Having thought through the career possibilities and assessed the advice given by the resource people you consulted, it is time to consider the market—what jobs are available to you? Depending upon the type of work you do, or would prefer to do, there may be a specialised employment service available to help. For example, in most cities there will be agencies specialising in secretarial and receptionist services, computer personnel, and technical sales people, to name but a few. For managerial positions, management consultants can be approached. Generally, the fees for placing an applicant are paid by the employer, but there might be some service fees payable by the applicant.
If you have a very convincing personality and some ideas which may be attractive to a particular industry, you might want to try advertising your services. It might sound egocentric, but it has worked for some. I know of a young man, Alan, who wanted to break into the TV/film industry. He spent two hundred dollars to place an ad in a national weekly newspaper which is widely read by people in film work. The ad said something like: Ambitious and talented young man wanting to contribute enthusiasm and ideas to a film production unit. Potential limited only by opportunity. Contact . . . ‘ The ad appeared on a Thursday and he was invited for an interview that Saturday. On Monday he was hard at work with the television station which responded to his ad. While such an approach might sound brazen, it worked—but I should say that Alan had the confidence and talent to back up his ad.
Preparing your resume
There are many excellent references on resume preparation, some of which are obtainable from government employment services. I will not go into detail here, other than to mention a few guidelines.
- Be brief. Try to keep your resume to one or two pages.
- Ask yourself what information an employer would want to have about you, given the type of positions for which you will be applying.
- Use the following headings to facilitate reading: Name
- Address
- Telephone
- Personal details
- Work experience
- Qualifications
- Other details
- References
Structure your work experience section by listing your positions proceeding from the present backwards if you have had only a few jobs. If you have had many jobs and are concerned about being labelled a ‘job hopper’, then compose your work experience section by job skills.
- If you have had little relevant job experience, then consider your outside activities to see if you can list some leadership experiences or other relevant skills.
- Make a draft version of your resume and take it to an experienced person for comment.
- Experiment with various types of page layout to achieve maximum presentability and readability.
- Have your resume typed.
- Read through the resume to be certain there are no errors in spelling, grammar or syntax.
Having prepared a resume, you will want to custom adapt it to the different jobs for which you are applying. A computer is especially helpful in editing the basic form. If you have access to a computer, put your resume on file so that it can be updated and changed with minimal trouble.
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