The resume reading was very helpful in providing me insights on how to build a good resume and how to impress your potential employer through your resume. The Reading stresses that a resume should look good to the reader at first glance or it might not the read and it might even be thrown out. It also talks about the importance of a cover letter. These tips are very helpful when building a resume.
When I read the article Build the Resume Employers Want I received a good insight into what employers are looking for in a resume. Since the employer can receive up to hundreds of resumes for one single job, I have to try to make mine stand out and be more distinctive then the rest. The article starts by breaking down the resume into a couple of sections that will help me better organize my information and what I want to write. First, I learned that importance of an objective that is clear, to the point, but specific at the same time.
I found the article about the skeptical resume reader was very interesting. I know that resumes are very important when finding a job or future career. You must impress that person with just one piece of paper. This skeptic, however, really makes you think about what you are about to put on your resume, so much so that a person might reconsider what they have on their own resume already. What I found most interesting was his opinion on the objective. The objective is supposed to say a lot in just a couple of sentences and this guy breaks it down so much with negatives.
I found this weeks readings to be very helpful. The most insightful of the readings were the sames provided by the different websites, that helped me improve upon my current resume. The overall part of the reading was the cover letter. I had know idea the cover letter could be so helpfula and very important. This week's readings were overall very useful and I enjoyed them.
I found the information from the book about writing resumes very helpful. I used a lot of the tips in writing my own resume, including which way to write my name and address block, which sections of information to include and how much information to include in each section. I also found the link to the Virginia Tech Career Services Resume Formats and Samples very helpful. The samples made it easier to write my resume because I could see how different formats would look before I tried them.
This week we read a lot about tailoring resumes to different job applications and how to make you resume as professional as possible. Something though that I have begun to notice in reading all of these articles is that some of the writers have differing and occasionally contradicting opinions. Every writer and every company has its own opinion of what is necessary in a resume, what they would like you to highlight the most, or where they would like you to place various information.
I walked away from reading the “Rhetoric of the Job Application Letter” with much more knowledge and information about cover letters than I started with. These readings were somewhat dry, because there was not much room for the author to provide humor or any type of distraction to the material. It was purely informative, but the information was rich and very useful. It just took a while to get through all of the cover letter advice.
I knew resumes were an important part of getting a job. However, after this week's readings I know now just how important they are. These readings have provided me with some great tips that I know will help make my resume perfect. Build the Resume Employers Want really showed me just what I needed to include in my resume and how to do it. This reading really gets the point across of what is necessary in a resume. I am glad we had all these readings for this week because they have all informed me of how I need to create my resume.
This past week has given me a lot of useful information for updating and improving my resume. I did not have a resume till last semester when I was in MGMT 301 and the information I received this week will help me tweak that resume to make it the job getting resume I need it to be. I especially enjoy reviewing the 36 resumes and picking out what I felt were the top 5 out of the group. This seemed very helpful to me because the 5 that I picked out were very similar to the ones almost everyone picked out. This showed me how quickly a person will look at your resume.
I've always known resumes have been a big part in getting a job, but I never knew how much emphasis there is on how it is set up. After reading the article "Build the Resume Employers Want" I think I need to rearrange my resume. I always thought because of my field work experience I would always get a job. I have seen and done a lot in construction for only being 22 years old. But there first thing the recruiters said they looked at is education. I think I need to put more stress on my education than my work experience.