Week 6 Blog Question
What were
some of the struggles you faced when drafting your resume?
April 20: Interviewing, Part II-- PLEASE ANSWER AFTER MICHELLE'S MODULE
Now that we've discussed interviewing once, let's do it again WITH Michelle's take. Of Michelle's top 10 tips for successful interviews (available here ), which tips stuck out to you? I found myself resonating with #1. Being able to reflect on ourselves in addition to the organization helps us better recognize what we can offer to the organization. By taking a step back, I found myself better able to envision that future. Also, the STAR method (Tip #7) was pretty great, and it helped me conceptualize how to consider offering an answer with that method in mind. Next, give Big Interview a try (as noted on our assignment portal). You'll have to create an account, which took me all of 15 seconds. Once you're on, you'll note that there's a lot to explore there. I'd recommend at leave clicking on "Practice" and trying a few " General mock interview " questions. It's pretty cool because you have a human asking you the q...
When originally drafting my resume, I faced the challenge of deciding what was key and crucial to put on the resume in regards to achievements, activities, and honors. There are only so many things that should be put on a resume. Especially when you are applying for a particular job, you want to be able to showcase the best achievements and honors that best show that the job that you are looking at is a good fit for you.
ReplyDeleteI personally have had to make changes to the activities, achievements, and honors section on multiple occasions, it was never easy to figure out what would impress the employers the most.
Another challenge that I have faced when drafting my resume is correct format. Time and again things change, and the format is a crucial part to making sure the resume that put out there is a good one and looks professional as well. I can remember having to format a resume by myself when I first was beginning to put together my first resume, it was not fun nor easy. At that time Microsoft word was not much help in drafting my resume, there were times where it looked unbalanced and not pleasing to the eye. However, I will say that it did get me through when looking for a part-time job. I now have a resume that was built with the help of a resume builder online, and now my resume is balanced and pleasing to the eye in a correct and professional format.
I have trouble deciding what to include. Some of opportunities I have had over the past few years are relevant to the jobs I will be searching for soon, but they take up the majority of my resume and only date back to Fall 2018. The most significant job I had before then was from May 2016-June 2019 which would show that I tend to stay at jobs for a long time. However, this was a retail job which doesn’t relate much to the current jobs I’m looking at. I decided to include it, but I still don’t know how helpful it is or at what point I should stop including it. I also found difficulty deciding on the wording. Some of the experiences have similar job duties and I find myself constantly having to find words that aren’t repetitive, but still describe the function of my job duty.
ReplyDeleteAlso, oddly enough, another big struggle I had while drafting my resume was the formatting. I have been using the same format for the past few years then I’ll update it as needed. However, every time I update it, the text shifts other elements and it’s time consuming to try and maintain what I’ve added while still keeping the elements in place. Aside from this issue, there is a lot of white space and I run into issues with the elements shifting again when I try to adjust the format.. This time around, I was able to troubleshoot it, and have it mostly taken care of, but I’ll have to switch to a new format soon.
I think the biggest struggle for me wasn't necessarily figuring out what to include, like some other people have mentioned, but figuring out how to make what I did include relevant to my talents. I decided to pick out two or three things from each job that were most integral to that job to include, but even then, they weren't necessarily the right things to include. My dad really helped me spiff up my resume over winter break, and we went through and talked about which aspect of which job was most important. That led me to reorganizing the order in which I described each aspect of the job, putting the most important one on top and leaving the more general things at the bottom.
ReplyDeleteAnother struggle of sorts I've been having lately has been a debate on removing the "involvement" section of my resume for something more along the lines of "skills". Involvement is great for a summer job when you know you're going to be home, but now that I'm having to look for more "real-world" opportunities, I'm finding that it doesn't seem to matter to me whether or not people know that I was in X club in college or not. I've tentatively made the switch for now, so I could include things such as the Microsoft Office Specialist Certification I got in high school and the experience I will have gained through my editing and publications management class at the end of the semester.
I already have a draft of my resume from applying both to my summer job and to this internship, but as I’m reviewing it I’ve been struggling with adding new information. I want to update my work experience along with the additional skills and accomplishments I’m gaining from my internship, and I’m running out of room. I think I will have to decide to cut some of my older work experience and replace it with my newer experience, especially the accomplishments that coincide with applying to jobs in the editing and writing field. I also want to include my extracurricular experiences like BMB because it was a big time commitment and responsibility during my time at the university. This year I had a student leadership position in the band, too, and I want to list that to talk about some of my communication, teamwork, and leadership skills. Depending on what job I’m applying for, I sometimes have a Relevant Coursework section, but when I applied at the bank I now work at, I didn’t think this part was as important as my previous customer service experience. Now that I want to look into editing and publishing jobs, I want to include this section again, especially to highlight my 400-level writing courses and the copyediting class I’m taking. Another challenge with this is that I haven’t completed these courses yet, so at this point I can only talk about what we’ve already done in the class and what the syllabus claims that we will do by the end of the semester. I’m sure once we get farther into these classes, I will have more accomplishment points to add to my resume, but for this draft, I’m not sure all what to include.
ReplyDeleteI've had a resume for such a long time, but I did run into trouble when figuring out what to say about my internship (WEAU-13 News). Journalism and reporting are a completely different field for me, a field I never thought I would have any experience in. I did a little research online to see what other reporters did for their news station. I also talked to some of the reporters at WEAU-13 to see what they included in their resume. I also struggle with perfectionism. I am obsessed with editing and revising my resume because I believe anything can always be improved. I did run through my current resume again and I did change some verbs and adjectives. I think another problem is knowing what to include based on what opportunity you are seeking out. For example, if I'm applying to a journalism job, I'll probably want to direct my potential employer to my articles online. If I'm applying to a creative writing job, I'll want to list out all of my published pieces and relevant coursework and scholarships. As I continue to take advantage of more opportunities, it is sometimes hard to delete specific descriptions. For example, right now my current job at Target takes up a big portion of the page. I'm sure that will change into a more generic description once I get a new job because Target will not be as relevant anymore. Finally, I volunteer a lot, but I obviously cannot include everything. Employers like one page resumes because they are easy and quick to read. I always have to remind myself that I can always expand upon my volunteering (and anything else) on my resume. The purpose of the resume is to SUMMARIZE not detail, every relevant aspect of your life that would be relevant to the job/internship you are looking for.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest struggle when drafting my resume was making it sound good. When I’m talking with someone in a professional sense, I tend to want to talk in the shortest way I can, and I carry that over to my resume. I don’t make my old jobs sound good, I just say what they are – lifeguard, babysitter, ect. – because I don’t want to play up myself too much.
ReplyDeleteI realized this was wrong back in high school, after a unit in a course where we had to create a resume and present it to the class. We could make things up on it, it was just to give us an idea of how resumes work and how to write them. I struggled with it.
Like many others said in this thread too, I struggle with the order of the things I put on my resume, and more importantly what’s important enough to put on my resume and what can stay off. To me, everything I do is important on some aspect. So I tend to cram what I can on there, and hope for the best. I’ve had a lot of different experiences in my life, so choosing what is best for a certain job can still be pretty complicated.
One thing I never thought to include was my talents. I never saw them as something important to a job. I like to write, but that’s a hobby. In my mind, resumes are only professional things you’ve done, and maybe a club or two if you can get it.
I realize a lot of what I have grown up thinking about resumes is pretty backwards, or more from the point of view of someone who’s in the business field, as most of my family is. But I’m learning more and more about things like this and others on a daily basis. Maybe I can add that to my resume.
Each time I revise my resumé, I find myself struggling most with deciding what to keep and what to toss. As my experiences evolve and I have more to add to my resumé, it gets tougher to discern what’s really worth saving. I also find that I don’t really feel confident about what should stay for different positions, or even what sections/headings are most essential. I find myself wondering if I should include coursework, or just stick to professional experience, campus involvement, etc. On a somewhat related note, I’m not entirely sure how my experiences in France fit in. I feel like they’re valuable and they do represent one of my majors, but I’m not sure if my current way of incorporating them in my resumé is really the most effective. I met with someone from Career Services before applying for the English internship, which was very reassuring and helpful for shaping my resumé, but I’d love to feel even more solid as I head into applications for this summer. Finally, I sometimes end up spending quite a while on formatting. Sometimes the spacing and alignment is very finicky and I end up spending more time than I’d like to just on those details.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest struggle with drafting a resume initially was honestly the format. I was not sure how to make it look professional and include all of the necessary aspects. And unfortunately, I did not know that you were not supposed to use a format, so I made that mistake for years. I want employer to be impressed with my resume, so I want it to look perfect. When I was an Education major, we had someone from career services come in and show us how to create a proper resume and this was super helpful. And the format is all available online so that helps a lot.
ReplyDeleteI also struggle with deciding what to put on my resume and what is fine left out. Because I’ve had multiple jobs, I wasn’t sure which ones to include and which not to include. And along with jobs, I always struggle with describing the things I do at my job. Because
I want them to be specific enough but also somewhat broad so they can demonstrate that I have gained transferable skills from my jobs. I still think there may be a few things that I could make better so I usually update it often.
Something I struggle with in regards to resume creation is, like many others have said, deciding what experiences are important enough to include over others. Along those lines, it's also hard to know how much information to include about each job or experience.
ReplyDeleteIn the past, I've also struggled to make relevant connections between the experiences I list and the position I'm applying for; there's not always an immediately obvious connection between being an editor and being a daycare worker. It's a good way to exercise my creativity, but still.
Probably the biggest struggle, however, is keeping on top of my resume to make sure it's updated to its most current and accurate form. It's also tricky because I usually submit a resume specifically tailored to the position for which I'm applying, so I don't really have any one single resume.
The final struggle I have with my resume is one of organization; not with the resume itself, but just that I keep forgetting where I have it saved, and then I have to start over from scratch when I apply for a job.
While the concept of a resume appears to be rather straight forward, I find it really hard to narrow down the resume to be specific for what I want to do. I struggled with cutting down what I worked on for my life and bringing down to the essentials. I found it helpful to go in to get feedback from the resume review advisers. Another great tool was to find "power" verbs. Learning how to phrase things I have worked on in an RA role and turn it into applicable skills for an English position was difficult but a great place to start was looking into these verbs. Another struggle I have is remembering to update my resume and ensure that I have written down all the relevant activities I have participated in. I have done a lot of random things from volunteering to help with RA selection committee to hosting housing conferences that I just think of as fun extra things to do. Remembering to include these extra activities is a struggle for me. Along that vein when I do forget to put them on my resume right away, I tend to leave things out because I forget all the things I've done.
ReplyDeleteI think that the hardest part about drafting a resume for general purposes is selecting skills I've learned that are broadly applicable--for the most part, I've worked service-oriented jobs which are not necessarily considered proper "professional experience" at face value, but I think it's a good exercise in reflecting on what I've learned and gathered from previous and current jobs. I think drafting a resume becomes less challenging when it's tailored towards a specific application or towards a specific company and position. That makes it easier to select your relevant skills and experience.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I didn't include all of my past jobs on my resume. I thought it was experience to limit myself to the "relevant experience" format and be sure to include only relevant information and remove fluff that makes the resume bulkier than it should be. I think my resume needs a lot of fine-tuning, though, because I haven't had a lot of experience in drafting resumes outside of the few job searches I've had to do in the past.
I think my biggest struggle with drafting my resume was determining what credentials to add and what should be cut out. It's hard to find that happy medium between putting your autobiography on your resume versus being too bare boned to be a contender for a job. I also didn't expect the organizing of the resume to be so challenging. Before applying for my current internship, I made sure to go into career services and were I received some great advice. She helped me figure out placement of information, what headers to use in each section, and what experiences would best be applicable on my resume. A key piece of advice the adviser told me was to try to condense my resume to one page (or get as close as I could). Once I started writing my resume, this became the hardest part. For future editing of my resume I would like to know what can/should still be cut and how I can further finesse my resume to appeal to employers.
ReplyDeleteMy first resume I drafted in 2015 and have honestly just been adding to it since. It's a big ugly Word document. It needed to be cleaned up and BADLY.
ReplyDeleteThe greatest challenge was to decide what is relevant. I have a weird and somewhat extensive employment history in a variety of areas. I've held one job before with the word 'Manager' in it so that's a no-brainer. I don't know how being a barista, carpenter and bicycle mechanic really equate to working in a research and development office. I suppose measuring things is important in my current role at my internship, but measuring isn't hard, either.
High school was five years ago for me, and I've honestly forgotten most of what I even did when I was there. So is like, Jazz Ensemble relevant? Probably not. Maybe the person interviewing me will find that interesting.
I wanted to keep it to one page. Short and sweet. I want to impress by being direct. I pride myself on being efficient with words (up to the reader, of course) and this should be reflected in my resume.