Strong Resume

Over the course of my marriage, I've had the pleasure of helping my wife find work. I don't mean that sarcastically; rather, my wife is very skilled in several fields and I'm very proud of her and more than happy to help her in finding work. That is another discussion: the difficulties she goes through in finding work using her skills. Simply, because she is a she and has other difficulties I'll not discuss, she still finds, despite her skills, a lot of difficulty finding good work in the fields she knows. Even so, she still manages to catch the eye of employers, partly because of the strong resume she offers them.

What is a 'strong resume'? From what I've seen, it's a culmination of several tactics that show a would-be employer exactly what it wants to see in a manner that flatters the career-seeker's own abilities. In this world, you can't afford to be humble and expect to get employers to part with higher wages. Likewise, you can't afford not to have a nice set of skills to show them that relate directly, and sometimes indirectly, to the field you are applying for.

A weak resume is what some would rather refer to as an 'application'. It gives your name, address, a brief account of what you can do, and most 'importantly' (sarcasm intended) it lists your work experience in terms of whom you worked for, from what date to what date, and why you are no longer working for that employer. Such a 'resume' is boring and is a quick turn-off. Another likely weak resume is one where you've puffed yourself up so much that you can scarcely convince an employer you know a tenth of what you say you do.

A strong resume consists of a few parts: start off with your basic information (who you are, where you can be contacted, etc.), lead into a skills overview with a tailored list of what you can do, tell a detailed, yet terse story of your life in terms of how you came to know these things, and end off with a firm statement as to why you think you are qualified for the position(s) you are applying for. After that, you need not be a big talker to get the point across that you are definitely qualified for the job.

CategoryEmployment