How to get a job (or not)

[Murky]

Do you want a raise at your company, or do you want to go work somewhere else?

I'm open to either possibility. Unless someone higher-up leaves, I'm sort of stuck in my current job. I'd also like to relocate out of MO again. I'm considering either the West Coast, East Coast or Pacific NW.

 

[downtown]

If you're at a public university, getting a raise without a significant change in your job duties will be tricky, since that stuff is often tied to specific salary schedules.

If you want to relocate, make a list of competitors in similar industries, or who will hire comparable people. Hoovers is a good website for this, along with Jigsaw, but google works too. Then start following those firms on LinkedIn, or start checking your network to see if you have any connections with those firms.

If they don't have any postings, you can always use LinkedIn/Jigsaw to look up an HR contact or the specific hiring manager and ask for an informational interview, or send along your resume that way.

 

[Ondskan]

I'd like a job.
I'd like to write stuff or comment on stuff.

Thx.

 

[Zelig]

In my experience working at universities, getting non-trivial raises is mostly a matter of getting your boss(es) to agree to let you apply to a new job with a fancy title and plenty of buzzwords for the job responsibilities, so that HR will agree to place the job in an higher salary band.

They'll open up the job to regular external applications, your boss will take some resumes, maybe do a couple interviews, then give you the job.

Then you can keep doing whatever you were doing before, but for more money.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yeah, from my experience the more personal you make your application, the better your chances. That's why I correlated sites like monster.ca with "they don't work, they're not personal enough!", but downtown is right about taking the size of the company into consideration.

I have a few questions about the resume I had to create to apply for various Boeing jobs. I was kind of shooting for what Warpus was talking about in the quoted paragraph when I filled in the following catagories:

Spoiler :

JOB INTEREST
I am interested in aerospace engineering jobs. I would prefer to work on space craft or space-related systems but would just as happily work on aircraft. I wish to break into the aerospace field; it's why I returned to school and earned my GED after having dropped out at 17. {I am going to rewrite this paragraph, it's bad}

It took me 4 years in community college to work my way up from middle school level math to differential equations so that I could transfer to a university in order to continue my studies. I've been steadily working at getting my education while also holding jobs and student leadership positions all so that I may exit school and land a job working in the aerospace field. This is the goal of my entire life until this point. I hope Boeing is the kind of place that values my hard work and would welcome me into it's ranks.

PERSONAL INTERESTS
I love everything space. I read books such as 'Space Settlements: A Design Study' (A NASA design study from the 70's on space-based solar power stations) and 'Making Space Happen' (a book about the growing commercialization of outer space) for fun. I stay current on the aerospace industry and frequent websites to read about companies like Boeing and their newest commercial products or endeavors. Even the video games I play (when I have time) are based around my love of space. Currently on Christmas break, I've been playing a game called Kerbal Space Program where the goal is to build your own Space Program and to explore the solar system, complete with realistic orbital dynamics.

OBJECTIVE
I wish one day to build or design rocket systems like Boeing's CST-100 capsule or the Space Launch System. As I said before, I'd be just as happy working on an F-18 improvement, but my heart belongs to outer space and all of the kinds of wonderful (and in my opinion, completely awesome) projects that Boeing does in the final frontier

The format (Job Interest, Personal Interests, Objective) is completely out of my control. But have I hit the right tone with what I've written. I want it to be personal and show my deep interest in the field without being too cavalier. What do you all think?

Also, there are some sections where I've used bullets to list things. Here's an example:

Spoiler :

EXPERIENCE
05/01/2009 - 05/01/2011: Student Trustee on the Board of Trustees
XYZ Community College
As the Student Trustee, I worked closely within the team that forms the Board of Trustees to ensure that student's needs were being met by the college. I helped pass budgets that both satisfied the requirements of my 16,000 students while meeting the fiscal responsibilities of the institution.

I read through board reports and produced my own on various aspects of the college that dealt with student issues such as tuition and course offerings. I gave these reports in person at committee meetings, board meetings and at various statewide student trustee functions I attended during my tenure. I became intimately familiar with Microsoft Office products like Excel, PowerPoint and Word that helped me create and use the various reports I needed in my day-to-day work. {the next part, the bulleted part, is what I typed under the 'accomplishments part of the resume and this is the way the software presented it, without a seperate 'accomplishments' heading}
*I was twice elected by the student body.

*I simultaneously held the offices of President of the Student Government, Chair of the Illinois Community College Board - Student Advisory Committee (ICCB-SAC; a statewide committee that serves the Governor) and later served as Recording Officer of ICCB-SAC.

*During my tenure, I put together a detailed plan to bring student food service to one of the college's satellite campus by working closing {frakking typo } with a team of administrators and I also help {} look out for the interests of the students during one of the most challenging budgetary cycles in the college's history.

*Lobbied state and federal government on behalf of the college on trips to Springfield and Washington DC.

*Lead the student government to pass a new founding document akin to a constitution, which I drafted.

*Drafted a 'how-to' manual for new student trustees that ICCB-SAC distributes every year to students from across Illinois.

Is this ok, or should I rewrite the bulleted lists in solid paragraphs?

I am also going to go back to this entry (and my other experience entries) and add in figures and numbers about the budget, the number of employees the board and I were responsible for, the tense state budgetary climate we operated under and so on. That's good right? To give more specifics?

One last question. The resume I've written comes to 3.25 pages. Now, part of this is because when I download it with word to read it, the weird formatting of the website software has lopped off a full quarter of the page with a giant, unmovable right margin. So it's really probably closer to 2-2.5 pages. Also, I've listed my last three jobs going back to 2009 (I could have gone back further, but those jobs were much less relevant to the positions I'm going for) and made sure to include all of my accomplishments and so forth, so that adds a lot. But using the bulleted format adds length.

How important is it that I cut this down to a page?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Any advice?

 

[Zelig]

My thoughts:

Job interests, personal interests, objective - I don't care. Put it in your cover letter and talk about it in the interviews. Are those parts from your resume? It's not really clear...

Bulleted section:
Bullets are awesome.
Too wordy.
List accomplishments, not responsibilities.
Drop the first person.
Don't list Word and Powerpoint.
If you say you're "intimately familiar" with Excel, I expect you to know vlookup, pivot tables, macros, etc.
Specific numbers are good.

Cutting a resume down to X pages depends - I have no problem with longer resumes if everything is worth reading, but people tend to overvalue how much stuff about them is worth reading.

 

[downtown]

Resume length isn't important anymore, since resumes are mostly sent digitally now.

I agree with Mars that you shouldn't use first person, and you should 100% focus on accomplishments rather than duties. Duties can be discussed in the interview.

Also, he's right that you shouldn't list word or powerpoint. If you're really good, it's okay to say MS Office Suite, but only if you're half-decent at Access and the most complicated parts of Excel.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

My thoughts:

Job interests, personal interests, objective - I don't care. Put it in your cover letter and talk about it in the interviews. Are those parts from your resume? It's not really clear...

There is no cover letter and I have no control over job interests, personal interests or objective. The software has fields you have to fill in and then it formats it all for you. Those are mandatory fields.

Bulleted section:
Bullets are awesome.
Too wordy.

Thanks, I will keep this in mind.

List accomplishments, not responsibilities.

OK I'll rework it.

Drop the first person.

How do I do this effectively? An example where you take a sentene I wrote and rewrite it would help. I mean, I know what you're saying but I don't know how I could do this effectively.

Don't list Word and Powerpoint.

Some of the positions I'm applying for specifically list these as requirements. Plus, your resume gets fed through an automated filter that looks for keywords. I'm trying to hit all the keywords and for at least some of the jobs these are certainly keywords and requirements.

If you say you're "intimately familiar" with Excel, I expect you to know vlookup, pivot tables, macros, etc.

Yes I do.

Specific numbers are good.

Thanks, I will add more.

Cutting a resume down to X pages depends - I have no problem with longer resumes if everything is worth reading, but people tend to overvalue how much stuff about them is worth reading.

Which begs the question, is what you've seen that I've written worth reading? (with some good editing, of course)

Thanks a million!

@Downtown -
I will certainly rework my accomplishments section and repost it.

I have never used Access, and like I said Powerpoint and the others are listed requirements.
Thank you

 

[Zelig]

*During my tenure, I put together a detailed plan to bring student food service to one of the college's satellite campus by working closing {frakking typo } with a team of administrators and I also help {} look out for the interests of the students during one of the most challenging budgetary cycles in the college's history."

So was the plan put into effect?

Assuming so, my rewording:

*Spearheaded expansion of student food service to new venue while managing conflicting stakeholder interests.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I used to type resumes as part of my typing business. I've seen excellent ones, and I once typed a 9-page abomination that listed report card marks all the way back to the first year of high school ack. Anyway, my two cents (while Canada still uses pennies):

JOB INTEREST
I am interested in aerospace engineering jobs. I would prefer to work on space craft or space-related systems but would just as happily work on aircraft. I wish to break into the aerospace field; it's why I returned to school and earned my GED after having dropped out at 17. {I am going to rewrite this paragraph, it's bad}

One sentence. And do NOT mention having dropped out of school. It makes you look like a quitter who only got back into education when he found something "fun."

It took me 4 years in community college to work my way up from middle school level math to differential equations so that I could transfer to a university in order to continue my studies. I've been steadily working at getting my education while also holding jobs and student leadership positions all so that I may exit school and land a job working in the aerospace field. This is the goal of my entire life until this point. I hope Boeing is the kind of place that values my hard work and would welcome me into it's ranks.

Irrelevant; if you mean that you are a hard worker and willing to learn new skills, say so.

PERSONAL INTERESTS
I love everything space. I read books such as 'Space Settlements: A Design Study' (A NASA design study from the 70's on space-based solar power stations) and 'Making Space Happen' (a book about the growing commercialization of outer space) for fun. I stay current on the aerospace industry and frequent websites to read about companies like Boeing and their newest commercial products or endeavors. Even the video games I play (when I have time) are based around my love of space. Currently on Christmas break, I've been playing a game called Kerbal Space Program where the goal is to build your own Space Program and to explore the solar system, complete with realistic orbital dynamics.

Way too chatty, and way too long.

OBJECTIVE
I wish one day to build or design rocket systems like Boeing's CST-100 capsule or the Space Launch System. As I said before, I'd be just as happy working on an F-18 improvement, but my heart belongs to outer space and all of the kinds of wonderful (and in my opinion, completely awesome) projects that Boeing does in the final frontier

Isn't objective the same basic thing as job interest?

EXPERIENCE
05/01/2009 - 05/01/2011: Student Trustee on the Board of Trustees
XYZ Community College
As the Student Trustee, I worked closely within the team that forms the Board of Trustees to ensure that student's needs were being met by the college. I helped pass budgets that both satisfied the requirements of my 16,000 students while meeting the fiscal responsibilities of the institution.

I read through board reports and produced my own on various aspects of the college that dealt with student issues such as tuition and course offerings. I gave these reports in person at committee meetings, board meetings and at various statewide student trustee functions I attended during my tenure. I became intimately familiar with Microsoft Office products like Excel, PowerPoint and Word that helped me create and use the various reports I needed in my day-to-day work. {the next part, the bulleted part, is what I typed under the 'accomplishments part of the resume and this is the way the software presented it, without a seperate 'accomplishments' heading}
*I was twice elected by the student body.

*I simultaneously held the offices of President of the Student Government, Chair of the Illinois Community College Board - Student Advisory Committee (ICCB-SAC; a statewide committee that serves the Governor) and later served as Recording Officer of ICCB-SAC.

*During my tenure, I put together a detailed plan to bring student food service to one of the college's satellite campus by working closing {frakking typo } with a team of administrators and I also help {} look out for the interests of the students during one of the most challenging budgetary cycles in the college's history.

*Lobbied state and federal government on behalf of the college on trips to Springfield and Washington DC.

*Lead the student government to pass a new founding document akin to a constitution, which I drafted.

*Drafted a 'how-to' manual for new student trustees that ICCB-SAC distributes every year to students from across Illinois.

You need to clean up your grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Some people may not care, but personally, I see simple and avoidable errors in resumes and letters as a sign of carelessness that counts as a mark against hiring someone (sloppy resume may equal sloppy job performance).

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yeah this is the first draft and it definately does need to be cleaned up. Thanks for the input.

As for objective v job interest, I don't know. I guess they're the same. Like I've said before, this is the format they make me use, I have no choice in it.

 

[dutchfire]

It took me 4 years in community college to work my way up from middle school level math to differential equations so that I could transfer to a university in order to continue my studies. I've been steadily working at getting my education while also holding jobs and student leadership positions all so that I may exit school and land a job working in the aerospace field. This is the goal of my entire life until this point.

Are you writing an autobiography, or are you applying for a job?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Applying for a job and trying to head off questions of why I've been in school so long. I'm afraid they will put the resume down as soon as they see how long I've been in college. Also, it's an example of perseverance and working toward a goal that has direct bearing on my aspiration to work for Boeing. I want the resume to be personal, but if it's too much, let me know.

 

[TomYo689]

Any advice for person with high school diploma to get job at mcdonalds

 

[dutchfire]

Just flipping burgers? They probably have a website where you can fill in some form. I once applied to a McDonalds and it was really simple. (Got a better job first though, so didn't go to an interview) But I suppose the job market where you live might be different, I applied before the crisis and in a location without huge amounts of unemployed.

 

[Zelig]

Any advice for person with high school diploma to get job at mcdonalds

Put on a tie, show up with an error-free resume and ask to speak to a manager who is able to make hiring decisions. If (s)he isn't present, ask when s(he) will be present, and repeat at that time.

 

[TomYo689]

When you physically go there they tell you to apply online. Like if you have no skills experience or interests what do you put on your resume

 

[Zelig]

When you physically go there they tell you to apply online.

That's probably a euphemism for "we're not hiring".

Like if you have no skills experience or interests what do you put on your resume

Get some skills, experience and interest.

 

[TomYo689]

Life is hard lol