Any Resume experts?

[jaybird2001wi]

I am currently putting together four different resumes to target different fields in which I am experienced in and the more I look at it, the more I think my resume is boring and not concise and don't know how to prioritize and stylize my resume to make certain experiences jump out at people. My journalism experience and career is probably the most important and I have written for 10 publications and don't even know how to prioritize.

Can someone help me? And if so, I can send my resumes to you and you can kind of critique it.

[mothershipconnection]

Don't be cutesy and be objective. The first resumes I look at are the ones that are in a standard font and look "clean". Then, I kinda scan them for generalities like "responsible for excellence" - these go to the bottom. This goes for a cover letter too. Say what you DID and what your accomplishments and training are, rather than "I have a passion for my work and will be a true asset because of my undying commitment to success". What the heck does that mean?

[jaybird2001wi]

Objective To obtain a position as a news or sports reporter for a newspaper

Experience News Intern

October 2006-January 2007 Lake County News-Sun, Waukegan, IL

? Contributed to team coverage of Bears DT Tank Johnson's arrest

? Three news clips published in the Chicago Sun-Times.

? Volunteered to work holidays as the sole reporter in the newsroom

Sports Editor

September 2003-December 2004 Royal Purple, Whitewater, WI

? Supervised up to 10 sports reporters for the student-run newspaper

? Paginated sports stories using Quark Express

? Represented UW-Whitewater in National Conventions in Dallas and New York

Sports Intern

June 2004-September 2004 Southern Lakes Newspapers, Burlington, WI

? Generated and wrote sports stories for two weekly community newspapers.

? Overseen the development/pagination of the Whitewater Register and Palmyra-Eagle Enterprise on a weekly basis.

? Did not miss a single deadline through the entire internship.

Sports correspondent

September 2003-December 2004 Beloit Daily News, Beloit, WI

? Covered the former Milwaukee Brewers minor league affiliate

? Showed versatility by covering high school hockey, basketball, football and baseball.

? More than 10 clips were featured in the front page of the sports section.

Education University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Whitewater, WI

September 2001-Present

? Journalism Major/Speech-Public Relations minor

? Worked way up to Sports Editor of student newspaper from general sports/news reporter in less than 3 years.

Software Skills Quark Express, Adobe Pagemaker, Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Publisher, Microsoft FrontPage, InDesign, NewsEdit, Hermes.

References Two letters of recommendation enclosed.

[PeaveyFury]

Objective statements are hit or miss- some places will tell you to use one, but most 'writing classes' tell you not to, as it usually involves 'finding a job in this field' or even worse, 'finding a job in this field with your company'. Most employers' responses: Obviously. But some places claim it helps to have some sort of goal out there.

[And That]

The first thing that jumped out at me was a typo: "Overseen the..." should be "Oversaw the...". If I were HR there, I would strongly think about eliminating your resume based on that.

 

The most important aspect to a resume is that you should keep it to a clean one page thing unless you have so much work experience (i.e., you are older) that you can't help but let it spill. With the caveat that I've never worked in HR for a newspaper, I'd say from a brief glance that you have too much detail on experience on your resume. For instance, I may care more than you know how to use Quark than that you covered Tank Johnson's whatever. I'm also going to guess that journalism is becoming increasingly reliant on reporters that know how to use computers, so I'd think about making the computer stuff more prevalent.

 

Basically, I think they are assuming a reporter knows how to report. But, what other things can you do to make sure you're a valuable employee?

 

Edit: From what I remember from a journalism class I once took, you may want to make mention that you can provide a published article you've written. What might be eye-catching in a resume (especially an electronic one) is a link to a story you've written.

[mothershipconnection]

Some minor suggestions. Please note that I do not have great skills with punctuation.

 

? Showed versatility by covering high school hockey, basketball, football and baseball.

Covered a variety of sports, including high school hockey, basketball, football and baseball.

 

Worked way up to Sports Editor of student newspaper from general sports/news reporter in less than 3 years.

General sports news reporter [year]-[year]

Promoted to sports editor of the student newspaper in [year]

 

? Journalism Major/Speech-Public Relations minor

B.A./B.A. in Journalism - [year]. Minor in Public Relations.

 

Did not miss a single deadline through the entire internship.

All assignments were completed prior to the specified deadline.

[ccbrew]

--Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on resumes. I'm a current student graduating in December though, so I've been tinkering with my resume for the past year and a bit..--

 

As it's generally considered standard to keep your resume to one page, you should eliminate anything that doesn't add value. I think it would be best to ditch your objective statement. It doesn't really say anything profound (they hardly ever do, IMO), and if you're applying for job at a particular company..they will make the assumption that yes, your objective is to find a job there. No need to add clutter, because you have a few seconds at most to put yourself in the "good" pile instead in some desk drawer along with everybody else's.

 

I think it would be better to state your objective in your a cover letter. State why you want the position and how you would be an asset to the company while tying in some of your prior experiences. It'll do more than a single line on a resume ever will.

[thablingster]

Scout some of the news/sports reporter positions advertised even if those aren't ones you will apply for right away and see what common language is used in them. Generally you want to tailor the language in your resume to the "hot words" that employers are looking for. For example in my field (counseling/advising) there is a big push right now about diversity and working with people from diverse backgrounds, so I made sure to put some good information on my resume about my experiences working with diverse populations on my resume. Researching through positions and identifying some of the general things people hiring for those positions are looking for may help you to figure out what experience you have to focus on most.

 

You probably will want to tweak the objective statement obviously once you know what job you're applying for, but if you can come up with a strong one it would be to your benefit.

 

http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/CDC/CDC_Resume_Writing_Guide.pdf ... that might help a bit. I have used that before. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[GAME05]

yeah, definitely have someone else look over your resume for spelling and grammar errors. i'm in the editorial field, too, and in this industry, one tiny little messup will kill your chances. for example, i'm pretty sure it's spelled Quark XPress, not Quark Express.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Hey jaybird...

 

I'm the editor of a newspaper in northern Wisconsin, and I'm looking for an associate that has news and sportswriting experience. It's a Journal Sentinel-owned weekly. The pay isn't great (about average for entry-level in journalism), but you'd get mucho experience and get to cover a wide variety of topics.

 

If you're interested, PM or email me...I can get you the particulars.

[bjkrautk]

Did not miss a single deadline through the entire internship

 

Does that mean, by comparison, that you did miss deadlines for the rest of your employment history? I can see why you wanted that on the resume when it was first put there, but tying that qualification to one employer - and not all the others - would seem odd to me.

 

Covered the former Milwaukee Brewers minor league affiliate

 

Without knowing the particulars about the intended audience, does it really matter whether it was a Brewers' affiliate? What might matter more is how you covered them: did you prepare the box scores, write game summaries, were you a beat reporter, did you interview players, etc.

 

Worked way up to Sports Editor of student newspaper from general sports/news reporter in less than 3 years

September 2003-December 2004 Royal Purple, Whitewater, WI

 

It's either yours or mine, but someone's math isn't lining up. If you have multiple positions with the newspaper, but are only listing the time as Sports Editor...you might want to change the organizational formatting. (I realize that you're probably just limiting the resume to sports journalism, but I have to believe that a broader background in journalism would be important to whoever is reading the resume.)

 

Good luck!