Resume

I doubt many recruiters are going to read through your list of courses and immediately give you an interview where they wouldn't have before. I think 1-page is a pretty good rule until you have substantial job experience that needs to be discussed. My one page resume has a 3 line profile, an education section, lengthy descriptions of my duties at 2 jobs, and a section listing my software and programming knowledge.

Another factor is the industry you're applying to. I came out to New York and started to apply jobs in the financial industry but my job experience was at a software development company. Almost every worthwhile interview I got was because of my cover letter and not my resume. But if you are following a trend like major in CS > Programming job > want new programming job, then your resume is going to count for a lot more.

Another tip is if you have good ACT/SAT/GRE scores, you should include those. They are starting to matter to some employers more and more and if you have good scores you might as well show it off (the same as how you include GPA unless it sucked)

I agree with Micah.

If you are trying for another job where you have no specific work experience and you did stuff in class list what you did. Courses wont mean anything to anyone anyway.

Chances are however since we've been out of school for 3 years now, no one is going to care one way or another about what you learned in school.

ps I thought you liked your job.

It never hurts to keep one's resume up to date just in case something comes along.

Submit a one-pager, but bring your good stuff for the interview.

When I submitted mine at Digi, they looked to see if and from where I graduated, then employment history.

I'll tell you what though, if you participated in intramurals, they don't give one GD. Some of the courses you took don't matter either.

Eau Claire will tell you otherwise. The Tech just didn't tell us.

I think a lot of what the university spends time and resources on is how to get that first job. How to get around the "if everyone wants you to have experience before they hire you, how do you ever get experience" adage.

The "rules" are completely different after you've had a "real job".

In fact even in college our professors told us to emphasize any experience we got paid to do that might be helpful/relevant to a future job.

There was also an epic battle between our professors and the Career Services people. Career Services told people to more or less list every job you've ever had. If you sold lemonade at 7, mowed a lawn at 12 and baby sat your cousins once at 14, put that on your resume.

Our professors told us that no one is going to give two craps about that stuff and to only list a job only if it's relevant, otherwise the resume "real estate" is better spent on something else.

I agree with your professors on that one, who gives a rat's tail about those types of jobs?

If you were 55 and you've had 4-5 real jobs that lasted a few years or so, then definately put 'em down. Do you think CTI or Digi cared that I worked at BK for 3 months in '98? Oh heck no!

Yeah, I agreed with my professors then, and I agree now.

The only thing it would have bought me to list everything is maybe someone would have liked that I worked steadily from 14 on. That's still a lot of page space to dedicate to hope that impresses them.

I don't know what is on your resume, but mine is full- Address, Education, Employment, Achievements, and it's done.

Mine is my name, a phone number I don't have anymore, and a doodle of myself programming.

Look a "valid" use of self quoting!

Anyway I wanted to add to this point that not only did I work from 14 on, but I worked at BK and Copps for like 2 years each, which is an ETERNITY for those places. So maybe that would have been "impressive" to someone as well.

no, because the level of work was so inane you should have paid THEM.

(you were an OVENMIT for crying out loud)

The work experience it self is worthless. My point was that it showed a good work ethic to get a job at 14 and that it showed loyalty to stay there 2 years when 2 weeks was the going average. My point wasn't that anyone would be impressed by my Whopper making skills.

(and it was Ovenmitt)

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

personal enjoyment is no less valid.

I think it shows that you're complacent and have already reached your peak potential.

Dammit. I quoted Jeremy's comment, but when I was editing it down, I lost the beginning quote tag, so I edited it to put it in, then when I hit save, my comments showed up twice, so I edited it again and deleted my comments, and then (on the school computer at least) it looked ok. Now I get home and see that my comments don't show up at all. I blame Jeremy.

It should have looked like this:



5 1/2 years at Kohl's

His comment, since he still didn't note it (even in a comment about how it didn't save,) was that he worked at Kohl's for 5 1/2 years.

Edit: Beaten!!

See though, there's a fine line between showing loyalty and showing a lack of ambition.

Well, once I hit 3 years, I had to go for 5 so I could get my name on the plaque for people who worked 5 or more years. Of course, seeing as how they ripped my name off the plaque about 2 minutes after I quit because they needed more space, it hardly seems worth it anymore.

Seems like you should be able to sue for something like that.

Indeed

Anyone know of any employers in the Appleton area with IT/Support openings? Melissa got a job offer in Oshkosh and she starts in May. So come May 7, I will either be out of a job and golfing a lot or starting a new job shortly there after.

The job market is tough, that's for sure. Just look at their newspapers online and see what comes up, or go to any of the big websites (monster.com, careerbuilder.com, etc). Although, it might be a little early if you want a job to start in May or June.

Do you know anyone in the Appleton/Oshkosh area? When I had just graduated college I thought all that crap about "80% of jobs come through people you know" was kind of crap, but as I get older it happens way more often. Even if you can just get someone you know to hand in your resume for you, it had a way better chance of getting looked at rather than just added to the pile. If you know someone well in the area who can recommend you that's even better.

If all else fails, your wife should demand as a condition of her employment that they hire you as her secretary or butler or something. That should work.

Dice.com is a good job website for IT jobs. But I know from experience that almost every job on the big boards has hundreds of applicants within a day or two.

I'd go for golfing a lot if I was you (at least for the summer). I don't know of anything (other than a software engineer job in De Pere that I almost interviewed for) specifically, but from my own searchings there does seem to be a fair amount of IT jobs in the Fox Valley. Whether any of them are open at the moment is a different question.

Well, I've sent my resume to a number of companies in the Oshkosh area, including Wipfli no less, who apparently has an IT service department of some kind. Anyway, it's amazing how getting connections can start to make job searching easier, because someone at the Milwaukee Wipfli office has business connections to every hospital in the Fox Valley and is going to try to get me in touch with their IT departments. We'll see where this takes me.

of some kind? Um it's a huge part of who we are. I see you didn't use my awesome connections..... er yea.

Expand upon that. What is it exactly? Is it your run of mill tech support? Or is it more along the lines of IT consulting? My brother-in-law just started with Wipfli in Appleton a few weeks ago and he just told me "hey, they have some kind of it department, if you want to give me your resume." (he wasn't sure that IT didn't actually mean "it").

Now that I actually look at the job description, it all makes sense. No openings on my side of the state though, at least according to their website. That is unless I want to be an accountant, because it seems that they have some sort of accouting side as well.

and BTW, Dice.com was actually pretty helpful. If anyone knows any other good tech job sites, post them.

One page, cover letter, have portfolio handy, biggest thing... research the company completely before going.

Well, I may have found something. I could be back in Wisconsin by mid-March to early April. Oh the excitement!

What? That's pretty soon. I think you'll probably need some help packing. I better take some time off work and go down to florida. You know, to help out.

Speaking of soon, March 15 is the day! I'll be living most likely in Madison temporarily before finding a permanent place in the Fox Valley. Details to come later.

Woo March 15th, it can't come soon enough!

Two weeks notice given, I'm leaving Tampa March 12. Woohoo!

You're funny.