What's a good resume-building website?
My step-father’s aunt and uncle just moved in with my parents from another state. They are moving here and in the process of looking for a place to live and work. His aunt already found work, but his uncle is just now starting to apply for jobs. They’re an older couple (not older as in old, but more like in their 40’s or 50’s) and aren’t the most tech-savvy people in the world.
He had his last job for 15 years, so he’s never even created a resume. He wants me to help him, but I live 30 minutes away and currently have no access to a computer unless I’m at work, so it’s hard for me to help him create a resume on short notice.
So, what’s a good website that will help someone create a decent resume that’s user friendly for those who don’t use a computer all the time? It would be hard for me to even walk him through it over the phone, just because he’s not familiar with Word templates or email or anything like that.
Any advice would be awesome.
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I would look at business school web sites and see what they suggest a resume look like. They tend to provide templates you can use.
You can use O*Net to help inspire yoou with position-specific information.
I had to take a course called Business Communications while I was in college. In that course, we learned how to build a resume according to the position we were applying for.
There are two different types of resumes, a chronological resume and a functional resume.
The chronological resume is the most popular, where you list your previous jobs in order starting with the most recent. This type of resume is used by those who have held jobs for a long period of time, like your step-uncle, and is preferred by most employers.
The functional resume is used by people with less experience in a single field and also those who have changed jobs frequently. Its purpose is to highlight the applicant’s skills instead of focusing on previous employment.
All resumes should begin with an objective and the objective should always be modified to fit the job that is being applied for.
In order for your step-uncle to write a good resume, he needs to be specific with past job duties. For example: if he worked in retail, he shouldn’t just write “Worked with customers”, he needs to write how many customers. If it was only 10, then the employer will know he was more personal with the customers. If he served 100 or more, then the employer will know he’s capable of maintaining his work load. Understand?
Microsoft has some pretty good templates programmed into Word. He can use those and fill in the blanks. This answer was to give a better understanding of how he should lay it out. I hope I helped!
Some online websites for job searching are:
www.careerbuilder.com
www.monster.com
www.careerjournal.com
www.hotjobs.com
As a career services professional, my suggestion is don’t use a website or software at all . . . at least not at first. If this is an older gentleman who’s not that tech-savvy, don’t make him feel any more uncomfortable. Have him write everything down. Then he can send it to you (or a typist) to type for him. If he sends it to you and you are comfortable with Word, problem solved.
No learning curve, and it gets the job done.
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