Re: How do hiring companies view TW resumes?

[Tony Chung <tonyc -at- tonychung -dot- ca>]

[Re: want ad hirings â pure chance]

Richard Nelson Bolles has been saying this for years in his "What
Color is Your Parachute" book series. I've heard it said the resume
isn'# a hiring document, it's an exclusion document.

You don't need specifics on your resume, only specific stories leading
to potential benefits:
- Increased product sales by 30% through the release of preliminary
product documentation
- Reduced support calls by 50% by initiating and moderating a user support forum
- Simplified the creation of developer documentation by writing a
series of boilerplate templates that broke through writers block,
leading to a working prototype more quickly.

These don't speak to specific projects, but we can all attest that we
contribute in a similar fashion.

Then you list your specialty subject areas, and a table of your
toolbaox. State whether the tool is widely used in the field
(Peoplesoft, Oracle, FrameMaker, Word), and either generally
categorize, or provide a brief description of the problm solved by
in-house, proprietary, or indstry specific tools.

At the end of it, state References supplied upon request. You want to
contact references who will most effectively communicate your vale to
the one who interviewed you, based on personality and communication
style.

And while recruiters are great people to speak with, their role is to
get you hired so they get paid. Work your network yourself, and leave
your resume behind you, not before you've had some contact with the
"one eith the power to hire you".

I heartily recommend the 2010 edition of Parachute. I've read a
selection since 1988, and get the sense that Bolles completely
restuctured the content for this edition.

He may even have used DITA.

Cheers,
-Tony

-- 
Tony Chung: Creative Communications
Cell: +1-604-710-5164
Email: tonyc -at- tonychung -dot- ca * Web: http://tonychung.ca
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