Been applying for jobs for the better part of a year now. Landed a few interviews, but nothing further. I apply to 5-8 jobs a week. Sometimes I get a "No" but most of the time I get nothing in response. I had a head hunter for the construction industry tell me that my resume is weak and to look into using a resume service.

Anyone ever used a resume service? Any recommendations for online or local to Raleigh services?

6/24/2013 11:11:41 AM

All you have to do is take like 10 job listings, paste them in a word counter and use whatever buzzwords are the hot shit in the industry right now

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6/24/2013 11:19:55 AM

Resume services can be helpful, but they like to over-exaggerate things greatly. For instance, when my dad used one's free service for a cursory look over his resume, they acted like his choice of font (Time New Roman) was the end of the world. To be fair, that font is a little out-dated and should have been changed, but it wasn't the egregious error they made it out to be.

As per what Krallum stated, its fairly good advice. In my company, HR runs a program against resumes that weeds out resumes missing certain keywords, whether they be buzzwords for the industry or skills required for this exact job. There is no shame in slightly altering your resume to custom fit the job you are currently applying for, though don't copy sections from the job description and paste them directly in your resume (had this happen once before).

FYI, your resume is primarily to get you into an interview. If you are getting a decent number of interviews, you might consider working on interview skills as well.

6/24/2013 11:48:34 AM

^ I wouldnt consider 1-2 interviews in nearly a year decent. I'm actually excellent at interviews, I just need to get one

Seems the resume services I've looked into today run about $100-$150 for resume and cover letter work. Is this out of line or normal?

6/24/2013 11:51:43 AM

Wake Tech has some free resume courses IIRC

6/24/2013 12:40:27 PM

TWW has a wealth of knowledge too. Do a quick search in the lounge for resumes and you'll see some stuff that might help. Post questions in here too.

6/24/2013 1:50:36 PM

I actually had a resume service from Right Management. They had a couple of interesting points and things to do for mine but it was 90% bullshit. Their online job searching thing was also bullshit it just kept connecting me to tek systems, insight global and a shit ton of health insurance sales. I must say it was worth it. I got a couple of interviews with those places but I think the volume of people makes it pretty difficult. From what I've experienced, those tech recruiting companies have a retention rate of like 1 year for anyone who's not like a senior account manager - so know that someone inexperienced would be handling your shit and probably so much other shit that they don't give a fuck about.

Kinda started rambling but I was going to say that it was probably worth it. I have all of the manuals and shit that they try to get you to do.



^Most people give advice based on what was accurate when they got their job or were in school. My resume now looks nothing like anything anyone ever taught me but I definitely got more bites on it after doing the RM shit than I did before.

Next level resumes ITT


I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

6/24/2013 1:53:39 PM

When I say buzzwords I in general mean action words

Quote :

"Hardware engineers are responsible for the design, development, and verification of FPGA-based digital circuits that dramatically accelerate the processing of real-time financial market data from financial exchanges around the world. Hardware engineers specialize in parallel algorithms, data structures, and digital circuit design for high-performance streaming data applications. Strong experience in system and module verification, test bench design, integration, and debugging; Current experience with functional simulation tools (ModelSim, etc.); Basic experience with C/C++; Working knowledge of object-oriented software concepts; Basic understanding of Unix operating systems and programming environments; Basic understanding of distributed systems and data structures is preferred; Familiarity with Intel and AMD system architectures. BS in Computer or Electrical Engineering and/or relevant industry experience; Graduate level degrees are desired; A proven track record of holding similar positions with successful products is also a plus. Responsibilities may include: • Work with multi-disciplinary teams to design hardware/software systems for real-time financial data processing • Design digital circuits and implement in HDL (Verilog/VHDL) • Verify circuits and sub-systems using internal C++ based verification testbenches and tools (ModelSim) • Perform synthesis and physical design optimization for FPGA-based application accelerator cards • Participate in the design and testing of advanced Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) with high-speed chip-to-chip interconnects • Work with multi-disciplinary teams to integrate hardware sub-systems and deliver working system to QA department • Support triage and extension of existing product line"

Random resume that I just picked and didn't really read, but in general people like when you use their language. You can use these type of things to describe anything you'd do at any tech company and that's fine. I'm assuming that the initial contact is just your resume so think about it this way does your resume match the type of things that job postings have? Am I going to pick the guy who uses the same language as I did or the guy who just has a bunch of random shit listed.


Other tip. If you're going to describe your role at any job write quantifiable things that you did. Don't list shit that you did, connect something you did to an outcome. Make it quantifiable. Did this that resulted in more of this.

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

6/24/2013 3:00:37 PM

I forgot one amusing thing. My old roommate actually used one of those resume "fixer" services. Apparently they added a whole bunch of technical skills he didn't have to the resume in addition to tons of buzz words all over the place. I think he ended up scrapping most of what they did.

EDIT: And not buzz words like the post above mine.

If nothing else, check reviews for these places to make sure they aren't shady. With tons of people still looking for jobs, sleazy resume services and recruiters are popping up all over the place hoping to cash in.

[Edited on June 24, 2013 at 3:07 PM. Reason : ]

6/24/2013 3:05:17 PM

Mine was free, I'd never pay for that shit. Everyone who was on the calls was retarded and asked retarded questions. I wouldn't pay for it.

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

6/24/2013 3:41:42 PM

http://makeyourresumetalk.com

6/24/2013 4:00:58 PM

I tried out one of those web based professional resume places a few years back. I didn't do a ton of research, but I did google resume services and found some website that had a listing of several services and ratings. I picked the top one which had something like a 98% approval rating and went to their website and ordered one of their packages. IIRC, it was fairly expensive (I think around $250-$300 or so) but they promised the moon and I believed them. I got assigned to a writer and sent her my previous resume. A couple of days later she sent me back a one page document that looked like she took half of my job experience at random and cut the other half just to make it fit on one page. It looked like a cookie cutter resume as well. There were also many gramatical errors and all sorts of punctuation mistakes. Stupidly I continued with the service trying to get her to fix the errors and guide her into helping me create my resume. I told her that I was told that it wasn't as important as it used to be to have a resume fit on one page, and that I had enough experiences that I didn't want to only have one page on my resume. She took a few more days and sent me the exact opposite. It was at least 5 pages long, and contained just about every buzzword, mission statements, and trick of the trade standard resume filler out there. There were sections in there talking about my accountability and level of trustworthiness. It sounded okay, I suppose, but I knew that she was pulling it out of thin air, and it was obvious that anyone reading it would assume that was the case too. I even googled one particularly peculiar phrase and found a single hit on some indian guy's resume he had listed on linkedin. I contacted him, and he said he had used a simular service for help on his resume. I should also point out that the resume I sent in looked like it was written by someone with only a basic understanding of how the English language worked.

I wrote back to the "main editor" of the site and demanded a different writer. I don't have a clue why I didn't demand a refund, but I was still interested in getting a decent resume put together. Throughout the entire process she was insistant on communicating over the phone, even though I explained to her that I was still currently employed and I worked within earshot of my boss, so discussing my resume building process over the phone wasn't an option. I must have told her this at least half a dozen times, but she still called me nearly every single time I emailed her and left a broken-English voicemail requesting a callback. Eventually she sent me her copy of my resume which she assured me was the best quality I could expect. Basically they deleted a few of the plagiarized and odd sounding sections, and fixed about half of the gramatical errors, but there were still many mis-spellings and other errors including several examples that I had given them in my emails. It took me way too long to see that this company was a scam and weren't capable of crafting a properly spelled sentence, much less an entire resume. Luckily enough, after several threats to get lawyers involved they did agree to give me a full refund of all my money. I later did a lot more searching on google and it turns out that the original website I found with a listing and rating of several websites was just a cleverly designed shill site that was constructed to funnel clueless people into their particular site. Here's a blog post that I found about the site in particular that I used.

Long story short, there are probably some websites out there that do provide legitimate services, but be careful in selecting them. Make sure you are using a legitimate service and not just one designed to take your money and give you half-assed cookie cutter resumes in return.

6/24/2013 4:17:32 PM

If you're still a student, try the Writing Tutorial Center. It wasn't unusual to see resumes. It's free and if you hit up different times or locations, you can get multiple view points.

6/24/2013 4:21:28 PM

I feel ya. I'm in the construction industry and have been laid off several times. Every time I would have stats similar to yours. I would apply to 5-10 jobs a week. I would average over a long period of time about 1 interview a month, but it usually came in spurts. I would get 3 interviews in one month and then nothing for the next several months.

I always just tried to look for jobs everyday. Preferably twice a day. I can't tell you how many times I heard that they got overwhelmed with responses and stopped looking at resumes after the first day. Because of this, I tried to check job sites often (most of my interviews, including the job I just started came off of craigslist) to try to be one of the first to send my resume.

6/24/2013 5:28:54 PM

Is it common in today's job market that a person have several jobs within the first 5 to 10 years of their career? This is the one thing I am really afraid of because for one reason or another, I have had quite a few opportunities listed on my resume. I feel that employers tend to shy away from people with a "stacked" resume with multiple jobs on it. I am having a hard time fitting my experience in a reasonable amount of pages without sounding like a flight risk...

6/24/2013 5:47:00 PM

guy at work paid to have his done, did well for him.

6/24/2013 5:48:44 PM

Quote :

"Is it common in today's job market that a person have several jobs within the first 5 to 10 years of their career?"

Look at anyone under 30's page on linked in.

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6/24/2013 5:53:40 PM

if you're a student send your resume to your career services adviser. William Catoe did a great job on mine.

6/24/2013 5:54:26 PM

Look for jobs on LinkedIn and contact the person who posted the listing about your interest. They will likely look at your profile and if they like what they see you will probably get an interview even if your résumé isn't perfect.

6/24/2013 10:35:48 PM

http://fiverr.com/silvermonkey/make-your-resume-awesome-since-i-am-a-former-google-and-facebook-recruiter

I would try some of the people on fiverr.. for like $20 you might get some good feedback and tips for your resume.

and, I know almost nothing about the construction industry but I think its more of a 'good ole boy' network and most construction jobs are probably filled by referrals / connections / etc

6/25/2013 7:54:31 AM

don't pay for a resume service

there are enough people in our wolfpack/tdub community who have the talent acquisition and staffing background to help if you're nice enough to ask politely and you keep an open mind when they give you advice

6/25/2013 10:50:32 AM

If you want to blur out your contact info and the names/dates of your past places of employment you could probably just post an image of your current resume and get some advice in this thread. I don't claim to be an expert when it comes to resumes but I'd be happy to take a look and provide any help I can.

6/25/2013 10:55:01 AM

Signed up for a class at Wake Tech and received some great tips. I recommend it if you have two half days to spare. I noticed other job preparedness courses that would also be helpful.

6/25/2013 4:31:43 PM

Yeah, I don't think there is a need to pay for a resume service. As mentioned before, NC State Career Services could work, but I think your best bet is just to find one of your well-respected peers (maybe someone from TDub) or use LinkedIn and contact people in your career field that could help out.

Getting help for the actual interview is a different animal.

6/26/2013 12:51:01 PM