Day 10 of 48
Sometimes the news that hits you like a ton of bricks is actually what you expected all along. I can’t really explain any more than that, but today, Dan Miller’s 48 Days to the Work You Love has me recreate my resumé. This is probably the oddest resumé I’ve ever created, but maybe that’s been my problem. I’ve shaded out details I think are better left private, but what’s your feedback? Would you hire me to be your composition master? I’ve got some work yet to do, but here’s a glance:
November 1st, 2005 at 2:18 pm
a few comments (for what they’re worth):
+ the opening ‘years of experience’ litany leaves me pretty cold. are you married to that?
+ under you qualifications section, i would change it to ‘experience’ or something like that and use stronger verbs. ‘competent’ is pretty blase. so, for example, for that first bullet i’d say ‘planned and led…’ seems stronger to me.
+ if you want to leave the ‘qualifications’, i’d still use strong verbs, eg: ‘I lead and accompany ensembles on both piano and guitar’ or something like that.
+ i’ve got more stuff in this vein, if you find it helpful…
+ the musical experience in churches seems like a rehash or stuff above, just with specific congregations. maybe just list the churches where you’ve played…?
November 1st, 2005 at 11:26 pm
I’m not a fan of the typical resume partial sentence structure, such as the following:
“Adequately experienced in software development using buzzwords and related activities including the shaving of yaks”
I think it’s artificial and incomprehensible. My brain shuts down when I try to read that sort of thing. The relevant stuff is buried in the connective tissue. (Not your fault; it’s probably exactly what you were taught.) It’s probably less than PC, but I’d be more at ease saying:
Strengths:
C#
Rails
OSX
Technical Writing
and save the longer descriptive sentences for the jobs I worked at:
“Developed a local interest blogazine using WordPress, Flash and a few friends. Launched in 1 week. Made $1M on AdSense in a month.”
Just MHO as a writer/reader (not as a career counselor).