Resume 101: A Student and Recent-Grad Guide to Crafting Resumes and Cover Letters that Land Jobs - Softcover

Schultze, Quentin J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1607741946 ISBN 13: 9781607741947

Verlag: Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed, 2012

Inhaltsangabe

Minimal job experience? No problem!
 
You’ve just graduated and are ready to land your first real job after college or high school. But how do you write the first résumé and cover letter of your career if you don’t have any previous jobs to list? How do you stand out above the other applicants--including people with more experience who are out of work--with your summer job at the diner, internship at the local paper, or spot on the Ultimate Frisbee team?
 
Dr. Q to the rescue! For two decades, communication professor Quentin Schultze has been teaching résumé-writing to college students and recent graduates, helping them identify their strengths and transferable skills from their unique life experiences--from extracurriculars to part-time jobs to internships to volunteering. With Résumé 101, you’ll discover the secrets to composing strong, impressive resumes and cover letters, such as:
 
 
What to include when you lack professional experience
 
How to get great references and recommendations
 
Why to use a summary rather than objective statement
 
When to include hobbies, travel, and technology skills
 
What to do if your GPA isn’t sky-high
 
Which designs and basic formats work the best
 
Where to find the perfect verbs and adjectives for a specific job
 
 
With Dr. Q’s help, you’ll soon have a résumé and cover letter that will show hiring managers who you really are, why you’re prefect for your dream job, and why they should choose you.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Quentin J. Schultze, PhD, professor of communication at Calvin College, has written several academic books and more than a hundred articles for general-interest periodicals. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, US News and World Report, and Fortune and interviewed by CNN, NBC, and NPR. He speaks at and consults for businesses, nonprofits, trade associations, and universities. He lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Visit quentinschultze.com and resumes4collegestudents.com.

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Chapter 1: The Naked Truths of Résumé Success

In this chapter, you’ll learn:

The right attitude to begin with 

The right résumé-writing process to follow 
 
I was slurping down watery spaghetti when the news reached college friends and me in the dining hall: An all-campus streak was scheduled for sunset. Dozens of female students would supposedly be dashing across the wide-open university quadrangle in their birthday suits. We quickly finished our Jell-O desserts and dashed from the male dorm to the scene of the unfolding spectacle.
 
But before we could jostle the frantic freshmen out of the best viewing spots, the runners were already sprinting across the grassy field like proud Olympians. Alas, only a couple of females had joined the male streakers’ ranks--in the middle of the pack where they couldn’t be clearly eyeballed.
 
Of course, neither I nor my inhibited friends stripped down to join the passing runners, and within thirty seconds the entire escapade was over. Observers continued shuffling around for fifteen minutes like brooding carrion birds. Then they began wandering to campus watering holes to drown their disappointments. We joined them.
 
As we talked it over, my friends and I realized how gullible we were. All it took was a little gossip to move us to action; within minutes, we had run like a raft of turkeys to the campus quadrangle to gawk at the streakers. We wondered what we had really expected to see or to accomplish by following the other flocks of dorm guys to the much-hyped event. We’d been duped. Worse yet, we realized that we had fooled ourselves into believing something that was not likely to happen as imagined.
 
So it is with résumé writing. Most people fool themselves into believing they can cobble together a decent résumé and proceed to land a job. They imagine the end product--the great job--while failing to consider what they actually need to do to obtain interviews, let alone secure a job or launch a career. The same fantasies affect people in their late twenties through early forties who hope to shift to a better career. 
 
What about the streakers? They had a mission; they had a purpose, however wacky. They courageously sought to undress on campus and to briskly run from point A to point B without getting arrested for public indecency. They had even planned the whole affair secretly so that word wouldn’t spread in advance among authorities, let alone among freshman males like my friends and me. By contrast, we were just fantasy-driven gawkers, mere ­consumers of other people’s carefully planned work. So what?
 
So this: Most career-seeking résumé writers are like the observers at that college streak. They want the fun without the planning. They expect a free ticket to an interview based on little or no résumé-writing preparation. In consequence, they usually get what they deserve: a very disappointing “show.” As the old saying goes, “You get what you pay for.” A raft of turkeys will always be a bunch of birds, at least until they learn how to make something more of themselves. And it won’t do any good for them to fantasize about the great life of being a bald eagle, soaring overhead and grabbing fish right out of the lake. They have to train for the job as well as desire it. Then they have to convince others that they can do the work well.
 
Those streakers had more than a mission. They had determination and courage. They knew the importance of collaborating with others to make the streak a success.
 
Here’s the bottom line: writing a great résumé is a lot like streaking. The art of streaking includes many of the same traits you’ll need for writing a great résumé. Both require courage. Both can be fun. Both are a bit unconventional--if you do them well. Although hiring a professional résumé writer can help, it won’t engage your own creativity and prepare you for interviews. Having someone else write your résumé is like recruiting a surrogate streaker to take your place. It’s just not the same thing. You need to tell your own life story if you want to write a personalized, powerful ­résumé. You need to start with the right attitude.
 
Be Courageous
 
A lot of résumés fall flat because they aren’t daring. They rely on the same old lingo to say the same old things in the same old, repetitive, tired ways. Reading them is like seeing the movie Groundhog Day over and over again--without the happy ending. Just look at all the résumé-writing books that tell you what to say and exactly how to say it. Or peruse all the Microsoft Word résumé templates that give every ­content-weak résumé the look of every other high-on-gravy, low-on-meat résumé. Where’s the beef?
 
Don’t be afraid to emphasize your strengths and express your potential. If you don’t have faith in your abilities, why should anyone else? It takes guts to go streaking. It takes nerve to create a résumé that will stand out from the pack. I’m not talking about hollow hype or puffy prose. I’m talking about honest persuasion.
 
We all let our self-doubts cloud even our realistic dreams. We wonder whether we’re good enough, bright enough, and talented enough. We fear failure. All of us. I know. I’ve helped many college students write dynamite résumés. Almost all of these career seekers started with low confidence. Why? Because no one had ever helped them review the practical value of their life experience. They worried excessively about their lack of professional experience. Some of them even wanted to exaggerate part-time work experiences to make it seem as though their professional backgrounds were more substantial. That doesn’t work. It’s unethical as well as ineffective.
 
Also, we all tend to remember and dwell upon our weaknesses rather than our strengths. Every former job we list on a résumé reminds us that we didn’t perform perfectly. We wonder what our confidential references will really say about us. Every career seeker--old or young, male or female--feels inadequate. Writing a résumé can make you feel even worse if you don’t know how to tell your story persuasively. Get ready. Take courage. I’ll coach you.
 
It can take days to write a solid résumé, weeks to identify a job worth applying for, and months to land an interview. The process of launching a career can be slow and tedious. One day you’ll assess yourself and your résumé as outstanding. The next day you’ll want to tear it up and toss it in the trash. Sometimes you’ll feel like giving up. To keep your sanity, you’ll want to download entire seasons of old TV shows; go shopping; hang out at a coffee shop eating pastries; or simply sleep until noon, slurp down a can of unheated SpaghettiOs, and then crawl back into bed. Don’t let yourself cop out. Short breaks are okay. Just don’t avoid the inevitable. Steel yourself for a long and bumpy road. Be brave! 
 
Frustrations can devour you if you let them. It may be that 95 percent of the time you’ve put into applications and résumés has led to nothing. Nada. You’ve faced the dreaded black hole of submitted résumés. You haven’t even...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2012
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1607741946
• ISBN 13: 9781607741947
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 144
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland