Readers:
Dr. Randall Hansen, a nationally recognized career expert, is the Career Doctor.
Discover more about Dr. Hansen, read about the purpose of this column,
and find previous issues of this column at the home of The Career Doctor.
If you have any college, career, or job-related questions or comments that Dr. Hansen could
provide valuable assistance with, please
feel free to email him at: careerdr@quintcareers.com.
Dr. Hansen writes this column on a biweekly basis.
Jessie writes:
I feel that I am stuck. I am 26 years old, and have already had four jobs since
graduating college with a degree in political science. I keep thinking that the
new job is the one, but it never is. I feel like I want to go back and get a
master’s degree -- that might help me discover what I want to do. I feel
pressure from my family to act my act together, but I just don’t know
what to do. Can you help?
A:
The Career Doctor responds:
I want to prepare some of my readers for what I am about to say,
because even I don’t know where I totally stand on the subject, but
here goes…
You appear to have some of the classic symptoms of what experts
are now referring to as the Quarterlife Crisis, an infliction that hits folks
in their twenties. The Quarterlife Crisis is marked by high anxiety about
your career -- and finding your “true” career, multiple job and/or career
changes, fears and self-doubt about achieving career and personal
goals, depression, and feeling lost or adrift.
Experts say that the crisis hits folks in their twenties, because after
years of learning the system of how to succeed in school, college grads
are thrown into the world of work with no real understanding of how to
succeed in it. Others blame how pop culture has portrayed work,
giving younger workers unrealistic expectations.
For you older readers, it’s a play on the midlife crisis, where people in
their 50s start to question their career and life choices, sometimes
making radical changes.
I think there are two things you need to start doing immediately.
First, stop worrying about what society and others think about who
you are, where you are in your career, and what you should be doing.
It’s your life; take control of it.
Second, take a weekend or part of a vacation and spend some
alone time conducting some serious self-assessment. What are your
passions? What are the types of activities you love accomplishing?
What do you dislike? What first inspired you about political science?
Where do you want to see yourself in five years? Spending this time
should allow you to begin getting clarity about your next steps in
terms of career and education.
Ira writes:
I have been asked to create a brief resume for a friend who has
an extensive career history.
He has a professional background which is varied and I feel that
'everything' he has done is very relative to the situation he is applying for.
I feel the resume needs to combine both functional and chronological
aspects of his career and expertise, however, the same problem arises --
it ALL seems relevant.
How should I target/focus this resume? What could be deemed
unnecessary, if anything? How can I condense a 20 year work history
and list of achievements into 1-2 pages?
A:
The Career Doctor responds:
The number one rule of resume writing is focus. You must have a focus
when you write a resume. A resume is not a work summary; it is,
however, a marketing document that clearly shows why a job-seeker
is the perfect candidate for the job.
If your friend truly has a varied work experience, you could categorize
those experiences within the resume -- but why not just do a standard
chronological resume? (A side note for inexperienced job-seekers:
everything goes in reverse chronological order, with the most recent
information first.)
Also, the rule-of-thumb is that you do not want to list work experience
that is more than 15 years old, partly because you do not want to
give away information about age, and partly because technologies
in most fields have changed greatly in the last 20 years.
As for page length, you can certainly go to two pages for someone who
has that much experience, and some resume writing experts say you
can make an executive resume as long as it needs to be.
As you are writing the resume, remember to focus on quantifiable
accomplishments.
Other key resume rules: make it perfect/avoid all errors; use traditional
fonts/sizes; avoid graphics and excess colors; provide detailed contact
information; do not include salary information, names of supervisors, or
references.
One other tip for someone who has a lot of experience. If you have done
a number of projects or consulting work, you might consider an
addendum to your resume that focuses on them specifically.
Bottomeline? This resume sounds like it may be too much for an
amateur to tackle. I would probably recommend that your friend
make the investment in a professional resume writer.
Q:
Linda writes:
My husband is retiring from the service. He has made his way
up the ladder, from an enlisted personnel to an officer. He is in
the engineering field. The problem is most of the minimum
requirements for positions he is applying for require a bachelor’s
degree. He is approximately 20 credit hours away from this,
and still actively in school. What are some suggestions on
verbiage for the cover letter and resume to address this?
A:
The Career Doctor responds:
First, kudos to your husband, both for the service to our country,
but also for working on furthering his education in preparation for
work in the civilian sector.
Your husband has three things working for him right now. First,
many employers are actively seek transitioning military veterans
because of the extensive experience and training they receive
while in the service. Second, engineering is an occupation back
in demand. Third, he is close to completing his degree.
Here’s how you address his situation on these key documents.
On the resume. The goal of a resume is to secure a job interview.
I would start with a summary of qualifications section, outlining
his three or four key qualities that make him the perfect candidate
for the job he is seeking. One of those bullets should be his
college education, the others should focus on his experience.
Since he is actively working on his education, I would list
education next, and when you list the degree he is receiving,
put the date you expect him to be done with it. Then list his
experience. I would also have a section on his advancement
from enlisted personnel to officer.
On the cover letter. Remember the key task of the cover letter is
to sell the hiring manager just enough so that he or she will
review the resume. You want to start of strongly identifying the
key strengths -- and ideally tie those directly to what the employer
is looking for in a job candidate. In the second paragraph, I would
highlight some of the specific accomplishments of the work
experience, along with the number of years in the field. In the
third paragraph, I would mention the near-completed degree,
and the specific date when it’s expected to be completed.
Note: some employers will substitute years of experience for
an incomplete education. For example, college grad and five
years experience, or some college and eight years of experience.
Jackie writes:
I've been emailing my contacts and people in my little network and I'm
wondering what is best to put in the subject line. I'm just concerned that
some people will just delete them right away if they don't know who its
from or if something vague appears in the subject line. Some of these
people I've just met at various networking socials and some I've only
met once. Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks so much for all your help!
A:
The Career Doctor responds:
First, let me congratulate you on focusing on one of the most overlooked
aspects of job-hunting -- building and maintaining a relationship with a
group of people who might help you identify job opportunities in the
future -- your career network.
So, how do you email folks, some of whom you have met only once
at a networking event where you exchanged email addresses?
Well, you don't want to leave the message line blank... and you don't
want to say something that sounds like spam...
So, I would go with either just your name in the subject line or your
name and a qualifier.... like Stetson Marketing Grad Jackie Olson ...
or something along those lines.
Or... if you know of them from some specific affiliation with a
professional organization, you can put something like: Daytona
Beach Advertising Federation -- Jackie Olson....
I think as long as you have a couple of identifiers in the subject,
you should be fine.
And just as important: Use the first paragraph of the email to remind
the person you are emailing of the connection the two of you share
before you launch into the rest of your email.
Looking for more advice about the power of networking -- and why
you should be doing it all the time and not just when you are job-hunting?
Go to this section of Quintessential Careers:
The Art of
Networking.
