You Majored in What? (29 page)

WHAT I DID:

• Kept the office running smoothly so that the attorneys could do their work

• Opened the office at 9:00 in the morning and closed it at 5:00

• Answered phones—clients, other lawyers, judges, professionals from banks, expert witnesses

• Welcomed visitors politely and offered coffee,
etc.

• Maintained visitor and call log for legal records and billing purposes

• Created and mailed bills—organized better billing system using Excel

• Had to cope with changing needs, last-minute deadlines, emergencies, etc., on a regular basis: flexible mindset

• Dressed professionally every day—first impression for law firm

• Learned to write basic legal documents

• Prioritized workload because all attorneys wanted their stuff first. Used strategic mindset and team mindset.

• Delivered documents to clients or to courthouse—needed to be punctual—five minutes too late and a deadline might be missed—pressure

• Assisted one attorney with a sales presentation at a bank by creating a PowerPoint presentation

• Trained replacement when I left

• Dealt regularly with sensitive and confidential information

• Did a lot of stuff at once because some days I was the only assistant for all the attorneys—had to manage time and multitask. Flexible mindset

• Converted documents to PDF format and emailed them

• Learned legal guidelines for maintaining and/or shredding files

• Used my Spanish skills to assist with case involving a Mexican restaurant

Depending on the job he’s applying for, Justin has a basic list of his experiences to pick and choose from. For instance, if he were to apply for a job requiring a high level of security or integrity (such as the CIA or FBI), he might select the entries that focus on his work with confidential information and dealing with pressure and deadlines. If he’s applying for a management position, he might focus on the independent projects he worked on, training his replacement, and his Excel and multitasking skills.

Now it’s your turn. Go ahead and fill out as many sheets as you can with your experiences. Doing these sheets now will save you tons of time when you’re writing your targeted résumés. Don’t forget to do a sheet for all your school activities or groups, volunteer experiences, or even classes that required work above and beyond traditional note taking and test taking. Some sheets may only have two or three entries, and that’s OK. The point is to get as much down on the paper now so you don’t forget it later when you’re quickly writing your targeted résumé to meet a deadline. Write quickly, write casually, and don’t censor yourself.

STEP 3: WRITE THE HEADING SECTION OF YOUR RÉSUMÉ

This step is rather simple, although mistakes can be made. You should include your name, address (current and/or home address), a phone number where you can be reached, and your e-mail address. You can bold your name, but don’t make it more than one font size larger than the text in your résumé (that is, if your résumé is in Times New Roman 12, your name shouldn’t be larger than 14). Do not use creative fonts for your name; stick with the same or a similar font you use in your résumé. Some preformatted résumés use different styles for the heading with special fonts, underlining, and so on. As long as it looks professional, you can use the style you prefer.

Here’s one way Justin could write his heading:

Justin Matthews
123 Maple Street
Smalltown, MD 55555
e-mail: jmmd
Cell phone: 301-555-5555

Remember the discussion about being sensitive to new cultures in Chapter 7? Your phone and e-mail habits can label you as stuck in the student culture if you’re not careful. Be sure your e-mail address is professional sounding. Create a new e-mail account for your job search and keep “lilsuzieq@” or “buysthebeer@” for your friends. If you give employers your phone number, they might actually call you, so make sure you answer your phone professionally and create a professional voice mail. Turn your phone off (or scrupulously read the caller ID before answering) at parties or other events where you might not present your best self.

STEP 4: WRITE THE JOB OBJECTIVE AND/OR STRENGTHS SECTION

Employers are mixed in their reactions to this aspect—some insist on a job objective; others don’t care. But they all agree that a bad job objective (fluffy, poorly written, or not appropriate for their organization) will greatly hurt your chances, so tread lightly here. Remember you will likely be creating several résumés, so you can use a different job objective on each one.

Do you have a specific job or career field in mind and are you sending it to organizations that hire for that position? Then go ahead and state it:

• Technical writer

• Research analyst

• Market researcher

If you have some ideas, but aren’t completely sure, try considering the following:

• What activities would you like to perform (writing, editing, teaching, managing, and so on)?

• In what setting would you like to work (outdoors, education, insurance, banking, nonprofit, and so on)?

• What kinds of people, data, or things (children, the elderly, money, stocks, computers, statistics, laboratory equipment, electronic equipment, and so on) interest you?

• How does the position mesh with future career plans?

Pull it all together, as in

• Management training position in retailing leading to a career as a buyer

• Secondary-level history teacher and soccer coach in private-school setting

• Marketing or grant-writing position for nonprofit organization

Instead of a job objective, you might find it more effective to have a strengths section. A strengths section can help pull together a varied background and focus the employer’s attention on your most important accomplishments. This section should list your top three or four strengths in a bulleted format. Remember to tailor your strengths to fit what the employer is seeking and show concrete accomplishments, not fluffy boasting. Here is an example:

• Extensive experience with PC and Mac operating systems; software knowledge includes Microsoft XP, SPSSX statistical software, and Adobe Creative Suite

• Bilingual Spanish/English

• More than three years’ experience in customer service occupations

Notice the lack of fluff—no “hardworker who will bring a team spirit to your workplace.” The skills should be tangible and relevant to the employer.

Justin is considering three Possible Lives after graduation: working in a law firm for a few years and then going to law school; working in a bank; starting in a customer service capacity; and/or working in the sports/recreation field—he’s not sure exactly where or how. Because the three industries he’s selected are different, Justin will need to create three résumés, targeting each to the specific industry. As you read through the next stages of creating the résumé, note how the different sections of Justin’s résumé change depending on his focus.

STEP 5: WRITE THE EDUCATION SECTION

Most résumés of college students and recent graduates should list the education section before the experience section, because that is the primary feature they are selling to an employer. In addition to listing your school, graduation date, and major(s), you can add other information as appropriate. Consider if any of the following education-related elements are relevant to your future employment. You can expand or contract the information based again on relevance to the employer.

• Special courses beyond your major

• Skills, knowledge, or training you acquired in classes

• Projects you worked on

• Presentations you gave

• Research you conducted: What type of research? What instruments or methods did you use? Was it published? Did you assist a professor with research that will be published?

• Papers you wrote

• Honors you received

• Study-abroad experiences

Justin studied abroad in Mexico. He thinks his experiences aren’t particularly relevant to the recreation/sports field, so he’s going to keep his entry short, as in:

Study abroad, Guadalajara, Mexico (August 2007-June 2008). Immersion program.

On the other hand, for the banking and legal positions, his knowledge of Spanish and his ability to work in a different cultural environment might be more relevant, so he will expand his entry as follows:

Study abroad, Guadalajara, Mexico (August 2007-June 2008). Immersion program. Intensive study of Mexican culture, history, language, and international politics. Resided with Mexican family. Courses taught entirely in Spanish. Taught English to children of Mexican family.

If you have completed an internship, you can list that in the experience section. If you have not started the internship yet, but plan to do one soon and would like to include it in your résumé because it is relevant, you can put it in the education section and call it “anticipated internship,” indicating the anticipated dates when you will complete it and what your duties will be.

STEP 6: WRITE THE EXPERIENCE SECTION(S)

The experience section is usually the most time-consuming part of the résumé, but it won’t be for you because you have already listed the important aspects of your experiences back in Step 2. Start creating your experience section by reviewing those lists you created. Wherever possible, focus on the
outcome
of your actions, not just what you did.

As you look over your experiences, you need to make a key decision—in general, which is more appealing, your job titles or the places where you’ve acquired your experience? If you have job titles like manager, vice president, legal assistant, and so forth, then you will probably want to lead with your titles. On the other hand, if your titles are clerk, intern, or waitress, you will probably want to lead with the names of the organizations.

Now that you’ve made that decision you can start listing in reverse chronological order each of the experiences you described on your pages. For the moment, you only need to include the names of the organizations and their locations, your title, and the dates you worked for them.

Justin has a total of six significant experiences between his summer jobs, internship, and college activities. As he looked over the list, he determined that the places he worked were more impressive than the titles he held, so he decided to list his experiences with the organization first. This listing (with all entries described, of course) would be fine for a generic résumé with no particular focus.

As you look at your list, are there any patterns to your experiences that would interest the employer? For instance, are you seeking a nonprofit job and have several jobs or experiences where you worked for particular causes or with a particular population? Perhaps you are seeking a position that requires creativity, and several of your experiences had elements of creativity to them. If you have two or more experiences that can be combined in a manner relevant to an employer, consider doing that and labeling them concretely. Cut and paste your list to sort it according to the categories. Now, instead of a generic experience section that would simply list all your experiences in reverse chronological order, you might choose to have a Nonprofit/ Community Service section if that applies to the position you’re seeking. Or a Creative/Communications section, and so on.

By dividing your experiences into these specially labeled categories, you are making them pop from the page so the recruiter will see them. Some students use Relevant Experience as their lead experience category, but it begs the obvious question: relevant to what or to whom? It’s better to identify why you’re placing certain experiences above others with a term that specifically describes it. You can then create a second experience section to include the other experiences that didn’t fit under your initial category. If these experiences fit a category as well, use that word. If not, you can call it Additional Experience.