Monday, January 26, 2009

Updating Your Res: Tip #3 - Format, Schmor-mat!

***Warning: there is actually a practical, helpful tip buried in this posting. Find it and reap the benefits!

Countless hours can be spent formatting one's resume.  Hours of indenting, selecting the appropriate font size and type.  Deciding if your name should be 20 or 24 point, bolded, underlined and sprinkled with a light dusting of gold sparkles.

Hold on to those sparkles though, because in our web savvy world you don't need them.  

Most positions can be applied for via the internet.  Websites such as these offer that opportunity:

www.Indeed.com
www.Monster.com
www.CareerBuilder.com
www.JobsYouDon'tReallyWant.com
www.GetAJobYouLoserBitch.com

These sites provide the weary job seeker with a plenitude of job options one is either>
 
a) not qualified for because of being short one year on the "years of experience" section
of the "required qualifications."

or

b) not interested in because the position involves molding yak shit into a renewable source of insulation for a wealthy eccentric's "green" mansion in Albuquerque. 

That said, these internet sites pose another problem for Johnny Resume' Poster: the platforms used will decimate your resume's formatting.

My suggestion is to create a generic copy of your res, sans bells and whistles, and save this res specifically for positions you are applying for online.  A basic Word doc w/o any formatting or a generic text doc should do the trick.

If after posting one is so damned bored/anal they wish to reformat, bolding and indenting to their heart's content, I say GO FOR IT!  Of course, when the HR drone who is sifting through resumes opens it on his/her browser, that formatting will be all kinds of sloppy.

This is fairly commonsensical and I'm sure many already ascribe to this method.  If not, get on the bus. ~P


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