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Subject:Re: why I want to Tech Write/Contract Positions From:Jane Credland <jcredland -at- IDMAIL -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 3 Dec 1998 07:29:00 -0800
At 05:08 AM 12/3/98 PST, Linnea Dodson wrote:
>Speaking of little bits of experience, I've been following the "how long
>do you need to stay in a job" thread with some anxiousness. While I was
>in school I picked up any job that might give me experience, but it was
>all freelance, temp, and contract work. So my resume shows several
>years of steady employment, then a sudden patchwork of short-duration
>jobs, several of which overlap timewise. This has already caused
>negative comments from one prospective employer, but what can I do?
>Better to take the short jobs and get the experience than hold out and
>hope longer-term employment could have given me the same chances to
>learn.
I've taken some tech writing jobs on as part-time while employed full time
doing other things. My solution to this problem was to add a heading
titled "Freelance/Contract Work" to my resume and list them all under that.
That way, the prospective employer doesn't even have to wonder why they
were short term. For one, which actually lasted about a week in which I
produced an auction catalogue for a charitable event at the last minute, I
used this deadline as an example of my ability to work under pressure and
tight deadlines.