The situation at the SDMB has gone beyond fucked up

[guinastasia]

Well, TubaDiva really fucked things up this time. I honestly can't see how they're going to spin this one away. Too many excuses, too much is at stake here. If she doesn't step down, or at the very LEAST admit she fucked up, I'm gonna be royally pissed. It's not like this is the first time the privacy of a Doper has been violated by an admin,

Comments

[katelyn_rose]

I find journals by random searches and have been reading yours for a while. Hope you don't mind a post. Especially advice. This is general, and I hope ot helps.

First, ignore the websites that don't know shit from piss. Put forth your most outstanding piece of info first, be it a top-notch school if your work experience is crap or your work history if your school wasn't so great or you passed. A boss scans a resume just a few seconds before deciding to keep reading or to toss it. I've read many, so this comes from the view of the one who reads them.

Second, don't put just the skills you can do. Anyone can type 40rpm. Instead spend the space mentioning what you brough to the company, how you helped solve a problem. Even if your experience is "meaningless" as you think your retail is, spin it to sound as if you area top-notch sales person who never left a customer in need, but who always found a way to satify them, which shows that you have excellent customer service skills instead of just saying "excellent customer service skills."

Third, absolutely make sure you double-check spelling and contact info. I had a resume once that sounded wonderful. At least until I tried the phone number listed. It was wrong. Yes, there was an e-mail, but I didn't try it. Why? Because if the woman overlooked her phone number, how was I to know what other details she overlooks?

Fourth, keep it short and consice unless your skills are all so extremely important that to leave something out would be detrimental. Two pages is the typical max, though one is better for most. No smaller than 11 font.

Fifth, use a nicer paper, maybe something softly colored or textured to make it stand out. That always says that the small things matter to you.

Last, make sure you like the look of your resume. If you like it and it looks professional, who cares if you use bullets or dashes to mark points?

A tip I shouldn't say but will. If you need to, make up references and list the cell phone numbers or home numbers of willing friends and family who will pretend to have been past employers, and make sure their voice mails sound professional or are automated. Occassionally an employer will figure it out, but most of the times, for most positions, they never check.

Perhaps most important, after an interview, immediately drop a thank-you letter in the mail to the person you interviewed with thanking him or her for his or her time. Have this prepared and stamped ahead of time, but don't mail until right after. It would look funny for them to receive a letter of thanks if the interview was rescheduled last minute because they couldn't be there. At the nearest post office would be quickest for arrival, otherwise the nearest blue drop box to one. You would be amazed at the brownie points this scored with prospective employers. Wow, real old-fashioned courtesy and respect!

[xratedouroboros]

Fifth, caveat: Make sure your resume-on-pretty-paper is still readable after it has been run through a scanner, fax machine, and/or copy machine. It won't do you any good to have beautiful simulated aged parchment if it's just going to be xeroxed and passed out to five HR managers. Four people will get copies on the same cheap copy paper as everyone elses, only yours will have a bunch of weird artifacts from the paper you used.

If you're going to spring for expensive paper, get the environmentally-unfriendly, please-sir-may-I-have-more-dioxin, bleached-until-it's-blindingly-white kind. It will still stand out on a background of normal cheap white/grey office paper, but won't be quite so obvious that you did it on purpose.