Posts tagged with “WorkExperience”

It's a problem many new graduates and those looking to switch careers face: you need experience to get a job, but you can't land a job without experience. Quite the dilemma.

From unpaid internships to exaggerated facts and padding resumes, people handle this quandary in a variety of ways and most of them do manage to end up plodding along happily in their chosen fields. I found one particularly creative approach to dealing with 'need experience to get experience' in this article over at Harvard Business -- the basic idea is to find a business or colleague in your area that needs something but doesn't have the resources to make it happen, check your pride at the door, and strike up a bargain where you offer your help in exchange for the experience.

Believe me, it makes more sense in the article so pop over and give it a read, then pop on back and tell us what you think: is it a realistic option for people?

Often times as a recruiter I will help people to write descriptive resumes that clearly distinguish that candidate from the flock of other candidates applying to the same job. Honestly, it is much easier to write a resume for a specific job description or position than it is to write a general resume that you would like to use to post on the resume boards. The most common gripe I hear in regards to resume writing is that the job seeker doesn't know how to explain what they have done in a way that will help them to attain their next job. In order to help everyone write effective job descriptions I have come up with a few tips and tricks I have used in the past.

#1 Write a list of what you do/did on a daily basis in last/current job.
It doesn't have to be a fancy list in sentences or anything crazy; this is simply to provide you a cluster of ideas for what you will eventually be adding to your resume. Write a list of 10-15 responsibilities that you took on and then, when you can not think of anything else, perpetuate those fragments into sentences and formulate job duties. Fifteen "thoughts" may transfer into 5 bullet points on a resume and that's a start.