Forums » The Lounge » Read Thread

My resume is only half a page :(

Granted, there's literally no way to be inadequate for a $7.50/hr part-time job at a furniture store, but still.

Anyone got some good stuff to put on a resume? A lot of the resume format was supposed to include experience but I have 1 experience so it doesn't take up a bunch of room. I don't want to crowd the page with my hobbies / interests because they don't really pertain to the job. I only have a HS diploma so education section is also short as fuck.

I'm trying to fill out skills but I'm just about out because I can't really include "good with people" because I'm not and they might end up expecting me to be xD I also can't put "I'm a college student with no life or obligations. I just want to work please pay me so I can afford games"

-Brag about classes you took in high school and/or college. For example, "took three years of Spanish and passed with a 'B' average," or, "took AP Calculus and didn't commit suicide."

-talk about what you *are* good at. If you aren't good with people, maybe list things like: always timely, hard worker, doesn't steal other people's sandwiches from the fridge, adaptable, fast learner, agreeable, etc.

-if you have volunteer work, include that

-other than that, just talk yourself up. If you had/have a good GPA, put it down and hope for the best. Or talk about Chanbot, that's an impressive thing to make, no? Good luck!

"I'm a college student with no life or obligations. I just want to work please pay me so I can afford textbooks."

Gotcha back, mate.

Do you have any people who can recommend you for your character?

literally none. like, literally literally.

I like your character :D

*breaks down laughing* that sounded creepy for some reason lol

It probably did. My brain is not functioning well today xD

Not that it functions well any other day, so >~<

Just --> :D <-- was just... I don't know it reminded me of this stupid video.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CRBULShizec
If you dont wanna watch it all, just skip to, like, the last minute. Lol I didn't expect to find this video again.

What...? XD

Whatdya mean, "What...?"? T-T the ":D" reminded me of that for some reason... ;-;

Add in skills and traits that everyone has. Nobody can fault you for it because they don't know.

"Perfectionist" is a good one, if a tired cliche. Also consider "Maintains a positive attitude" "Legally Qualified Martial Arts Instructor" "Capable of doing tasks" "Can make Toast and Popcorn" "Good Hand-Eye Coordination" "Fully functioning inner-ear fluids" "Good vision" "Can play an instrument" "Can sharpen a pencil with just about anything" "Authorised to  hunt bounties in most states" and "Willing to Learn".

In past jobs, add in really, stupidly vague fields that sound prestigious but can apply to anything.

"Salesman" "Appraiser": When asked to clarify, say you've earned hundreds of dollars on Ebay and Craigslist and your friends come to you to judge the worth of their scrap electronics and old video games and shit. They will never attempt to verify this.

"Antiques Collector": Anyone who owns a furniture shop is an old fuck. That's just common knowledge. If you have any game cartridges or systems from the 1990s or prior, just tell them you collect vintage software and talk it up, making everything sound like a much bigger deal than it actually is. They're old fucks, so they will have no way of knowing what you're talking about or whether it is really as  grand a game of trade as you say it is. (It isn't, really. Your average Atari cart will sell for maybe ~70 cents a unit, unless it was hella popular or they only made 200 of them before going bankrupt.)

"World Traveller": Have you been to another state? Good. Embellish, you're Ford ffs.

"Cinema Critic": Rant about anime online and convince one of your friends to give you money for it. Congratulations, you are now officially a paid critic and your future employer will naturally assume that you're much more impressive than you actually are, because critics have a natural air of superiority on account of being critics, and nobody except people who try to write for money know how difficult and shitty it is to write for money. Everyone who writes must be famous on some level, that is fact to the plebes.

"Handyman": Say that there's nothing you can't do with time and duct tape. Make a 3D graph where the amount of things you can fix exponentially increases with the amount of duct tape you have and the amount of time you're given, with a slight bias toward duct tape so it looks like you're really skilled with duct tape rather than just using a long time to apply hoards of duct tape and/or come up with something decent. Make lots of points and numbers. Your employer will be so bedazzled by the graph and his overall not-give-a-fuckness with who he hires for his minimum wage furniture store job that he'll just hire you because you were smart enough to make a fucking XYZ graph about time and duct tape.

If all else fails, just ask yourself, "What would Sentinel do?" Obviously someone as brilliant as I am should be given a job. Don't go too far with the imitation, though. If you truly lie about being as amazing as I am, they'll reject your application and tell you to do important things instead, like being their family doctor, or run for president, etc.

"My resume is only half a page :( "
For some reasson, this frowny ^ face made me really sad. ;-;

Things to consider: designer, coder/scripter/whatever they call'em these days, light-hearted, temperance, da tru flirt

Things to remember: praise from previous jobs, talents in various social/political/technical/etc. fields, awards/notable achievements in high school or extracurricular activities including things like clubs (yeah, some may say "ew", but still), traveling experiences, and such, and just... what you like to do. Seriously. What do you like to do? You never know when it can serve you good. :)

You should definitely talk about the education that you've completed to date in college. You want to list it in an education section, just add dates so that they know it's ongoing.

As far as hobbies/interests go, it would be better to add a filler section like that toward the bottom of the page rather than leave the page empty.

got nothin for xp



wat do?

"Staying calm and collected in any situation"? I thought you lacked... Oh, wait. That was Tim. XD
(Or was it? O.o)

I think it's a powerful resume... wait how old are you lol?

18

Yeah, I think it's a powerful resume for an 18-year old. Except for you never being in the workforce. I was in the goddamn workforce at 12. I worked at a restaurant. :3 I was helpful. *basks in light and food*

... What?

:3 Staying calm and collective. ;-;

Why me?

You were the one that always screams "TIM", right? O.O ;-; Perhaps I have mistaken the person again... *marches off to find him*

... I don't do that...

>-< You confuse me.

It looks pretty solid to me. Don't you guys have a work experience week in the US?

We probably SHOULD. I know only one high school (15+) kid who's never worked for money. But that was because he's a smartass rich kid who I managed to crush on for some absurd reason.

EDIT: But my list is beginning to expand.

I don't know what that is, so I don't think so.

I just did a google: I think it's just a not-America thing.

It's a week you get off from school where you work for free, generally in grade 9-10. I think the reason why it was introduced actually was cos of Ford's situation. I worked in administration for a shopping centre, but other people I know went to some more interesting places like the zoo, a hospital, etc.

:( man I wish. nobody wants to hire someone right out of school with 0 xp through no fault of their own ;-;

Oh, god no. All we have are Internships, which is something you have to do on your own time, if you can find a company that's giving them out.

Most high school students over here that actually want one usually get them over the summer break.

We can take "Internship" as a "course" for .5 credits or 1 credit. Also internship doesn't give you money though, right? But i guess it's still a work experience. (Shit I should be sleeping now... Hafta wake up at 6 and it's already 1:20)

Looks pretty good. Definitely, definitely, definitely omit the experience section altogether. They know you have no experience when you don't list experience, there's no reason to formally say that you have none: it just looks really guilty. Add some project or hobby that relates to dealing with people and emphasize that portion, you are applying for people-facing jobs, after all.

Have you ever handled money before? Maybe play up your mathematics skills in some fashion in the skills section.

Fix the tense in the skills section:

- "Taking Initiative" -> "Takes initiative" or "Adaptable" -> "Adapting to new situations". They should be in the same tense.

AFAIK I will not be handling money or dealing with people outside of other staff and the occassional old person asking me where something is. I just clean / organize furniture and keep the place tidy. Like housekeeping for a furniture store. Flexible hours is the main reason I really want this job - the description on the ad said something like "just as long as daily duties get done at some time during the day" so ideally I'd just go during low-customer hours, which just happens to be right after I get done with my classes - and the furniture place is right down the road from my college so it really works out great.

Suggested edits have been made except "Taking initiative -> takes initiative" (was that a typo? they're all past tense now though)

That was one option, and if you'd chosen it, you'd have to chance a bunch of others.

Looks a lot better now!

thanks man, really helped me out :)

No worries!

Current standing:

Looks good Ford (y)

thanks me too

Looks better than before.

That's all you can really hope for amirite.

Last thing I'd say, Ford, is that hedging all of your (emotional) bets on one job is generally a bad idea. The only way to "guarantee" that you find employment is to apply to everything you can apply to. This is especially true when you're inexperienced.

Last summer, while I was between degrees, I was looking for a generic office job and I didn't get one until my 55th application! I was applying for jobs I had no relevant degree for (degree was in biology and these were mostly financial companies) so it was tough going.

I just recently got a couple of internships, this time in my field. I got 7 interviews on 25 applications. I have no job experience in the field, but really good grades and a good portfolio, and even so, I only got interviews on roughly 1/4 of applications. The internships I got were actually two of the more competitive and desirable of the ones I applied to, so I really think it's a numbers game.

Don't beat yourself up if you don't get a call back on this one... instead, apply for anything that moves. Since you're applying for everything anyway, don't be afraid to apply for shit that you wouldn't hire yourself to do. Trust them to know what they're doing, and accept that sometimes young, curious, bright people are good for companies, even if those people are inexperienced.

Last, last thing: Cover Letter is almost as important as resume, from my experience. A custom and relevant cover letter will make up for a lot of inexperience. I can post one if you want to see a good example.

I had never heard of a cover letter. I had to look it up :( now I feel more inexperienced than before.

Wait, really? I thought that they teach you that shit in school.

Oh well. The More You Know!

"teach"
"school"

pick one

Teach.

I chose that too and never went to school. Literally showed up for tests and then ditched the rest of the day.

Didn't they send a truancy officer to your place?

never heard of that. anyways I ditched at least 4 classes every day, but every 40 or so ditches I got caught once so I only ended up with like, 50 abscences by the end of the year. Also my entire senior class ditched about as much as I did if not more. We were really the worst class on record for the school's history - absolute worst attendance record by a very large margin. Never saw a full class the entire year - not even during state tests.

A Truancy Officer is a cop that investigates unexcused absences.

Where the fuck do you live where they don't have Cover Letters or Truancy Officers?! Austrailia?!

America o-o

Still pretty weird, tho.

At my high school, they call home for unexcused absences. For me, cutting class would be equivalent to signing up for my own execution. 

I was always honest with my mom when the school called home for an absence.

Her: "So where were you during 5th hour? and what class is that?"
Me: "Grabbing a bite at wendy's. It's a freshman class I barely have to breath to pass."

Could you post that 3J, I also have no idea what a cover letter is and how it differs from a resume.

A "Cover Letter" is a letter you send in with your resume. It's usually only a single page long, and it's meant to introduce yourself to the boss, as well as explain certain things that aren't in your resume, and give good reasons for why you should have the job.

@SkyTenshi

This cover letter got me an interview and I eventually got an offer (but I decided to go elsewhere). It was for a small startup in Vancouver that works on optimizing a specific problem that a lot of people face. As you can see, the cover letter is aimed directly at their business goals and focuses on how I can help them, not how they can help me. Forgive the sappy intro paragraph, I've found that over-eagerness works better than being too cool to be excited.

 

Thanks guys :)

This will help a lot more than any talks I've ever gotten from school ^_^

ditto. 0 talks at school about any of this.

;-; I thought school's supposed to be educational.

Right you are. However, "supposed to," and "are," are completely different things.

Agreed, this is so helpful. Address how you can help the company, not how they can help you. It's basic stuff but no one bothers to say it. I may also jot down some of the terms you've used like 'tenacious inclination', 'If I had to pin down one...'. Just phrases that imply more than they appear to at first.

Glad it's helpful! I have like 20-25 cover letters that are just tweaked for different companies (but all in tech, unfortunately) so let me know if you have any specific questions or anything.

Resume had some typos and stuff. My mother looked it over and told me to fix some formatting errors like bullet points, periods, and wording of some things. Current Version

Didn't get the furniture store job. It was already taken. Also didn't get another job I applied to (city maintenance, ie picking up branches out of the road and inspecting telephone poles). If anyone wants to point me in the direction of a job that I could do online that'd be great lol

Aww I'm sorry, Ford. That sucks! Maybe try getting a loser job at a fast food joint or something?

I'm not being super pressured into getting a job by anyone except myself. So I'm gonna keep trying my luck at getting my foot in the door somewhere not at the complete bottom of the totem pole. Entry level? sure. Fast food? I'll skip for now.

If I get desperate I'll go for fast food / customer service. I'm really terrible at interacting with idiots throughout the day though, so I probably wouldn't be able to hold down a customer service job very long anyways. Oddly enough, walmart isn't hiring in my town either - otherwise I'd go there and stock stuff or organize produce (idk exactly what's up - I just know they told me to fuck off cause they're full)

Youtube vlogging. 

I might do something like that. Or a podcast of all the stuff I say like storytelling and other random muses of life.

I thought you did surveys while you lived in Las Vegas?

while it is true that I did, I have moved twice since then and haven't lived or been in vegas for 3 years now. I also did not live off them, as tan and end have pointed out many times. It is my absolute joy of remembering when I was 14-15, thanks for remembering what I said so I can relive the elation over and over and over again.

So apparently resume's do absolutely nothing and cover letters are worthless. 33 jobs I've applied to and 2 emailed me back saying they weren't interested. I've asked people how they got jobs and literally they all say they knew someone somewhere and I guarantee they had jack shit for resumes and probably don't know wtf a cover letter is.

I don't know anyone. Literally no one. I move every two fucking years - I don't know people. I'm not near anyone I could feasibly say I know. I have 0 connections to anyone. I don't even have the chance to make connections with anyone except the one guy in my calc class who also doesn't have a job (and who is super fucking rural farmer - he's never been to an airport before which I've learned is super common out here and absolutely infuriating but I digress).

So my options are online. I guess I'll start a youtube channel . . . or something. Any suggestions on what I should do? Any suggestions on what I should be making videos of?

feel like I'm asking what kind of burgers I should flip here

I guess pick a topic you're well versed on and/or have great desire doing something with in the near future.

Make tutorial videos on how to write a resume and cover letter that will definitely get you hired. 

33 jobs isn't actually that many. Keep applying.

Also, seek out a counselor at your college or at a job fair to improve your resume.

will do

Send potential jobgivers videos of you flipping burgers/performing manual labor/whatever it is. Title your channel, "I just want quality of life, dammit!"

I think you're on to something...

Gamers get a lot of attention, challenges and shit like that. If doing challenges and stuff, I suggest you check out Wolfieraps. For gaming, if trying to be serious, check out The Rad Brad and for funny gameplay type stuff, Jacksepticeye or Markiplier are some of my favorites.

They don't. Not unless they happen to be the very first to play a game all the way through. You only think they get a lot of attention because there are a lot of famous ones. Even still, some of those channels are dying slow and painful deaths. Same thing with prank shows and challenges.

For every Ben Yahtzee, there are a thousand of these guys. (300 views may be a lot, but keep in mind, it was in the 250 range 250 days ago. Assuming you even get to 100 views.)

Well obviously Ford's goal is clear.

He has to go kill PewdiePie, Mark, Jack, JonTron, Ben and the rest of those guys and take over the vast opening.

Or he can just go kill Pew for shits and giggles.

I've never heard of any of those people except pewdiepie xD

If you kill an A-Lister, the spare fame will have to trickle down to through so many people below them that by the time it reaches you, it'll be like, .003% of a subscription. You have to kill people directly above you to steal a more significant part of their fanbase, but even that doesn't work very well.

I probably don't have the most experience here, but I also don't think 33 is a lot either, considering a lot of people I know have had to put in at least 200 before getting a job.
I'd recommend you hand it in in person if it's possible, as your potential employer will get to have a good gauge of you when you do that. Plus all the other stuff about how looking at a sheet of paper or a document online makes it more distanced.

I went to a few businesses in person and asked if I could apply in person or at least hand them my resume and they all said do it online. Even small businesses want people to apply online and not in person or over phone - both of which I'd love to do. I think if you have a name and a number you can pretty much get anything done and if nothing gets done then showing up in person will make more impact than anything else.

Businesses don't want people coming in or calling looking for an application. They insist everyone do it online which infuriates me because I spent the better half of a weekday going into places of business and asking about their help wanted listings and they all said "we don't accept in-person applications"

The plural of resume is "resumes." :P

What sites are you using to job-hunt?

Indeed, Monster, searching "help wanted" on google and clicking 10 links randomly, etc

Craigslist? When I was job hunting there was definitely stuff showing up there that wasn't on Indeed/Monster (& vice versa, obviously.)

Craigslist is literally a list of shitposts. Half of the job listings aren't even literate let alone give any sort of description of the job. How am I supposed to interpret "5$ / HOUR TO CARE FOR GRANDMA!!!!!!! CONTACT NOW!!!!!!!!!" as they proceed to not give any contact information or any indication of what the hell I'm supposed to do.

Craigslist is a great way to waste time attempting to read the literature of illiterates.

...use the reply button?

I'm not saying that every post is going to be legit & worth pursuing, but I wouldn't rule it out.

Craigslist is a surefire way to be never seen or heard from again. 

I've made excellent money sucking dicks

I knew someone who was murdered by a man after meeting him on Craigslist and meeting him in order to sell him jewelry, so yeah, pretty much.

The way I read that, for some reason, felt like you were implying that the one who was murdered was the one who told you about it.

That's why you VOLUNTEER a lot during HS.

You surprise me in all the worst ways Ford.

oooorrr. You do more shit in HS. xD Experience!

?

thanks for letting me know. I'll just go do that.

I've been told by two hiring managers that they really don't value volunteering very highly. I was really disappointed by that.

Just get in shape and find yourself a sugar mama.

The working slob is a sucker.

Or sugar daddy.

Or a genderless robot.

A SUGAR genderless robot.

That's probably offensive to diabetics. Or something... Rawr.

really ford? do you want to spend the rest of your life performing back-breaking labor to some fatty bourgeoisie scum who doesn't give a shit about you? do you want to perpetuate a society of selfishness, a society which shamelessly encourages inequality, materialism, and unfairness?

the answer is simple komrade. rather than waste your time trying to appeal to the bourgeois, perform the following:

1. acquire ak47
2. overthrow dirty bourgeoisie government
3. establish dictatorship of the proletariat
4. ..
5. profit (comunally)

but I don't live in france

After not being accepted to shovel horse shit as a manual labor job, I applied for job at McDonalds. Overheard a guy in my class saying the McD's around here are understaffed. If I don't get this then I may as well just take a few months breather and focus on college.

If you don't get hired at an understaffed McDonalds I think you might end up selling drugged bananas as an old man.