Pimping yourself isn’t easy

V has a fairly nice job. Problem is, it doesn’t pay too well. He was promised a raise if he received a good quarterly performance review.

!>()http://gallerie.silentblue.net/albums/toronto/Sidewalk_Closed.thumb.jpg 150w 113h! His boss hasn’t given him a quarterly performance review in one and a half years.

Well, until two weeks ago. He got a “highly favourable” rating. As thanks, they bumped up his bonus limit. But no raise.

So on Saturday, I spent most of the afternoon helping V out with his resume. Time to look for greener pastures. Here are some tips I have:

* Make your name in a bold, big font. Place your name as a header on the second page, too. This is your time to shine, baby.
* Place categories in order of relevance to the job you’re applying for. If your Education is more relevant than your work experience, put it first – and vice versa. Yes, this means you’ll need to keep several copies of the resume.
* Place items within categories in order of relevance. The resume police won’t come out if you don’t follow chronological order.
* Remove all things not relevant to the job. That includes past work experience, and skills. The Activities category should be taken out all together.
* You don’t have to list specific dates for jobs, graduating, etc. The year should suffice. If the job or course was particularly short-lived, including the season is acceptable (i.e. Summer 2002)
* Quantify everything. If you don’t have an exact figure, estimate. How many customers did you serve? How many sales in dollars did you bring in? How many percent does your new brainchild improve operational efficiency?
* Everything should be able to answer the old age question, “So what?” You must be able to justify each point, each job, each accolade, each school project, and why it’s on your resume, and why it makes you the perfect candidate.