Thursday, January 7, 2010

Writing Resumes, Borrowing Resumes

In the past week, I have had two requests for my resume from sisters who were looking into compiling their own. I think I enjoyed writing resumes some years back and well, a practiced skill becomes a fabulous one, especially when you're job-hopping all over the place right out of graduation. You just have to keep your resume updated to the T. All job-hungry, satisfaction-searching graduates know that, and I was definitely one of them.

Alhamdulillah, nearly four years down the line the job-hopping stopped, but unfortunately, so has my resume writing - and I feel the skills needed in composing the most basic document are also deteriorating quickly.

I just handed over my resumes to the two sisters without much advice as to how to write or even improve theirs. It's a shame and I feel bad. I should find the time to do so, because there is no one single way to represent each and every unique person with different qualifications, skills and interests on a single piece of paper.
Even when I was writing resumes for friends earlier in the decade, I would "change" the voice of the document to represent them. All of them got to the job interview - note, job INTERVIEW and not necessarily the job. Only one of them never did have any potential employers call her back, and that was her fault for taking my original resume and changing the name ONLY. Yeah, you know who you are....

Anyway, luckily there are mountains and valleys worth of templates and free softwares to do the nitty-gritty self-marketing for job-hunters nowadays. So it does make life a lot more easier, though I would still emphasise on the uniqueness of each individual.
I should write another post on resume writing, because it is really interesting, and all this talk about resumes is bringing back teary memories. Hmmm, sort of.

In the end, it really is more than just copying off someone else's employment and education history. I remember a friend who customised one resume per application, just to be safe and to "speak" directly to this potential employer. Me thinks he had OCD. But it certainly worked out well for him.
I too had a few samples that were used for different markets and jobs - it was a cover to ensure that my resume wasn't just a simple piece of paper I was sending out. But one that was well thought-for and one that represented my abilities in that particular field.

Well, much like resumes are "kept-in-view," this post is a self-reminder to elaborate a little more on writing resumes. As it can also turn into writing opportunities for some writers. Job-hopping experience is not necessarily needed.

1 comment:


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