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Your resumé is critically important in a job search. It's got to be just right. But how do you know what to put in and what to leave out? Here's how to spin your job history for success.
Your resumé is critically important in a job search. It's got to be just right. But how do you know what to put in and what to leave out? Here's how to spin your job history for success.
"Do playing video games and chess count as real job skills?" asks Yahoo Finance's Lauren Lyster in this video. In some cases, yes, responds reporter Aaron Pressman. World of Warcraft skills - working under pressure, or working on a team, for example - are useful in jobs in the worlds of finance and information technology, he says. Outside those fields, though, not all prospective employers are going to get the connection, and job-seekers need to be cautious.
There's plenty of stuff you ought to be leaving out of a resumé, says blogger Alison Green at USNews.com. Salary information, photos, lists of skills without an employment chronology, even your references don't belong on a resumé, she says. Short-term jobs - unless related to contract work, a political campaign, or other obviously time-limited assignments - also should stay off a resumé, since they raise questions about whether you got fired, Green says. Oh, and nobody is likely to care where you went to high school.
A URL for your profile page at the LinkedIn career site ought to be on your resumé, says Alison Doyle, the "job search expert" in a post at About.com. "Prospective employers can, at a glance, visit LinkedIn to learn more about you and your skills and qualifications," Doyle writes. "However, you should be sure to fully develop your profile prior to listing your URL. If your profile simply restates the same information that's included on your resumé, you won't improve your chances."
Doyle's post, noted above, includes several links to her companion post about what to include in a LinkedIn profile, and how to be sure it is publicly available so that employers can find it. Doyle stresses the importance of having a photo of "the professional you" at LinkedIn, along with a narrative summary of your experience, and a headline on the summary. If you are unemployed, Doyle has a list of suggested headlines that signal both your expertise and immediate availability, your status "in transition," or freelance status.
A machine might be your resumé's first reader. So to get past go, you'll need to know what keywords and buzzwords to use, without overdoing it, writes Business Insider careers editor Jacquelyn Smith. In addition, pay attention to format, avoid fancy fonts, hunt for typos, and see that the resumé tells the story of your "professional experiences, accomplishments, skills and knowledge."