Authors: Katharine Brooks

You Majored in What? (28 page)

BOOK: You Majored in What?

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VITAL ELEMENT 2: CAN I PICTURE WHAT I’VE WRITTEN AND CAN MY CLAIMS BE SUBSTANTIATED?

You know, for someone who’s got “Watcher” on his résumé, you might want to cast an eye to the front door every now and again.

—SPIKE IN BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1997)

To put it bluntly, there are a lot of bad résumé-writing guides out there. Maybe it’s because the writers are trying to make their guides unique, but some of their advice is just plain lousy and out-of-date. One of the worst examples of bad advice on many Web sites and in books is the promotion of fluffy language. Fluffy language, for lack of a better term, is sometimes called marketingspeak. It relies on phrases that sound important and meaningful at first glance, but really don’t say anything or tell the reader what you have done. Some examples include:

• Hard worker with great communication skills

• Team player who regularly upgrades collateral to ensure successful responses

• Experience with fast-paced environment and multitasking requirements

Your résumé should substantiate your strengths; it should show what problems you solved, what skills you possess, what experiences you have had, and how you were valued in the workplace—but not through buzzwords and trite phrases. Use numbers, percentages, dollar amounts, and other specifics to support your statements, particularly if they are impressive. Don’t just say “sold merchandise.” Say “increased weekly store sales by 20 percent in first month of employment” (if it’s true, of course). Instead of “raised funds for charity,” say “raised over $2,000 for the American Cancer Society.” Some impressive examples would include managed a $5,000 budget, supervised ten people, advised over fifty students. On the other hand, these figures are not as significant: worked eight-hour days, supervised one person, managed a $200 budget. It would be better to say, “supervised staff and managed a budget,” and let it go at that. Working eight hours a day is expected, so leave it off unless you also took classes on those same days, making your typical day longer than twelve hours.

So just what is fluff? When I review résumés, I use two rules to uncover it: (1) can I picture it?, and (2) if I use the opposite words, does it sound dumb?

Here’s an example that answers the “can I picture it?” question: Ashley spent a summer working at Hershey Park, a family theme park in Hershey, Pennsylvania, known, of course, for its chocolate. Her title was something like guest services specialist, and she described her experience as “assisted guests and promoted a fun environment for parents and children.” I had trouble picturing it. How does one promote “a fun environment”? It sounded like fluff. So I asked her. It turns out she spent the summer dressed in a Krackel bar costume and basically roamed the park, helping children find lost parents, signing autographs (!), giving people directions, and playing little games with the children. It’s possible she even saved the life of a guest by using CPR, but her favorite part of the job was watching the children’s faces light up when they would see her. “I had no idea anyone would want to run up and hug a candy bar!” she said. So we changed her job title to Krackel bar and rewrote her résumé entry to include:

• Greeted more than twenty thousand families, including posing for photographs, signing autographs, and playing with the children, ensuring a pleasant visit and encouraging return visits

• Located lost parents, and solved numerous problems from answering mundane questions to providing CPR and quickly obtaining emergency medical assistance for guests

• Consistently maintained pleasant demeanor despite heat and fatigue, and received award for highest number of positive comments from guest satisfaction surveys

Now I can picture her job. And so could the employers—she received numerous requests for interviews with the on-campus recruiters because they all wanted to meet the Krackel bar!

The second question I use to determine whether claims can be substantiated is what I call the rule of opposites, that is, does it sound dumb if I use the opposite words? Some career guides recommend that you use phrases designed to impress employers, such as “team player,” “hardworker,” or “strong communicator,” because that’s what employers are seeking. And it’s true, employers are seeking those strengths, and in Chapter 10 you’ll learn to use those phrases in a much more powerful way. But on a résumé they just sound boastful and empty. After all (and here comes the rule of opposites), who’s going to put on their résumé “loner who can’t work with others,” “lazy worker,” and “poor writing and speaking skills.” That’s how you know you’re writing fluff. Fluff shows up a lot in job objectives as well: “seeking a challenging position in a growing organization with potential for promotion.” This would be as opposed to “seeking a position where I can do nothing in an organization that’s likely to go out of business and fire me.”

Rather than tell an employer your strengths, show them. We can assume that Ashley is a patient, hardworking, and naturally friendly person who is a good problem solver because of the way she described her position. She never had to
tell
us; she
showed
us. Verbs and nouns are much more powerful than adjectives.

Use action words to start your phrases and follow with a description that can be pictured. Avoid weak phrases such as “was responsible for,” “duties included,” “did some work with,” and “handled assorted jobs.” Those phrases are passive and don’t illuminate your skills. Instead of writing “was responsible for managing the front desk,” write “managed the front desk, including answering phones, greeting visitors, and assisting staff with a variety of projects.” Depending on the space you have available, you could expand that entry to describe the projects if your work was meaningful and of interest to the employer. If all you did was staple reports, it’s probably not worth mentioning, even if you’re applying for a job that requires stapling reports. Go back to your Wandering Map for more powerful themes and ideas to put on your résumé.

VITAL ELEMENT 3: IS EVERY WORD SPELLED CORRECTLY AND IS THE RÉSUMÉ PROFESSIONAL AND ATTRACTIVE?

So, under experience, you’ve listed here on your hat-shaped résumé that you can skin a buck, run a trout line and that all your rowdy friends. . . .”

—SQUIDBILLIES (2005)

In his excellent book
Does Your Marketing Sell?
British writer Ian Moore says, “Think fast—your audience is whizzing by.” In general, your résumé will only receive a few seconds glance, so the information needs to be easily accessible and readable and spelled correctly. Keep your entries short and to the point. Lead with verbs and nouns and don’t use the word
I
. Think of it as translating your experiences and education into sound bites for the six o’clock news. Write what is most important. If you’ve buried your most important experience somewhere in the middle, it will likely be missed. Keep in mind that image of the plastic packaging that’s hard to break through. Make sure the important information pops off your résumé. Here are five tips to ensure your résumé complies with Vital Element 3:

•
Format and print the résumé in an attractive, consistent, and professional manner
. Your creativity should show in your phrasing and writing, not through a funky-colored résumé or a strange font. Creativity expert Edward DeBono describes the shift beyond creativity as crossing over the line from creativity to “crazytivity.” As in the quote from
Squidbillies
above, if you have a hat-shaped résumé, you’ve probably crossed that line. Printing your résumé on green paper with images of money on it probably won’t thrill a bank. But always consider the job you’re seeking. One student who applied for a job as the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile driver put her mustard-colored résumé inside a pickle relish jar. It worked. That was a unique marketing trick and she was applying for a unique marketing job. Remember Vital Element 1: Know your audience.

•
In general, keep your résumé to one page, particularly if you’re going into business
. If you have a lot of experience and
it is all relevant,
you can have a two-page résumé. But make sure the most important information is on the first page. Employers disagree on this topic and many are amenable to two-page résumés from new graduates (particularly in the nonprofit and education fields), but tread carefully: one page is usually best for a recent graduate entering the business world.

•
Always proofread and proofread again
. Spell-checker is wonderful but it doesn’t catch everything: homonyms can slip by, as can a faulty word. I’ve seen résumés where students “mange” projects as opposed to manage them, work with “perspective” members rather than prospective members, or who claim to “writ” well, rather than write well. One poor student applied for a job in “pubic service,” and neither she nor the spell-checker noticed the missing
l
until a savvy roommate laughed herself silly and wished her luck finding that job. Correct spelling can’t be stressed enough. Employers are looking for reasons to eliminate résumés from the stack and spelling is an easy way to do this.

•
Use bullet points for emphasis
, but if you start to have more than five bullet points in one entry they will lose their emphasis. You may need to write a few short phrases and then use bullet points to highlight key accomplishments. As you write your phrases, you may be tempted to abbreviate common words like
assistant
to
ass’t
. Don’t abbreviate unless the abbreviations are well known. You can use the standard two-letter abbreviations for states, for example, or for well-known companies like IBM or ESPN, but don’t use abbreviations for words like administrative assistant.

•
Use reverse chronological order
(your most recent experience comes first), and if you start by naming the employer, the location, and then your title, you should use that order in every entry.

STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO WRITING YOUR RÉSUMÉ

This guide will help you write a general résumé that will serve as your template for the targeted résumé you will develop as you move along in your search.
The general résumé you create may be several pages long and will contain virtually everything you’ve done since high school because you won’t actually be sending it to anyone.
Instead, you will draw from it to create your targeted résumé by selecting the most relevant information that will appeal to a specific employer or career field. If you don’t have a specific field or employer in mind, you can use your general résumé to create a one-page condensed all-purpose résumé that will highlight your best experiences and accomplishments. As you move through the steps, remember three things: it will take longer to write than you think (sorry), conscious incompetence will creep in and you’ll want to quit, but most important,
writing your résumé can be one of the biggest self-esteem and confidence-building activities you can do.
So make this experience as enjoyable as possible: reward yourself, work on it in a fun setting, break the task into small pieces by taking it a step at a time, seek help from your career center or whatever works best for you. Here we go . . .

STEP 1: COLLECT THE INFORMATION YOU NEED

Start by gathering the information you collected about yourself and your plans in Chapters 6 and 7. If you’ve already written a résumé, print it out. As previously stated, this chapter won’t give you everything you might need, so check out résumé Web sites, particularly the information posted on your career center’s Web site. When you see a résumé you like, print it out and use it as a model. Just remember: do not copy the wording verbatim. You must write the entries yourself, because most of your fellow students are copying them as well, and your résumé will read like everyone else’s. Big mistake. Employers don’t like lazy résumé writers and they can spot them a mile away.

STEP 2: WRITE OUT YOUR EXPERIENCES

Take out your notebook or tablet or open a file on a word processor and at the top of each page write one experience or activity you plan to include in your résumé. Use as many pages as you have experiences or activities. If you had a title or several titles, write them down. Take a few minutes to jot down everything you can recall about that position no matter how silly. Think about what made you unique or stand out; think about promotions, the skills or knowledge you learned, the mindsets you used, commendations from supervisors, what you did during a typical day, and so on. Was there a special event or activity that occurred while you were there? What problems did you solve? What responsibilities did you have? What types of people did you work with? Your list doesn’t have to be in any particular order and you don’t have to write it the way it will ultimately appear on your résumé. Just do a quick-writing exercise and complete it as quickly as possible.

As we consider résumé entries, we’re going to follow Justin, a senior international studies major at Longstreet College in Washington, D.C. Here’s an example of one of his pages describing his work as an administrative assistant and legal assistant for a law firm one summer: