Thursday, September 03, 2009

Resumes & Job Searching

So after recently dealing with some unexpected medical events, I found my new position at ATG (ARTG) cut short. Although I was asked to re-apply for the position after completing my medical leave, I decided to update my resume and see what other opportunities might be available to me here in the Austin area.
You might think (as did I at first) that since I had been keeping my resume updated throughout my time at Dell (DELL), and that since Dell hired me with this resume, that this would be a relatively easy task. Was I mistaken! It appears that I had created a monstrosity of a resume that was unlikely to make it through the first wave of pruning by a busy HR hiring manager. You see, I had succumbed to what may be a rather common mistake among job-hunters - the dreaded over-written resume.

Through LinkedIn, I managed to connect with a resume and career consultant named Perry Newman from FirstImpressions who offered me a few bits of advice on how to improve my resume. Actually, he joked that what I had written might be classified as a CV, but was definitely not a resume :| Perry pointed me to a few posts he had written on his blog about writing a great resume, which I devoured along with as many other good tips I could find (links are at the bottom of this post).

Thursday, August 06, 2009

I've finally got my LinkedIn Profile mostly complete...

It definitely took me way longer than I expected, but I figured since I recently left Dell I would go ahead and update my LinkedIn Profile to try and make sure I kept in touch with the many great people I've had a chance to work with over there. It took longer than I expected because I really didn't realize how much stuff there is on LinkedIn!


I had a few friends shoot me notes about joining LinkedIn, though I pretty much procrastinated on getting my account setup (sorry for those of you who've been inviting me over the last couple of months!!!) If you haven't checked it out yet, you definitely should - if for no other reason you'll have that fun Facebook friend experience for those people who you connected with at your previous jobs / schools. Funnily enough, I described it to Sam the other day as Facebook for grownups...of course now that everyone (including my Mom) is on Facebook, I guess that description may not be as accurate...