Writing Resumes/Curriculum Vitae
RESUMES / CVs
Everyone's giving out advice about resumes. I'm not an expert on this, but I found some resources that might help you.
Aside from a personalized cover letter, networking with others, and interview skills, your resume is probably the most important tool you have for getting a job. Since the late 1990s, a monster has arisen to plague job seekers, and it is the boon of HR: Applicant Tracking System (ATS) software. I'm currently writing an article about it, which should be done in a week or two. The short story is it's an automatic system to sort resumes based on specific criteria and, even if you're the best candidate, if your resume doesn't match the criteria your resume will get a low ranking. It'll never be seen by a person. It's a known issue, and it affects lots of people. I'm not good at resume writing so, although I'm qualified, two different ATSs scored me at around 25% for what I'm applying for. One ATS even marked me as highly qualified for Java because several of my jobs had been on the island of Java, Indonesia!
Thus, it is important not only to get your resume out there but to find expert help to make it more likely to match ATSs. There are strategies for this, but they aren't 100% because every ATS works differently. That said, if you can afford the time, learn the strategies and fix your resume, or get help.
There are some places out there where you can make your own resume, too. Here are 3 options, each with multiple templates - free or paid. There are others, so feel free to search!
- Resume Hero
- Enhancv
- KickResume also helps you to publish it on a simple website.
- StandardResume
- FindDreamJobs's Resume Builder
- LinkedIn's Resume Builder
*Keep in mind that the fancier a resume is, the less likely it'll make it past ATS software.
Other Resources
Slack Communities can be used to help you connect with people with similar interests, which can be a great way to find work.
Slofile lists 1,000+ different types of Slack communities by 29 categories, 22 language and 7 regions. It is easy to search.
Standuply has a list of 2,000 in 8 categories with sub-categories.
AirTable has almost 60 fine-grain topics and over 450 communities organized in a database you can look through. You can view by topic, location or as a grid (a spreadsheet).
Job Sites Where You Can Create an Online Resume (Profile) - My article shares the features and sections of several websites that offer profiles. On LinkedIn
Should Your HRD Use Applicant Tracking System (ATS) Software? - My article about ATS software, for both businesses and job-seekers. On LinkedIn
8 Things You Need To Know About Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) - ATS is the bane of job seekers and the boon of HR. It weeds out candidates - including some of the best - if you don't know how to write your resume so that a PROGRAM will like it. It's not how qualified you are for the job, it's how good you are at writing your resume to match the algorithms, which puts many people at a severe disadvantage, especially with large companies (80% of Fortune 500 companies use ATS)! Are you being weeded out?
Do a Free Scan of Your Resume to See what ATS Rates It for the Job You Want. It also offers LinkedIn Optimization. The ATS scan gives you several helpful free tips to improve your resume, but you'll need to pay to get them all, while the Optimization only gives you tips for your LinkedIn Basic Info (job title, name, photo,location, and industry) - you must pay for the rest.
Zip Job will write your resume for you, including ATS compliance, for a fee. You can get a free resume evaluation, too, with general advice, but the specific advice must be paid for.
There are professional resume services out there that charge hundreds, even thousands, of dollars and guarantee results. If you're not good at making a resume and don't have any HR experts as friends, you might want to shell out that money but I'm not sure if it'll be worth it if you're looking at jobs with salaries that are fairly low. Also, keep in mind that, as with companies you want to work at, you should carefully research these resume services to make sure that they're not fraudulent!
Please note that if you upload your existing resume to a site, or import it from LinkedIn, you'll probably need to edit it because some websites don't parse the information correctly and your resume on their site will be wrong, while others will be looking for data LinkedIn didn't provide or you didn't fill in. For example, when I used my LinkedIn resume on certain employers websites, it was expecting to see the starting and ending months for former employers and, quite frankly, I can't remember that far back so it's empty on LinkedIn. And, as always, these automatic resume approvers cannot work magic - garbage in means garbage out no matter how nice the formatting is. So, after you upload your resume, make sure to check all the data!
Reviews of 9 Resume Writers...and resume writing services has links to local services and executive-level resume services.
A couple of years ago, I used Resume Hero's service. It takes in your info, allows multiple resumes, and has a few different templates to choose from. It's not perfect, and I had some problems with how it interpreted my resume when it parsed it, so I had to do some editing (other job boards as well as headhunter and company HR sites sometimes make the same mistakes), but it may be a starting point.
I took a look at the resume builder that LinkedIn offers if you pay for their pro membership but it is entirely dependent on your profile so, if your profile sucks, so will your resume. It uses a very basic format that LinkedIn claims is popular. This is going to be true of most resume builders, I suspect.
A lot of websites now offer this service, including Indeed. [Resume Robin] will distribute your resume to a bunch of sites.
- 6 Resume Tips from the Pros - ZipRecruiter
I hope that this article helps you to find work - it's based on my own - current - job search for remote work. It took days of research and months of job hunting to write. If it does help, please add a comment letting us know where you found the job! :)
If you work for one of the companies listed and see an error, or would like to offer an affiliate connection, please let me know! :)
If you have suggestions about other sites, let me know that, too!
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Writing a resume is an important step in your job search. I was fired because I refused to get vaccinated. And it took me a long time to figure out what to do. Until I found the article https://us.resumeedge.com/blog/what-to-do-if-youre-fired-for-not-getting-vaccinated, which exactly describes what to do in such cases. I wish I had found it sooner.