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Did you drink 5 things of caffeine again? Also, it might not be a good idea to share so willingly your personal info.
Posts: 3060 | Registered: Nov 2003
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Remove the objective - it's completely unnecessary, and practically all employers acknowledge this.
Include phone numbers for all of your previous employers. You'll want to be more specific about what you did there beyond "general duties," and more specific about date ranges when you worked there (month/year to month/year). References are also a good idea.
This may be because the document's presented in HTML rather than in your word processor, but you have a bunch of formatting errors, e.g. a missing line break.
Don't say "experience with..." Be more specific about your level of expertise. "Experience with Microsoft Office" can mean anything from "I know how to open a document" to "I have eight years of experience creating business-level documents in a professional capacity."
Because your job history has nothing to do with technology, it'd be a good idea to list relevant coursework you've completed, along with your grades. It's an even better idea to detail any projects you completed/contributed to.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Damn. Once again erosomniac offers pertinent and highly useful advice that is far beyond what you might expect.
Posts: 3060 | Registered: Nov 2003
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You'll also want to get your OWN domain, instead of linking to a class project site. I know I would never personally hire a techie who was so uninterested in having his own space that his site was a subfolder.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: You'll also want to get your OWN domain, instead of linking to a class project site. I know I would never personally hire a techie who was so uninterested in having his own space that his site was a subfolder.
You would seriously look at an application from a student and decline it based on their site being hosted on their school's free space?
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I setup my own domain, as well as the web server, database, and development framework. At the interview for my current job, I referenced this work a couple of times. I think it paid off.
Also, I agree that a 'techie' using a subfolder would rate lower than a techie with their own domain.
Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:You would seriously look at an application from a student and decline it based on their site being hosted on their school's free space?
Well, honestly, with the job market being what it is, I probably wouldn't seriously look at an application from a student. We had an opening for a level 1 tech support position in the paper last month; we got 110 applications.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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How bizarre. It's a prospective's market here, by far.
I also don't think any of the software engineers, QA engineers or support technicians I know--roughly two dozen, most of whom work for Google, Cisco, Amazon or Microsoft--have their own website at all, beyond possibly a blog/myspace/facebook.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Yeah, there's a lot of demand for decent programmers here. We're always having promising people given better offers before or soon after they come work for us.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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If I were you, Blayne, I'd remove the link to my homepage. In fact, I'd host the resume elsewhere so it's not possible to use the url to find your homepage.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Blayne Bradley
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why? I edited out anything political from the FAQ subpage.
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You probably don't want to put things like your blog where potential employers can see it. If you have a page that they'll be looking at, you'll want it to be more professional than personal, I would think. Also, it's not a particularly well-designed webpage, and if you're looking for a CS job, that's not the sort of thing you want employers to see.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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There's no bottom in this market anymore; entry level jobs are disappearing or being transferred to consultants and retail.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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The small company I work for did some work for a guy was doing some sort of techie-for-hire type thing. I dunno if he did installed networks or fixed hardware or what. The odd thing was that this guy needed extensive instruction on how to attach a file to an email that he needed to send us. Based on our observations, I would not recommend him doing any work for us. (not that it was considered, or is likely to be)
I guess the point is, downplay any negatives or anything sub-par and accentuate the positives. Frequently it helps to have a third party help in figuring out which is which.
Posts: 369 | Registered: Apr 2007
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If your really going to put your resume on your website, either post it as a pdf, or make the html look decent.
Posts: 1621 | Registered: Oct 2001
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Oh, we don't require any experience, just the ability to think about programming. Our jobs are definitely entry level for programming. Someone who takes the right range of courses in undergrad to give them some real programming chops, combined with a decent analytical mental toolkit, will get hired right up (unfortunately, usually by someone else).
But yeah, if for some reason we were out to hire people who did not have the skills needed for the jobs we need people for, we would have no problem finding applicants .
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Blayne Bradley
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I saved it froom MS Office as an html.
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Explain what landscaping assistant is, were you planning things or just grunt labor? Does Winter of 2007 mean January to March or December?
Posts: 5362 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Shigosei: You probably don't want to put things like your blog where potential employers can see it. If you have a page that they'll be looking at, you'll want it to be more professional than personal, I would think. Also, it's not a particularly well-designed webpage, and if you're looking for a CS job, that's not the sort of thing you want employers to see.
Agreed wholeheartedly. Presenting your resume this way seems tacky. Put it in a PDF and host it online if you must, but don't do this.
Also, as a novice at getting this kind of job, I suggest you use a resume-wizard on Microsoft office just to be sure you cover all the basics of the CV and get it to look decent. Despite popular (and wrong) opinion, it's entirely respectable to hand in a stock format CV. It makes the CVs easier to read for the interviewer. I realize some people think the wizard is for losers, but why do all the extra work? Why not seem efficient and businesslike?
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Also, list your experience in chronological order, unless you have a really good reason for putting an older job first (like that older job matches extremely well with the job you are looking for).
-Bok
EDIT: Also, your school should have an office that can help with job interview/resume tactics and tips. I would listen to them much more than us (especially since there may be quirks in Canadian hiring practices that differ from the largely US response you'll get here).
Posts: 7021 | Registered: Nov 1999
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Blayne Bradley
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I did make the CV using the MS office wizard, there are soem oddities because I c and p'd from another resume my references.
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It's already been said, but you'd be really well served by going into greater detail on your educational background, and greater detail on your skills section.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:SQL is not a language; put it under 'Other skills' or something.
Since he doesn't refer to it as a programming language, it's acceptable.
Blayne, no offense but the resume is rather... well... short. I understand you don't have any tangible experience yet, and are trying to do so, but I don't think it helps to have a resume that consists 90% of the fact that you were a dishwasher at a pizza joint.
The only reference you make to your exposure to IT is through college, so if that's all yo got there's no real reason for a resume to begin with.
Since you are still in your early years, try to list relevant things that might not necessary be jobs. When I was your age and putting together a resume, I mentioned my involvement in school clubs (computer club, astronomy, etc...), my game development experience (yes, even my exposure to "hacking" video games), etc... To this day my resume still have some of the personal game development work I've done, which wasn't for any corporate entity to speak of.
If you're looking for an IT job, saying you went to college for it doesn't mean a lot. IT people look for hands on experience, and you have to show something. Even if it is BS or pseudo-made up, it's still something.
quote:I also don't think any of the software engineers, QA engineers or support technicians I know--roughly two dozen, most of whom work for Google, Cisco, Amazon or Microsoft--have their own website at all, beyond possibly a blog/myspace/facebook.
I've been in the industry for over twenty years and I don't have one. Of course, by now I probably don't *need* one...
When I had to provide a resume, I emailed it as an attachment. I never pointed them to a web page, because that restricts the visibility of it to online. Make it a Word document so that it can respect the pagination and formatting, and your prospective employers can then print it whenever they want (online or not) and it will look the way you want it regardless.
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Blayne, Does your college have an career advice/placement center? I'd highly recommend you taking advantage of it if you can. I think you're going to need more help getting a programming job than people on Hatrack can give you.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Blayne Bradley
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Putting on a webpage makes it more easily accessible for the purposes of hey, I dont have it on me right now... but I DO have it on my nifty webpage...
Also I am taking advantage of my teachers and/or the job helpe rpeople to make my resume but getting input from all availiable and experienced sources is to be advantages.
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I think that if you're in a situation where you should have your resume, you should have your resume. If you're promoting yourself in a random conversation, what makes you think that someone is going to remember that long address without having it written down?
Posts: 3060 | Registered: Nov 2003
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"I don't have a resume on me. Why don't I get your card and I can email it to you once I get home?"
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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The same thing applies. Or, you could pdf it and save it in your email account. That way you could jump on his computer and email it to him or print it out right then.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Blayne Bradley
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Wouldnt it earn points though to cleverly and subtly show him the webpage and display my skills?
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(I endorse the PDF idea. It gives you control of your document's presentation, independent of the platform on which it is viewed. All of the elements are fixed, and PDF is a well-supported format.)
On the rare occasion I've had to email a resume or a similar document, I've forwarded a .doc and a .pdf. Were I in a location that uses open document standards, I might include .odt.
Posts: 433 | Registered: Feb 2005
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