Career advice
Apr. 21st, 2013 07:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
resonantOK, I've just had a blinding flash of the obvious, which I want to share in case there's anybody else out there who, like me, didn't already know this.
As many of you know, I'm job-hunting. Now, for years I was working as a journalist and looking for different journalist jobs, and each time I went hunting, I'd break out the previous resume and add the latest job and move forward.
Now I'm changing careers, and I'm learning that a resume is not an adequate tool for career record-keeping.
Because that position as a feature reporter? The aspects of it that I stressed on my resume when I was trying to find another reporter position are not the same aspects I need to stress now that I want to be noticed for business analyst/project manager type jobs. And since that job was quite a while back, a lot of the day-to-day accomplishments that I could have used on a resume with a different emphasis are long since forgotten.
What I really need -- what I'm going to create for each job and volunteer position from now on -- is a file that goes like this:
My title
Organization
Date the work began/ended
Supervisor: name/title/contact info
Other mentors: name/title/contact info
Others who knew and praised my work: name/title/contact info
List of the tasks I did
Significant accomplishments
List of the skills I used
The most important things I learned
What I liked doing most.
What I hated doing most.
And when the time comes to make a resume, I'll go back to that file and pull together the information that's relevant to what I want to do next.
That way, if ten years from now I'm looking for work as, like, a cake decorator's apprentice, I won't have lost track of all those hours on the hospitality committee, measuring out powdered sugar by the pound.
(If anybody wants to offer me a job in Iowa, be my guest.)
As many of you know, I'm job-hunting. Now, for years I was working as a journalist and looking for different journalist jobs, and each time I went hunting, I'd break out the previous resume and add the latest job and move forward.
Now I'm changing careers, and I'm learning that a resume is not an adequate tool for career record-keeping.
Because that position as a feature reporter? The aspects of it that I stressed on my resume when I was trying to find another reporter position are not the same aspects I need to stress now that I want to be noticed for business analyst/project manager type jobs. And since that job was quite a while back, a lot of the day-to-day accomplishments that I could have used on a resume with a different emphasis are long since forgotten.
What I really need -- what I'm going to create for each job and volunteer position from now on -- is a file that goes like this:
My title
Organization
Date the work began/ended
Supervisor: name/title/contact info
Other mentors: name/title/contact info
Others who knew and praised my work: name/title/contact info
List of the tasks I did
Significant accomplishments
List of the skills I used
The most important things I learned
What I liked doing most.
What I hated doing most.
And when the time comes to make a resume, I'll go back to that file and pull together the information that's relevant to what I want to do next.
That way, if ten years from now I'm looking for work as, like, a cake decorator's apprentice, I won't have lost track of all those hours on the hospitality committee, measuring out powdered sugar by the pound.
(If anybody wants to offer me a job in Iowa, be my guest.)