Alvin Said:

I am new to making a resume and I have a few questions?

We Answered:

It depends on how much work experience you have, and what sort of change in job type you're making.

If for example you have 2 years experience as a cashier and 3 years experience in a career (e.g. computer programming), then don't list the cashier job.

Things to consider when choosing to include previous job or not:
- if you leave it off, does it leave a gap in your employment history? (e.g. worked in IT for 1 year, as a waitress for 1 year, then back to IT...). Try not to leave unaccounted gaps on your employment history, even if it means including jobs that aren't really related.
- How long is your resume? If you have 6 previous jobs and are having trouble keeping the employment history section to under a page (and whole resume to under 2 pages) then it's time to scratch McDonalds from your resume.
- Similarly, how far back do these jobs go? If you're fresh from college don't include a paper route, but a high school job is ok to include especially if you have no other experience. But you don't want to go back more than say 10 years if you're switching careers.
- Just how different are these jobs from the one your applying for? there are a lot more transferable skills out there than people realize. A supervisor or assistant manager at a clothing store has responsibilities of supervising others, organizing work, etc - so if you're applying for a job as a project manager in a professional role, there is some reliance.

Do be brief in the descriptions of the non-relevant jobs. You can easily include them in your employment history but have only 1-2 bullets if the job title is pretty self-explanatory (e.g. stock boy, cashier, waitress, bartender, etc)

Good luck, and try to get at least 2 different people who are familiar with resumes to review yours. If you're at school, many have career centres which offer this as a free service - and they can provide a lot of help. Nothing's worse than missing a spelling mistake not caught by spell checker, poor grammar, etc. Most of the times that'll land your resume right into the garbage. (Being a poor speller myself and mildly dyslexic, I usually let 1-2 mistakes off, but I know others who will toss a resume out at the first spelling mistake)

Kent Said:

I need help making my resume go from good to exceptional?

We Answered:

You should highlight your previous promotions. This shows a lot about you, your flexibility and your potential!

Go to http://www.free-resume-help.com and see how your resume could be spiffed up.

Brett Said:

I need some tips/advice for making a resume to submit to tv/film companies?

We Answered:

have you tried www.resumeworld1.com even if you dont buy from them they have free examples on there website and can answer your questions for you

Geraldine Said:

When is the perfect time to starting making my resume?

We Answered:

I would suggest beginning now to write your resume. You will want to save the Objective/Summary until you actually apply for positions however you can begin your education/Professional Development section "showcasing” your Degree and courses.

The next section would be Professional Experience which would include present position or last position of employment.

Final section would be Affiliations.

As mentioned, go back and add you’re Objective/Summary to match the position you are applying.

Best of Luck

Milton Said:

what is a really good website or sites that i can be of aid for me for resume making?

We Answered:

Besides setting all margins to 1", the most important criteria for setting up a professional resume besides relevant text, is "scanability." Here are some helpful tips:

1. Place just below your identification header [your hame, address, phone, email address] any Conditional Warning Statement such as "Confidential Resume,"Do Not Contact Current Employer," etc.
2. Always fill-in an Objectives category [just below the Conditional Warning Statement] and make sure that he Objective will contribute to the profitability of your future employer;
3. Select a mono-type font such as Helvetica, Arial, Courier or Times Roman; do not select any cursive handwriting styles which cannot scanned;
4. Keep font sizes within a range of 10 to 12 pts.;
5. Avoid styling text with a justified alignment, keep it flushed left;
6. Instead of using tabs to set up blocked text entries, generate a table and use the column and row settings accordingly;
7. Do not place an i.d. picture anywhere on the resume, this is a major taboo due to discrimination issues;
8. Do not place any graphic text [saved as .gifs] onto the resume since it may be overlooked during the scanning phase;
9. List at the very end of the resume your interests which should include travel experiences, language skills, social interactions such as golf, team sports, tennis, etc.

In conclusion, the above helpful hints were designed to allow ease of scanning of your resume into PDF which can then be text captured for seach purposes by your potential employer. If the original resume was created in Word, WordPerfect or Mac Appleworks, it can be Saved As a PDF file which then can be saved as an email attachment. Otherwise, you can simply use a scanner and scan a hard copy of the resume and then save as a PDF file.

Failure to conform the resume to appropriate fonts and styles as outlined above will result in rejection of the resume simply due to the inability of the scanning device to properly index relevant resume entries.

Good luck

Mabel Said:

I just want to ask best format/guidelines in making resume for free?

We Answered:

Hi

In my experience sending a resume has been always met with poor results. People don't like to read resumes that much any more because they want a quicker way to filter if the candidates have specific qualifications.

I think the best way to apply for a position nowadays is to spend some time to develop your resume on sites like Monster or Workopolis. This allows employers to search for "Visual Basic" quickly get to your resume and see how much experience or more details you have with that lanuage.

Another option is to use LinkedIn.com to network yourself to other professionals and meet potential employers that way. I have always found the projects here to be much more exciting and the people way more interesting.

Hope that helps
Marco@tapnet.biz
http://www.tapnet.biz