Re: Got resume advice? Long but terribly important (to me anyway)!

[kcronin -at- daleen -dot- com]

For the kind of gig you're looking for, your resume is WAYYYYYYY too long.
And if you're posting it online with that lengthy list of Skills, you're
going to keep getting hits you're not interested in.

My suggestion: 

Edit your resume for each opportunity. If they want MS Office and Frame,
list them, but don't list the OTHER 57 skills you have that may not apply.
For each opportunity, only list the qualifications that they said they
want, not everything you've ever done.

Only list 3 or 4 of your previous jobs, picking the ones most pertinent to
the one you're targeting.

Get that resume down to ONE page. Lose the photo. 

If you want a lower-on-the-food-chain gig (and I hasten to add there is
NOTHING wrong with that!), then you need to send the "lite" version of
your resume, or you'll just get discarded as "over qualified."

In this tight market, many people are seeking a job - ANY job - so the
fact that you might be interested in something ostensibly "beneath" your
skillset is NOT unusual at the moment. So don't make a big deal out of it.

Do NOT communicate potentially negative information about yourself,
letting people know you want a less challenging job, that you want to step
back from the front lines; things that might lower their opinion of you.
Without TALKING about it, simply apply for jobs that meet those
qualifications. They don't need to know everything about you, just that
you're available, and that your skills suit their needs. Too much
information can be a bad thing, so just show them the marketable side of
you.

You claim to have no clue how to do this, but the information is out
there. There are tons of posts in the archives about cover letters and
resumes. I recommend Martin Yate's book "Knock 'Em Dead" for great advice
on both.

Good luck. And remember, these are just job opportunities, not an episode
of This Is Your Life. Tell them the truth, but only tell them what they
need to know.

The length of your resume suggests that you're not accustomed to doing
that, but you need to learn to edit yourself, treating information about
yourself as something to be provided on a "need to know" basis.


-Keith Cronin
____________________

I want to get a job writing sig lines. Nothing else. 
Anybody got any leads?


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  Your monthly sponsorship message here reaches more than
  5000 technical writers, providing 2,500,000+ monthly impressions.
  Contact Eric (ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com) for details and availability.

Buy RoboHelp Deluxe starting at only $798: you'll get RoboDemo, the hot new
software demonstration tool that's taking the Help authoring world by storm,
together with RoboHelp Office. Learn more at http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.