The non-all-important resume

As a student, I spent a lot of time working on my resume.  I met with several counselors for suggestions.  I reworded sentences endlessly.  After meeting with each advisor, I'd change paragraphs to bullet lists and back to paragraphs.  I bought special cotton paper.  I fussed over fonts and formatting.  I adjusted the size and justification of my name.  And looking back now, it was probably all a poor use of time. 

As with any document, before creating a resume, you need to identify two things:

1. What is your purpose?
2. Who is your audience?  

I can only speak for my own experience.  I spent two years as a university recruiter for a 3000-employee technical company and also served on the recruiting team for a small IT start-up. Let me tell you what wasn't important to my recruiting team... after the jump.

Effective Networking Part 1

Every good opportunity has come from people I knew

Starting with my first job in my career, every new opportunity has come from a relationship with someone I knew.  The best jobs, the kind of jobs you really want, don’t make it to the job listings.  The interesting, challenging jobs that require thinking will never be listed in the Help Wanted ads or recruited for at career fairs.  The open-ended jobs that require responsibility and innovation will always be given to someone with whom the hiring manager has a relationship.

That sounds unfair to people that don’t have any contacts.  It did to me when I was a student and my classmates were being offered internships from friends of their parents.  “Must be nice,” I’d think to myself as I spent my afternoons online applying for summer positions.  But the reality is, there’s no point feeling bitter about it or feeling left out.  Networking is the great career equalizer.   Anyone can do it and everyone should. 

I'll give one example... after the jump.