guy calling.  Downside - there is no hiring deadline for the said firm - so this can take a long time.

Even if you have to be clandestine about it - take any job that gives you some sort of income to hold you over, regardless whether you find it humiliating or beneath you.  Being poor eats at the soul and debt accumulates too quickly.  On the flip side, especially for those young in their careers - Volunteer for a cause related to your interests.  Or... volunteer at a company in your area of interest if you can afford the time, this can work well if you are new to your career path.

In the end I find job fairs to be a waste of time.  I have learned to avoid environments filled with job seekers.  If you can afford it, the ideal is to attend conferences on specific issues for industry insiders - attend - and socialize.  This takes a fee and travel, but if you can do it locally it's more feasible.

Write.  Get your views known.  Blogs are laudable, but there is no 'barrier to entry" you are competing in a sea of unqualified commentary.  Publishing in a trade journal, magazine or local newspaper is more visible and helps - and adds to your writing portfolio which can be tangentially relevant in any career path.

Pitch.  Come up with an idea you're passionate about - and contact folks in your industry to discuss it.  A good place to start is try and build on a direction you suspect their firm or industry is already heading.  If you think your idea is actually good - super - if not, it's a platform for discussion.

The most important thing - as cliche and dumb as it will sound - keep upbeat about yourself and keep your eye focused on where you would ideally like to end up in life.  It will happen!

For those who aren't as tied down, you can always take a year off and go abroad to teach English.  I'm approaching three years in and will probably be looking for something different this summer or fall, but it's been a life changing experience - I'm doing things now that most people dream about doing when they're retired. 

A popular job site: Tefl.com (http://www.tefl.com/)
Note that for nearly all the jobs on that and similar sites, you'll need some kind of TEFL certificate, which generally costs around $1000 and involves a month of training and teaching practice.  And for nearly every job in the EU you'll need an EU passport or work permit, which is incredibly annoying when all I want to do is go teach in a little town of the coast of Spain or Portugal but I can't because I'm an American.   :uhrr:

One of the most popular forums for ESL teachers, organized by country/continent:  http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/ (http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/)
Beware: Much whinging in certain parts of those forums.  If you're interested in South Korea (where the money is, at the moment, and where I started), there's a separate and huge forum just for that.   

If you are in the US, have a business degree, have knowledge of either the health care field or IT project management, or both......I know of an open job at Humana here in Louisville.

Canadian with no passport. No real inclination to move to the US either, not yet at least.

Aside from the advice so far, about the best that I can suggest is show up in person and ask directly.  Persistence will pay off; the send a letter a week Andy Dufresne method really does work.

Good luck!

My advice is to get something part-time if you can do it, and then do volunteer work 2 days a week to fill out your calendar. Not only is the volunteer stuff fun and fulfilling, it's a good way to make contacts with businesses who donate to those causes. Also, if you do things for them that are related to your field, you can add your experiences there to your resume in some form or another.

Currently while I'm looking, I have a part-time gig for about 5-10 hours a week doing financial modelling for an energy company, and I spend 1-2 days a week doing admin work for the Atlanta Food Bank. Both are helping to keep me sharp instead of wallowing in the fact that nobody is going to hire accountants until at least 2010 in an public field. However, I'd make sure to check government agencies (as I have) that will have openings in a ton of fields. The downside is that you will probably have to relocate for 2-3 years to get considered, as most jobs that need filling aren't in many "desirable" cities.

Everyone keeps telling me "you can't move, that will uproot your family!" and my response is "going where the job is!"  I am not independently wealthy enough to be able to sit around for 9-12 months doing nothing except looking for a job.  I'm taking the first thing engineering related that pops up ("if you won't work at McDonalds\dig ditches you really don't want to work" is not a valid argument in my opinion) almost regardless of location.

You've the right attitude.

Not only that... just going abroad PERIOD is smart.  You dont really even have to work 'cept for maybe some odd jobs.  A fine choice is Costa Rica or Panama.  You can live like a king on peanuts and be exposed to some of the best "life" you'll have.  Once the economy comes back, come home.

Belize.

It is safer, cleaner and English is the official language.

When our kids turn 18 we are moving.

My offer wasnt a joke. My wife is looking for a team member. Would be a direct report to her.
Figure I would post it up here in an attempt to possibly help someone who might be out of work.

I was replying seriously. I don't have a passport and would rather stay in Canada for a bit longer before moving wherever. Trust me, I'm all for working abroad.

Paelos, I've actually just gotten an offer to do volunteer work for, I believe, a cancer foundation rewriting their policies to bring them up to date and then putting them into a policy book. So, there's that done. Next is some kind of job. The problem being that the areas I'll be living in have a larger population than they do jobs. It's only slightly better when there's no recession, but still hard to find a job around here. The worst part being everyone keeps claiming HR is in high demand now, when I really don't see it.

It's like this for lots of industries - health for example. And a lot of those jobs are going to go to folks that had previously worked in the health industry since all sorts of people are out of work. Same goes for games. And anything else.

Remember that in a recession "high demand" often just means "lower likelihood of being sacked".

Good luck with that.  Belize isn't the best kept little secret anymore.  They even have retirement incentives and a whole scheme going now.   Germans are especially in love with Belize.  By the time you're a pensioner, every chair on the beach will already have a towel on it.

God damn it.

I have been there four times, but the last time was 2006. 

Fuck, when did this happen?

I don't know when it happened.  I read an article a couple of years ago about it becoming popular and the government making tax and duty incentives to retired people.  I remember American, German, and the French loving it, and retirement schemes.  It also said that nearly all new homes are built to American standards.  Sorry, no link but I read it in a travel magazine in a doctor's office.  Having said that, it really does look like a lovely place to live.

Just typing in Belize Retirement into Google spawns over a 3000 links with information about properties, the tax breaks, and the retirement options. http://belizeretirement.org/ (http://belizeretirement.org/) has information and the options of German and French.

fuck fuck fuck.

Honduras.

Lower cost of living and both the Caribbean and Pacific sides are amazing.

Spanish.

Yeah, that's the problem - I really don't want to learn another language; English is mandatory.

That's why you hire an English-speaking servant and have them do all the shopping. And an English-speaking lawyer so that you can get around those pesky local laws that make adding the rooftop observatory to your home complicated. Down the pub, just speak louder and slower. After all once drunk, even the locals do that.

Belize is in Central America. Fuck that. I'd rather retire to somewhere in the Med. Cyprus perhaps.

Edit: also, you do realise that once you've retired, learning a language is a useful pastime and won't exactly fill your busy week. Its exactly the sort of thing I want to do when I retire. Learn languages, music, drawing - all the things that I "didn't have time for" when younger.

Cyprus is so fucking expensive.  Great place though, but the whole country just feels...lazy.  I guess that's what you're going for.

Unless you live in Limasol.

Well, its been more than a month since I've posted in this thread and I'm still unemployed. I've expanded to such fine establishments as Blockbuster, Future Shop (Canadian Best Buy), The Source...etc. Nothing from them either. Heck, I'm even looking in another province.

So, I'm thinking maybe I should do something more drastic like cold call or walk into corporate places or is that kind of stuff a bad idea? I've exhausted every avenue.

I don't see why you shouldn't walk into a company and try and talk to someone about giving you a job.  If they don't like it, what can they do?  Call security?  Just don't put that bit on your CV.  You could always wait tables - you'd make an adorable waiter.  Other table's customers would give you their waiter's tips!  You'd clean up.  Waiting tables is also the first step to a lucrative acting career - which is kind of like HR, right?  I don't know.  Can you get unemployment or that sort of thing in Canada?  I know people in Britain who have lived all their lives on the dole.  Like nearly everyone in Leeds except for the people who hand out the money and students.   And they still all seem to have enough money for pints, cats and to skin up.  It's a good life.  I know about these things.  I haven't worked in 12 years!

Cabana Boy might still be an option.  You're young enough, though just.  You have one of those faces that stays 18 until you're 35.  (I want one!) You probably don't even have to be near a pool.  You can just do it on the internet.

My advice is to cast a wider net.  Apply to positions all over the place and show them that you aren't afraid to relocate.  It's not ideal, but it's a way to start building some experience.

Blockbuster is still in business?

Hang in there, NiX. Last time I got 'made redundant', I was spamming resumes for 3 months. Time before that, 6 months. And this was not during the current nasty downturn.  I don't know where you live, but if its in a large-ish urban area, new openings will always emerge. The current gig I have opened up because the guy before me suddenly decided he needed to move somewhere with his GF asap, so they conducted a sudden blitz of interviews, and I somehow miraculously came out on top. The position was open and closed in less than 3 weeks.

Those Belize retirement pictures are nice. What they don't tell you is that it is hot as fuck and if you go 100 miles in any direction you will be killed by drugrunners/rebels/communists/fascists/pick one. Belize. Nice if you want to do nothing all day.

Better yet, walk into a company and demand that you get hired for the security job.  When they inevitably and ironically call security on you, you break out a can of whoop ass on that person, thereby proving yourself to be the person better suited to the job.  In the likely event that you are bested, it's lawsuit time, bitches!

Yeah, Just last week I started applying to a third province, but not as much as the other two. I've been wondering if it's good to just throw that I'll relocate in my cover letter or my resume? Or both? It's a weird thing to just put in either, well, I just haven't seen it before.


I know the average time it takes right now is somewhere between 3-4 months. I've been looking since the beginning of March, so I'm getting to the point where I concede that I might be screwing up or lacking something in my search.


In Canada they are. I don't know if their Canadian operations is separate or if it's a franchise up here. They're still around though and hiring for quite a bit of corporate positions.

Anywho, if anyone is bored and feels like picking apart my Resume (http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/41161/Resume%20F13.doc) and/or Cover Letter (http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/41161/Cover%20Letter%20F13.doc), well, go nuts. I'll note that I've removed my contact information and my reference contact information. I like you guys, but not that much. Except for Signe.

Same here.  I've interviewed in 4 different places, and all of them liked me, but either ran into financial problems or had another candidate more qualified for the job.  I'm hoping to hear some good news this week from a place I've interviewed with twice.  They called me last week to let me know they were going to close the rec on Friday and would let me know after that.

I'm still not waiting tables or working at McDonald's or digging ditches just yet.

5 Months in, the closest I've gotten to applying to places like that is Starbucks, they didn't even call me back. I have absolutely no idea why since it's just an application.

My best advice to those who are having trouble finding jobs is, apply for more, but keep yourself busy and do not, under any circumstances, think about it - even though 9 times out of 10 if someones talking to you they're gonna ask "So, gotten a job yet?"

It says "Expected Graduation: April 2009". Haven't you graduated yet?

Damnit. Yes, I have and changed it in the Word 2007 version, not the 2003, which is the one I send out. Hurr durr. :uhrr:

I've been wondering if it's better to paste your resume into the body of the e-mail or attach? Or both? I usually put my cover letter in the body and attach my resume, but I know companies are very paranoid about getting some internet STD.

Both.

I'd also recommend reducing that thing to a single page.

Yes, single page, especially when your actual work experience is somewhat limited.  Beyond that, I'll reserve judgement unless you'd like to answer this question:  what sort of job are you looking for?

Why use a whole page? If you can't summarise your CV with a single well chosen image macro then it's your own fault you can't find a job.

<--- My resume.

Agreed, single page. The only alternative to a single page is a 7 page tome. Or longer. But 2-3 pages is just annoying.

What the hell are you talking about?  If you go a hundred miles in any direction you are in another country.  Drug runners?  Rebels, rebelling against what?  Communists?  Facists?

What?

I know it is quaint to point out that Americans do not know geography, but come on man.

Get a few more tats, a piercing or 2 and shave the left half of your head then go apply at Kirby Lane.

I tailor the Resume/Cover to the position I apply, but I'm mostly looking to just get my foot in the door for HR with the hopes of the position being somewhat geared towards HRMS.

Update the resume so it's 1 page. (http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/41161/Resume%20F13.doc)

Can I ask why you think 1 page resumes are the way to go?  I mean, I know I'm no expert on resumes, hell I've had Nix / Nix's HR teachers even look at my resume, but when it comes down to it, it seems to be more of a formality, and an entrance into a job.  1-2-3 pages, whoever is actually looking at it, I would assume would spend the exact same amount of time on it as any other resume 5-10 seconds.

It would be nicer if you could just have an explanatory picture to explain all tho!  :awesome_for_real:

Why do you hate periods, John Freeland?

You're right - you have very little time to impress the person, especially if they have dozens/hundreds of resumes to get through.  So if you take 3-4 pages to get to the point, they won't read most of it, and boom, you're in the bin.  If you can sum up everything important in 1 page, you get their attention asap, and improve your chances of going into the yes pile.  If your page 1 is full of fluff (noone gives a fuck what your hobbies are, really.  And often they just laugh if you have something odd like sword collecting), they won't bother with reading page 2+.

Any my 2c worth on your resume.
   * That version has your phone # and email/RL address - dunno if you want that on the intarwebs.
   * I'd lose the objective - if you are resorting to non-HR jobs, they dont want to hear that you want to be a HR pro, since they know you'll be out the door at the first good HR job.  They can probably work it out from your degree, but don't rub their faces in it.
   * Don't list referees.  They waste space - if they want referees it means you've had an interview and they like the look of you, and so thats when they'll ask for referees.  At most, put a line 'References can be provided upon request' or something like that.
   * You haven't listed your grades - instant question is 'why?  did you suck at the course?'.  Put your grades in, even if they aren't great.  Hiring managers always assume the worst when something is missing.

Rest of it looks pretty good.  G'luck.

Well, HR people may help get you in the door, but they are not usually (in my experience) the ones who ultimately hire you.  That would be the douchebags like me.  If you have a two page resume, it better be filled with TONS of RELEVANT work experience.  If you are just needlessly filling up two pages full of what is ultimately irrelevant to me, then you're just wasting my time.  If I'm going to use 30 seconds to scan your resume, wouldn't you rather have it all concisely condensed into one neat little page?  As the reader, that is sure as heck what I want.  Resumes that go too far beyond that magic 1 page, maybe 2, come off as generic at best.  At worst, I think you are full of bullshit, a complete douchebag, and you're making yourself out to be far more than you really are.  Me not thinking you are a liar is a good way to get an interview.

Also, keep the specifics of the EB Games gig at a minimum.  As soon as you wrote EB Games, assistant manager, and did some payroll...I could figure out the rest of it myself.  

You guys tend to do that up there? o_O

Yea, I've never heard of anyone recommending you put your grades. Maybe your overall GPA, but what matters it hat you got the piece of paper.

On the job search front, your school doesn't have any career development resources you can use?  Mine allowed us to use the CD center for a number of months after graduation for free, and I'm fairly certain I can make use of it now if I can prove I'm an alumnus donor. (Hell, I may not even have to do that, I didn't check.)

The best advice I can give is network.  Call up those old employers, teachers, friends, etc and see if they've heard anything.  Make particular use of the people who thought you did a good job and told you so to your face.  They're gold and you need to keep in contact with them as time goes on.  I only got my new job because of this, and was able to bypass all the application and winnowing bullshit.  (A similar process is probably why Starbucks didn't call Schild back.. except the reality is probably closer to, "the manager wanted to fuck this chick who applied..")

On your resume/ CV:

Agreed on the GPA.  It's your first job after college, you need to list how well you did.  When you have 5 or more years of experience in the field, then you can drop that crap as your professional career will matter more at that point.

I also agree on the references part.  Nobody cares until they want to take a closer look at you and it will drop you to a single page.   One page and 6 lines is actually more annoying than two pages, particularly if it's fluff like that.  It comes off as just padding your resume to me.

In your cover letter you say "Extensive management experience." All I see are two years as a store manager doing joe average employee stuff and nothing mentioning people management - which is more essential to an HR position.

Data entry skills don't strike me as a strong point for an HR associate. An administrative assistant or data processor, sure.  I may not know enough about HR, though.

Speaking of your qualifications; You are prepared to give detailed examples of your #1, #3 and #4 points, yes? If so, include ONE short example in your cover letter.


Other than that, good luck to you.  

If you come out far east enough, check out http://careerbeacon.com/

Most have covered it, glad you cut it down to one page, drop the references. Btw are the networking nights development that a general position would want to see?

Your formatting rendered on two pages here in Word 2k3 (generally why I use PDF for better or worse). I'd use your cover letter as the email body and just attach the CV.

Something that you didn't mention, did you have any interviews and or call backs over the past month or two?

1 callback/interview. That was through networking, not general applying.

The two page rendering is coming from the margins. I'll have to fix it up some more, that was just a rough cut down. I'm sure I can kill some of the professional development stuff.

I'm actually in Ontario right now with plans to move to Alberta. My method right now is to look for retail/crap work to pay bills/save and then move when I can afford to. All the while looking for a career job out there so it's a smooth transition.

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/chi/942873935.html

Is that the thing you sent to bioware?

You have a degree yes? Apply to go overseas and teach English. Apply to go anywhere. These English school mills dont pay all that well but you get to live internationally, travel, and fuck the hot Ukrainian/Korean/Japanese/etc chick in your Engrish class. Win+Win+Win=WIN.

He lives in Canada, so he's already International.











:why_so_serious:

And I have a diploma, not a degree. Go go Canadian post-secondary system!

It can work. Friend of mine studied Archaeology, ended up going to Korea to teach English. Now has a Korean wife and works for ESL school that sends him to Korea a couple times per year for recruitment projects.

Good Korea or Bad Korea?

Don't worry, before too long they'll rename all the colleges as universities, re-title the diplomas as degrees, and change the name of the examining body and then people will ask you in the interviews what your archaic diploma is since they've 'never heard of' (forgotten about) that examining body, polytechnic, diploma, etc.  :geezer:

You often don't need to know any of the local language to start with either--folks I know who've done this tell me the teachers are generally expected to only speak English with the students.   

I'm taking German classes at the moment from a teacher who doesn't speak a word of English.

Ich heisse Iain apparently.

/grumbles about making a long post on the ESL industry two pages ago   :geezer:

If it makes you feel any better, whenever I consider it I think of you. I know you've done a fair bit of it. If I could get into Japan teaching English, I would be :drill:

Until you find out everyone in the area of Germany you visit pronounces it "ee haess Iain" or something, depending on the local dialect. Ich heisse Iain is saying it like "the rain in spain falls mainly on the plain". Fortunately the more beer you drink, the more natural "ee haess Iain" becomes. And then you fall for the hot Aussie girl you're travelling with and write poems to her and that new Rick Astley hit "Never Gonna Give You Up" is playing from all the discos on the Kurfurstendamm ... oops for a moment there I was 17 again. Prost!

Happened to you too, huh? In my case it was a petite spanish brunette and the music was U2's. Other than that, yep, Kurfurstendamm and yep, bad poetry.

No need to be redundant.

Then do it. Apply. Go. Get out of here. Run for the chopper!

Careful, English teaching gigs aren't all hookers and blow like they are making it out to be.  You can land a job at some really shitty company/places if your not careful.  If you did go this route, do your research.

Plus, you know, you might not want to end up as a total stereotype  :awesome_for_real:

Some advice I got for my resume is that when making claims like "Strong organizational and analytical skills" you include some reference to what you got them from. So you might say "Strong organizational skills from 3 years experience as EB manager" or "Strong analytical skills from 3 years of university studies in economics" or the like. Just substantiate your claims in general, it makes them sound less empty.

For university I wouldn't include the specifics of courses/subjects you took unless it relates to the job you're applying for, and even then it would probably be something better mentioned in the cover letter. Also I'm not sure you have to include the study period, just the date you received the qualification. I'd probably write yours like:

Education

2009 Diploma of Business Administration (Human Resources)
Sheridan College

I wouldn't use the words "work experience" for employment. Work experience, at least here, is something different and would include the three weeks you spent at company x over the holidays getting a look at the career you were interested in. A job is a job. I've also been told to talk about your jobs with regard to duties and achievements and in doing so to use active and specific language. I think you tend to use a lot of general words and some passive language (some notes below re this). I'd rewrite this part like:

Employment / Employment History

Assistant Manager, EB Games, 2004–2006

Duties and Responsibilities

Assisting customers in merchandise selection; fielding inquiries and complaints
Performing payroll functions on a regular basis (what regular basis? be more specific or don't mention it)
Providing excellent customer service to successfully drive sales and encourage repeat customers / To engage customers in a prompt and friendly manner to encouraging sale and repeated business (this is kind of doubled, reduce to one point)
Conducting weekly inventory counts to prevent shrink (shrink? not sure what this means, will they?)
Participating in bi-weekly marketing development meetings (participating is a passive word, use a more active ones like 'contributing')

Achievements

(Here include anything notable you can think of like weekly sales records you might have been involved with, marketing ideas you had that were particular successful. Best is if you can substantiate them with specific details.)

As for your professional development section... I'm not sure what this section is meant to indicate. Is it stuff you've participated in that you think relates to your application? Maybe this section would be better as 'Memberships', with the lecture series mentioned in your 'education' or another category. Not sure exactly.

This might well be information that people care about but you can direct why they should care about it in your use of headings a bit more. And trim it down a lot, it takes up half a page and is surely doesn't need to be more prominent than your education and employment history.

I would take your volunteer experience and put it right after your employment history.

As for references i wouldn't include it, or would put 'References available on request'.

Hope my observations are useful in some way.

In Canada to maintain your Human Resources certification you have to attend seminar, speakers..etc. It shows that I'm willing to do those things without actually having my certification and every HR department in this country knows full well what that means.

As for the rest, I agree with most of it, though some stuff was taken out already and the references were left there for printing, not actually attachment. They're in a separate document now anyway.

 I actually moved from a small town where I went to college , back to NYC where I am originally from thinking jobs would be better, then the recession hit just about the time I moved back lol.  It took a while to find work but eventually I found work with a marketing company that I enjoy, the best move I think is staying focused on the goal, even in this recession it's doable.  Use craigslist in my opinion as well.

(bonus: the marketing company I work for has a campaign for WoW going on which is something i am big in to.  So good luck can happen even in these rough times.)

The best thing about the recession is that the FCC also turned off analog TV so my brother keeps calling me.