Q TIPS:
Quick and Quintessential Career & Job Tips
Job-hunting tips from the June 4, 2001 issue of QuintZine.
The Career Planning & Placement Center at Northern
Illinois University, DeKalb IL, offer its students a small
selection of Resume Templates in both Word and .pdf formats.
As with any resume resource, we don't agree with every
aspect of the way these resumes are set up, but NIU's
Career Planning & Placement Center based the templates
on feedback from its constituents, so they're solidly grounded
in research. Templates can also be a great way to get started
for anyone who's never done a resume before.
Resumes are subjective documents to be sure. Even if you follow
the best advice from career experts, your resume is subject to
the individual tastes of employers -- which may differ from
the experts' advice. What's the best way to tailor a resume
to a hiring manager's preferences? Call up and ask how he or she
likes resumes. The advice career expert Dale Dauten offered some
years back remains valid today. He tells the story of calling a
human resources office to ask what kind of resume the person
who screens resumes likes to see. "Really short. No baloney.
Crisp," is what the HR person told him. Anyone making such a call
will be armed with the perfect information for targeting that
particular employer. If you're not comfortable talking to the
hiring manager, ask an assistant or secretary -- who will likely
have a good handle on the boss's preferences.
"Increasingly, almost all transactions related to the
early stages of the hiring process have now migrated to the Web,"
says Gerry Crispen, co-author of Career XRoads: The 2001 Directory
to Job, Resume and Career Management Sites on the Web.
As reported by Reuters, Crispen advises any
applicant to apply online, largely because of the time factor.
By the time you send your hard-copy resume through the mail,
an employer is likely to have already processed hundreds of
electronic resumes zapped into cyberspace in response to the
same opening. To ensure your resume is is up to snuff for
electronic submission, see our article, Scannable Resume
Fundamentals.
The Career Planning & Placement Center at Northern
Illinois University, DeKalb IL, offer its students a small
selection of 