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Question: How far back can you go to put experience on a resume? I have experience doing help desk which would look good, but it was 15 years ago. I have three years of that experience but will it do more harm than good?

Also, what if I have experience at various jobs because I was a temp so wore a lot of different hats? I can list years of experience as secretarial but the problem is it was dribs and drabs. A couple months here, a couple months there, etc. If I add it up over ten years it is three or four years. Is it appropriate to add this?

The big issue for me though is that I have gaps in my resume because honestly the amount of money I got from unemployment was almost as much as what I made (net) from working only without the crap. How to handle this?

While I'm at it, here's my current resume with information removed.

CONTACT INFO (obviously removed)

Summary: Highly skilled individual for technical and administrative support

Hard (Technical) Skills:

- Knowledge of audio/visual equipment including event setup for meetings and conferences.
- Expert knowledge of IBM PCs, Macintosh PCs, printers, and related equipment
- Advanced experience with the use of the Microsoft Office suite of products

Soft (People) Skills:

- Extensive experience in technical support
- Extensive experience in working with diverse user populations
- Excellent professional written and oral communication skills

Primary Experience:

A workplace (Temporary Employment Services), Pittsburgh, PA (2006-present)

Videoconferencing support technician, educational program (6 months)
- provided technical support of distance learning videoconferencing
- assisted instructors in preparation for classes
- maintained equipment and reported issues to appropriate staff

Event support audio/visual technician, special events (6 months)
- assisted in setup and tear down of audio/visual equipment for conferences and events
- provided live support during events as requested
- instructed users in the operation of equipment when needed

Data entry clerk, Undergraduate Admissions (6 months)
- provided general office support for busy admissions office during peak period
- entered data in order to process incoming mail for filing purposes
- used office equipment as needed in order to assist staff members

A temp agency (2005-2006)

Individual software trainer
- provided live one-on-one software support for medical staff in a hospital setting
- assisted users with other general hardware and software concerns
- reported system difficulties to appropriate staff for follow-up and correction


Education:

Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy/Social Science - a college

To answer your first question, I would say if the work experience lends to the job you are applying for, then list it. Also, the way resumes are being written today has changed. Rather than just list where you worked or what your job function was, employers want to know what you CAN do and how it could help their company. Here is an example of my resume: (With some info omitted)


Contact Info

Objective
My goal is to to use my knowledge and creative force in ways that would help maximize the company’s potential.

Profile
I am a fast learner and a hard worker. I am dedicated to my work, pay attention to detail and have a strong sense of responsibility in everything I do. I work well with people, I feel that I have superb phone etiquette and an excellent customer service record. In all of my positions, I have been trained to do new things. I have always picked up on the training quickly and learn to master my job well. I am always willing to learn new things. I am organized, intelligent and dependable, usually ready for any challenge. I have experience in many different areas of work and I’m very adaptable.

Skills Summary

Microsoft Word
Microsoft Access
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft PowerPoint
Retail Management Experience
Detail-Oriented
Superb Phone Etiquette
Front-Office Operations
Customer Service
Professional Presentations
Written Correspondence
Report Preparation
Accounting/Bookkeeping

Employment History

Place of Work– (Name Omitted), Owner (Phone of owner), City, State
Assistant Manager, Ink and Laser Technician, Sept. 2007 to Present

 Responsible for the daily operations of the store. I have a hand in everything that makes the store efficient and operational. Opened and closed the store daily.
 Assisted in making some promotional items for the store. Brainstormed with the owners to create ideas for more sales.
 Cashed out customers using the cash register, handled cash, checks, debit and credit cards; all while using Retail Pro: Point of Sale Software
 Answered the phone when available and helped customers both in-store and over the phone with questions, customer service, comments and problems
 Responsible for creating orders for the customers as they came in, ensuring they were done on time, and that the orders were delivered
 Maintained customer Accounts Receivables, invoiced them, accept payments both in-store and over the phone
 Service calls to customers regarding their printers and troubleshooting printer problems at the customer’s site

Place of Work– (Name Omitted), Manager (Phone of manager), City, State
Inspector and Screen Printer, March 2006 to Sept. 2007
• Ran a large scale screen printing press that printed Harley-Davidson apparel
• Was responsible for the quality of the apparel that came off the press
• Used technical knowledge that was job specific to run and maintain the integrity of the press
• Made sure the orders were done as quickly as possible within quality standards


Place of Work– (Name Omitted), Manager (Phone of manager), City, State
Operations Administrative Assistant, Jan. 2005 to March 2006
(I held multiple positions while working at this company.)
• Performed office functions such as answering a multi-line telephone, greet guests at the front window, managed petty cash and credit card receipts for a company card held by the Director of Operations.
• Handled non-inventory purchase orders, mail, employee purchases, and office supplies.
• Responsible for a large amount of filing, comsisting of maintenance and organization of procedural and training records, purchase order records and frequently used forms or paperwork.
• Ran errands outside of company grounds.
• Prepared fill rate and productivity reports.
• Used Microsoft Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Internet Resources to perform my job functions.
• Head of the Safety Committee: Assisted in making numerous improvements to the company’s safety practices and Osha compliance.
• Head of the forklift training program and Lockout/Tagout program.
• Also kept many of the responsibilities from the position of QA Technician.

QA Technician, August 7, 2003 to January 10, 2005
• Handled all the documentation and auditing of the internal company procedures.
• Recorded all necessary procedure that previously went undocumented and kept accurate, up-to-date records of them.
• Created Microsoft Access databases to track and record procedure changes and audits.
• Participated in several courses involving Kaizan and time studies to improve accuracy, efficiency and organization.
• Involved in identifying quality standards for company product.
• Helped with day-to-day office tasks.

Packaging Clerk, July 10, 2002 to August 7, 2003
• Used different computer programs for data entry.
• Facilitated the packaging and bulk parts department by transferring work from one department to the next.

Packager, January 7, 2002 to July 10, 2002
• Operated a variety of packaging machinery.
• Bagged and boxed car parts for shipment to customers.
• Used computer programs to print labels and record efficiency and productivity.
• Lifted boxes that weighed as much as 40 pounds.

Place of Work– (Name Omitted), Manager (Phone of manager), City, State
Cashier, June, 2000 to September, 2001
• Tendered money, one-on-one contact with the customer, bagged groceries.


Education
Name of High School – City, State
Type of Diploma, Grad year GPA:

PIKE COUNTY VOCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY – City, State
Basic Accounting Certificate, 2001
Microsoft Access 2000 Certificate, 2003

SKILLPATH SEMINAR – City, State
The Indispensable Assistant, 2005

PENN FOSTER CAREER SCHOOL - http://pennfoster.edu/
Medical Billing and Codeing, Currently Enrolled


References

Name
Business Name
Phone
Type of Ref (Personal, or Business)

The rule of thumb is list your past four employers or the past ten years - which ever is less. For example if you've had six jobs in the past ten years, just list the past four jobs unless one of those jobs is directly related to what you're applying for now. You don't want your resume to be more than two pages long.

If you're applying for a job that you have experience in but it's too far back, add it at the top of your resume under "Related (or Relevant) Work Experience" and then go ahead and list your past jobs as you normally would. That way, they can see right at the top what you can bring to the table - even if it was three or four years ago.

Also, list your past duties in the past tense. For example:
- Ordered office supplies
- Issued PO's
- Made travel arrangements

etc...

Hope that helps and good luck, Eddy!

Eddy,

Check out the PDF below.

I found this one-page resume written in newspaper style -- in columns, that is. I adapted it for my DH when he was job hunting. It's quite an interesting format, and I made mine even better with a line separating the two columns, using bold and italics where appropriate, etc.

In short, when your background or your skills are traditional, you should NOT use a traditional resume format. This one gives weight to your skills, which you can summarize in categories. For example, I changed DH's skills to categories like "Emergency Management", "Public Service", "Regulatory" (he has jobs where he had to know government regulations inside and out), "Adult Education" (where he taught other people) and thing like that.

Months are passe in resumes. Where a job crosses a year, don't indicate that you were there only six months. You were there 2005-2006. If a job ended in the same year, put both years in, and indicate it was temporary or seasonal work. Because you don't have much space in this resume, you can simply say at the end "Seasonal". For one of DH's jobs where he left after he banked his retirement, I simply put "Retired." as the last item, rather than something more flowery like "Retired after 20 years of service" -- hey, if you look at the dates you can see he was there 20 years!

Anything where you were in the same job and were promoted, indicate only the last job title, but put the entire experience in the years section, and indicate "promoted through three ranks" or whatever.

Adjust the column headings for whatever matters to you. I got rid of the summary and goals statements -- a lot of people don't care about these anymore because, frankly, most of them suck. On the left side, DH has "Work Experience", "Education", "Publications" and "Certifications". On the right hand column, he has "Skills Overview".

Good luck! Dh got a lot of WOWs with this resume, but he sent out so few before he got a job (not off this resume but an application he put in before using this resume), so I can't say it's a successful resume. But it's a conversation starter, that's for sure!

ETA: Under your skills, you should do like this guy, and list your computer expertise separately. People are idiots -- most will say, "We don't have Microsoft Office, we have Microsoft Word", and say you're not qualified. List it all -- Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Picasa, DOS (I mean, go way back, to everything you know!), Cobol, C++, Whatever, Whatever, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Skype, More Whatever. Name it all.

PG-That's an interesting format for a resume. It's a good idea to get two pages of information on one page. I'm in the process of redoing mine as well because I'm at a stage where I have to start job hunting (will be unemployed very soon). One thing that sticks out in the resume that I've been told by so-called "experts" is to not list references and give references only when asked. Another thing I notice is the list of companies worked at before. Is it a good idea to have such a long list rather than the last few companies?

The one thing I noticed the most in previous experiences with job hunting is if a company gets tons of resumes to sift through and spend only 30 seconds looking at each one, the first and sometimes only thing they look at is work experience. If you have work experience in the field they're trying to fill, you have the inside track. I would concentrate more on that section of the resume than the rest. Once you've been in the workforce for a while, they don't give a damn about pieces of paper (diplomas and such), or your hobbies or interests outside of work or your 5 year plan. They are looking for someone who needs the least amount of training.

Writing a proper resume is such a subjective thing. There's no real right way or wrong way that's written in stone to set up a resume. I've had instances where one person said my resume is all wrong and another person said it was set up perfectly. I've been to resume writing seminars, and each time my resume gets changed to look totally different. It all boils down to what the person who does the hiring thinks of the resume.

Dog Holliday -- yeah, we got rid of the references on DH's version. His jobs fill only one quarter of the page, too -- half of the left side. But that covers his entire career since 1984 -- he was in one job for 20 years! But I agree that the work experience section should be minimized. Most people only care about the past few years. (BTW, this isn't DH's resume -- didn't want to put out his contact info! -- this is the version we worked from when we made ours.)

Eddy -- another way to beef up your resume might be to think about listing the temporary service you worked for as your employer (you did work for a temp, right? -- I'm forgetting!). That way you may be able to cover several years. You can mention the employers as a list, something like "worked for a variety of employers, including Acme, University of BlahBlah, Blowhard and Stuffy, and So and So."

I've done the temp route before. The way I covered that part is:
Employer: Various temp employment agencies (if more than one agency)
Date: 200? to 2009
Duties: list various job titles and a short description of job

If you had every temp job through one agency, I would put the name of the agency as employer. But if you worked for various agencies, there's no need at this point to specify which agencies. Employers know that you're going to go to whichever agency has work at the time, and they don't care which agency it is.

Re: References
Don't list them on your resume. Wait until you are asked for them and carry them with you to your interview (as well as clean copies of your resume incase they lost yours or want a couple more).

Quote:If you have work experience in the field they're trying to fill, you have the inside track. I would concentrate more on that section of the resume than the rest.

YES! Put this related job experience at the top of your resume so they see it first. If it's at the bottom i.e., earlier on in your career, they may not see it. List it at the top under "Related Work Experience"

Trust me. In the past 10 years I've had to look for work four times so I consider myself an expert on the subject of resumes and interviews.

A few times in my life, I have had to hire people.
When it came to applications, we got 150+ resumes for a single job.
I had 15-30 seconds per resume/application to screen down to 10-15% who would get a detailed look.

What worked for me as an employer:

-make your direct qualifications for this job and this company stand out and obvious at a glance

-NO spelling and punctuation errors
( about 30% had a few errors and about 10% had more than a few errors, these were instantly discarded)

-make your resume slightly unique
(ie interesting paper, columns, an interesting set of fonts, etc)

- follow up in some manner if you really want this job and are qualified
( if you were in the final 10% and contacted me appropriately and were qualified this stood out)

(02-01-2010 11:44 AM)cassia Wrote: [ -> ]- follow up in some manner if you really want this job and are qualified
( if you were in the final 10% and contacted me appropriately and were qualified this stood out)

This would only be appropriate AFTER an interview. Most ads state unequivocally that only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

No one wants to pick up the phone 10 times during their busy day and get asked "Did you receive my resume? I'd like to come in for an interview."

Correct!
Sorry about that.

Re: the follow-up "thank you for considering me": If you have the interviewer's e-mail address, is a phone call better than an e-mail or vice versa?

My hiring decisions were before the current technology.

The key thing was to show your enthusiasm, but not add to any hassle in the decision-maker's life.

I preferred indirect contact because I could review that letter, fax, email or voice mail in my own time.

I did not like demand-style contact such as phone calls, and 'no appointment' visits.

Very interesting ideas here. I'm definitely ditching the traditional chronological resume because that will definitely kill me. I am loving the newspaper format that PrairieGirl showed. Maybe it's the creative and distinctive person I am, but I hate the traditional format because it won't let me stand out. My work history is spotty as most of you know but when an employer appreciates me I'll bust my ass for them but being appreciated is a huge thing for me.

---

(02-01-2010 07:47 PM)Dog Holliday Wrote: [ -> ]Re: the follow-up "thank you for considering me": If you have the interviewer's e-mail address, is a phone call better than an e-mail or vice versa?

Go with email. It allows you to contact them at their leisure without disrupting their schedule.

With the follow-up I agree that it should be 'indirect'. An email is a good idea, although if you think that you have a reasonably good chance at an awesome job then I have also sent real cards ("Thank you for your time, I really appreciated the opportunity to meet with you as yours was a unique and educational interview.") It's all dependent upon the situation, and I'm still not sure if they even received my card

I have a standard thank you letter that I email after an interview to show that I am still interested in the job.

(01-31-2010 09:47 PM)PrairieGirl Wrote: [ -> ]Eddy -- another way to beef up your resume might be to think about listing the temporary service you worked for as your employer (you did work for a temp, right? -- I'm forgetting!). That way you may be able to cover several years. You can mention the employers as a list, something like "worked for a variety of employers, including Acme, University of BlahBlah, Blowhard and Stuffy, and So and So."

This is how my resume is. It says:

"TEMPORARY WORK, Administrative Assistant (dates)
Worked for such companies as _____________"

I know that if you have any gaps in your resume of more than a few months, they will hone in on that like vultures. And don't think that you can explain it in the cover letter because they won't read it. They look at the resume first, and if they don't like what they see, the whole thing will go in the trash.

For the gaps in my resume where I wasn't temping, I put "volunteer work" and listed some organizations I do volunteer work for. Even if I only volunteered there for a day, I put it down. Anything's better than a date gap.

(02-02-2010 11:18 AM)NKBurlington Wrote: [ -> ]I have a standard thank you letter that I email after an interview to show that I am still interested in the job.

Could you post one-an example-here? I've never done this, but it's a good idea if I get to that stage.

(02-08-2010 12:04 AM)Dog Holliday Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-02-2010 11:18 AM)NKBurlington Wrote: [ -> ]I have a standard thank you letter that I email after an interview to show that I am still interested in the job.

Could you post one-an example-here? I've never done this, but it's a good idea if I get to that stage.

Sure. Here's a sample:

Wednesday, February 10, 2010



Jane Smith
ABC Company
Address
Address
Address

Dear Jane,

Thank you for taking the time to discuss your opening for a Marketing Executive Assistant. I enjoyed meeting with you and learning more about ABC Company.

I believe that my extensive marketing experience and my educational background qualify me for this position. My knowledge of computers and software would also be especially valuable to me as a Marketing Executive within your department.

I am particularly impressed with ABC Company's recognition for Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies. I feel that this type of environment would challenge me to do my best work.

I look forward to hearing from you. Please feel free to contact me any time if you require any further information.

Sincerely,


Name
Phone
EMail

It's an impressive letter. Thanks.