Although I may not be able to apply the methods in chapter 15 to a resume for more than a decade due to my career in the Air Force, there is still a lot of common ground that relates to me. One of the points in chapter fifteen that stuck out to me was the part about verb-first phrases that are used to save space. This is a technique used very often by the Air Force for awards and promotion packages. It’s for the same reason as what would happen in the resume process. There are a lot of applicants and the board needs to scan through quickly to choose the best one(s) so putting any sort of fluff space may hurt your chances by drawing the readers attention away from the important information (which would go along with last week's discussion of knowing your audience). Conversely, the point in the chapter that you should not puff up the information is, to an extent, different in the military. The example used was if you worked as a fast food cashier then you would not say he “conducted financial transactions.” There is still a standard that you should not build things up to an exaggeration, however power words are often used to accentuate things that may seem otherwise minuscule. For example, if my team and I found a new way to set up the payroll that decreased man-hours by 5 per week I would say something like “spearheaded a innovative new payroll system to save 5 man-hours per week in his team.”
Aside from the resume writing methods, the other point of this chapter that stuck out to me was diversifying where you put your applications on the market. I recently had to do this to get a job for this semester. You cannot simply apply to one job and sit around. I applied to 16 jobs in the area via phone, email, and walk-in methods and only got 2 interviews, which were some of the latter jobs I applied to. This proved to me that if I did not diversify then I would currently be jobless.
Resumes
I am in the same boat as you in terms of writing a resume. Since I plan on going to medical school after I graduate, it will be quite some time before I can put some of these tips to use. If all goes well, I am hoping to not really have to do much job searching, as there is always a need for employees in the medical field. However, I still need to apply to medical schools which is very close to applying for a job. I will still need to get all of my skills and strengths across in order to get past the first round of applicants. It makes it a little easier though, that medical school is medical school, and each application will ask for the same things, so I won't have to tailor each one as much as I would applying for a job. I am also planning on using my connections to get into the school that I want. I have met some people that work for the schools that I would like to attend that have given me alot of help and tips. Hopefully they can help me reach my final goal. Either way, while I cannot use all of the information presented in this chapter, alot of it will still apply to my chosen career path.
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I really liked the way that you thought about using the verbs in your resume. I think that it is both interesting and unique that the Air Force uses some of the same tools that the chapter provides us in writing resumes. If the Air Force uses it in there awards or promotion packages, then it is obviously a good tool to use in writing resumes. I think that it might be a good idea to have an up to date resume even if you are not going to use it for a long time. You never know when an opportunity might come along.
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I agree with you on the usage and importance of the verb phrases. Not many people want to sit around and read through a bunch of extra stuff to totally miss the point. I know that if I was the one reviewing all of the resumes that a company could possibly receive, I would not want read a resume where someone is obviously trying to fluff themselves up. I think it is best to get to the point so the person reviewing your resume will know what you are trying to say. On that same note you have to be careful to not give enough information.