Been at this company for almost 6 years. I started when I was in high school as "the computer guy" making almost minimum wage when there were 4 employees total. I am now the #1 guy below the owners and do a variety of "not every average schmoe can do this" type of tasks. I'm also finally making a respectable salary.
However, it's a travel business where most of the business goes to Cancun. At our highest point we had close to 30 employees, 27 of which worked under me... now we have about 14... and since Cancun just got pwned, well, you get the picture. Plus, it's been going ugly these past few months anyway.
So naturally I want to look out for myself and be ready if it's time to pick up and go.
Unfortunately, I've never written a real resume before (dad knew the owner when I got the job 6 years ago). I have read tons of resumes and interviewed people before (part of my normal function), but mostly I'm reading resumes where I'm trying to overlook spelling and grammar errors rather than find an applicant who really impresses me.
So... here are some of my questions for those a bit more experienced:
1) "Objective" - is there really a point to this? When I read resumes, I'd normally look at them in order to amuse myself by grammar barbarianisms, but they really don't tell me anything about the person. They're more of a "who can say they want a good job in the most leet fashion?" Of course, it does look pretty up there at the top of a resume, and mine looks cool, so I'm considering leaving it.
2) Employment History vs Education (employment history goes first, right?)
3) Employment History: Like I said, I have one job, and it spans over 6 years with tons of tasks and accomplishments. I don't want to write stuff like "increased sales X percent!" because it's too vague and it's hearsay, but going into detail will make my resume 3 pages long. A friend suggested that my entire Employment History section be a narrative in paragraph form about my responsibilities and achivements because it's "hard to impress someone using primitive sentence fragments in bullet form." Then again, do you want to read a narrative while going through a resume? Thoughts?
4) Education: Listed my degree, final GPA, and the fact that I graduated in only 3 years. Any other suggestions for this section?
5) Other Skills Section: Stick to concrete skills or list unsubstantiable stuff like "I'm a fast learner!" and "I'm a team player!"
6) Other Interests/Hobbies: I've seen sections like this on other resumes before. I skipped 'em thinking "what do I care?" Would a potential employer care that I like Golf, Fencing, and that card game we're not allowed to talk about?
finally... 7) References: "References are available upon request." Like the Objective, I find this section useless since of course you're going to give references if asked, but, like Objective, it looks pretty. Thoughts?
some poopers for your effort. NSFW i guess