Time to Polish Up Your Resume: Ideas, Resources, Templates

With little warning, the pandemic has thrown many people into job search mode.  Many of my readers are finding themselves starting over, looking for a job, any job.  To have a fighting chance at landing a suitable position, now's the time to get the job hunt going in full force.  First item of business:  Get your resume updated.  

I've often written about how to make a great resume.  I do think you can write your own resume, and here's how.   I've also compiled my other resume writing advice here. 

To get started, use a resume template.  Some good ones I've mentioned in the past are on Canva.com.  Recently I have learned about Resume Genius.  They have some great templates and also information about how to write your resume, what to put on it, and how to format it.  I enjoyed their advice on The One Page Resume and The Two Page Resume.  I'm a fan of a one pager, but know that it is tough for an experienced professional to get everything on one page, so I'll concede to a two page resume if completely necessary, just make sure the first page counts!  And don't have the dreaded one-and-about-a-half-page resume.  If you need two pages, fill both pages up.

Not everyone is up for writing their own resume.  With COVID, resume writers are coming out of the woodwork, and plenty of them aren't worth the fee they charge you for a mediocre resume.  Robin Ryan wrote a great article for Forbes Careers about how to avoid getting duped when hiring a resume writer.  Robin is a resume writer, and encourages you to do your homework on the person who will be making your prime marketing piece for your next career move.   

Robin recommends finding a resume writer who has strong referrals, someone who has hiring and work experience in your industry, and someone who takes the time to learn about you and turns around the resume to you in a timely manner.  

Robin also wrote about five resumes mistakes to avoid.  This was all spot on with what I experience with resumes.  While taking her advice, here's another great article from Rebecca Henninger of the Forbes Coaches Council about what your resume should look like in 2020.  

If you find yourself out of a job, treat your job hunt like a job.  Have daily tasks, work with your professional network, and stay on top of industry news.  And keep on keeping on.  If there was ever a time when people will understand that you are job hunting, now is the time.

And don't forget to send me your new resume!

George Anders' June Newsletter on College, Careers and the Future of Work

George Anders is putting together a new book, You Can Do Anything:  The Surprising Power of a 'Useless" Liberal Arts Education.  He just sent out his June Newsletter which contains great information about job-market dynamics, the value of a college degree and related topics.  Take a look at it, and feel free to subscribe to it yourself.  Click here for the link to George's website and to sign up for the newsletter.   

June Newsletter:
Welcome to June’s edition of this newsletter about college, careers, and the future of work. In this issue, I’m looking at the rise of robots and software, with a focus on what humans can do to stay ahead. I’m also giving away five advance copies of my new book, You Can Do Anything: The Surprising Power of a ‘Useless’ Liberal Arts Education. (See the final section for details.)
 
Everyone’s Destiny in a Single Chart

The latest issue of Bloomberg Businessweek includes a brilliant chart spanning nearly 700 careers – from marriage therapists to carpet installers. For each one, Oxford University researchers have calculated the 20-year odds of automation-related job loss. It’s an interactive marvel. Scroll down to the fourth chart in the article and let your mouse hover over various yellow, green and red circles to see what’s deemed safe and what isn’t.

This vision of the future taps into two big insights: one familiar, the other startling.

First: the best safeguard against automation is a college degree. The college-honed skills of a lawyer or even a fundraising specialist will be hard to duplicate with software or robots. It’s a different story, however for office clerks or restaurant employees. Such work, for now, is available to anyone with a high school degree. As we all know, however, software and machines keep making inroads where tasks are simple, repetitive and predictable.

Now comes the surprise. Some high-paying jobs that cater to college grads look vulnerable, too. Prime examples include bank-lending officers and the most routine aspects of computer programming. The safest jobs, according to Oxford researchers Carl Frey and Michael Osborne, involve a high level of originality and an intense “service orientation.” That’s good news for ambitious executives and brainy software developers. Refreshingly, it’s a boon, too, for social workers, writers, teachers, doctors, nurses and physical therapists.
 
Is Anyone Lecturing About This?

The answer is yes. MIT economist David Autor is an especially astute voice; this link takes you to his popular 2016 TEDx talk about job-market dynamics. Silicon Valley eminence Jerry Kaplan shares plenty of insights from his recent book, Humans Need Not Apply, in this talk. And I’m getting in the game as well.

Earlier this month, I traveled to Denver to discuss “Work’s Provocative Future” with trustees of a leading liberal-arts college. In September, I’ll be delivering an updated version of this talk at Claremont McKenna College, in southern California. If you’re interested in seeing a preview of my key slides on the topic, you can find them at this Slideshare link. I’m convinced that creativity, curiosity and empathy can sustain good jobs in areas that the machines can’t touch. If that’s a perspective that interests you, we should connect!
 
Making Foreign-Language Expertise Pay Off

Each issue of this newsletter focuses on new trends for particular college majors. This month, the spotlight is on degrees in French, Japanese, and other languages. As this recent piece on Forbes.com attests, language majors are benefiting from the boom in localization, as companies of all sizes scramble to recast English-language content for diverse markets world-wide.

Think bigger than the mechanics of line-by-line translation. That’s partially automated already, and it’s a favorite target of machine-learning. What’s crucial is human oversight, starting with recruiting teams of translators and making sure the work is parceled out appropriately. Someone also needs to referee difficult calls about everything from profanity to local color taboos. These are high-impact, high-paying managerial jobs. They call for people who can work well in cultures both familiar and unfamiliar. Language degrees can be the winning ticket. At Brigham Young University, localization has become the college of humanities’ fastest growing minor.

Share This Newsletter; Win a Book

Newsletters are meant to be shared, and this one is no exception. Many of you have forwarded earlier editions to dozens of your friends, relatives and business colleagues. I appreciate the support! In fact, I’d like to do more to recognize this community’s most active sharers.

While You Can Do Anything is still a few weeks away from its bookstore debut, we’ve got a limited number of bound galleys that amount to a full paperback preview. (These galleys traditionally go to book-review editors, broadcast producers and the like, ahead of formal publication.)

If you’d like an early copy, free, all you need to do is be generous with your sharing. I’ll look at the email analytics a week from now, with the goal of sending free galleys to the five newsletter readers who are the most active sharers. Or if you'd rather be sure of getting a hardcover or e-book as soon as YCDA goes on sale (Aug. 8), simply click on the cover image to the right to place a pre-order. The book just became Amazon's No. 1 new release in its Career Development Counseling category, which is exciting news! .
 
Yours,