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Re: Certification -- what's in it for writers

Subject: Re: Certification -- what's in it for writers
From: "Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2011 07:06:33 -0700

I'm not talking about a functional resume. I hate those too. What I'm talking about is presenting yourself in the same way an outsourcing company or temp agency does. Look for broad categories you can split your years of experience into, for example five years from 1980-1985 as "contract aerospace technical writer" and 1995-2000 as "contract software technical writer," or 2000-2005 as "online help technical writer," and then describe the work you did for all the companies you worked at during each as if for a single company - you - and list the clients for that period. You can put the chronological list of companies and major projects there.. Then preface it with an introduction that presents yourself as if you were that company, lists your most impressive achievements and name-drops the better-known companies you did them for.

Gene Kim-Eng


----- Original Message ----- From: "William Sherman" <bsherman77 -at- embarqmail -dot- com>

I did one of those functional type resumes about 20 years ago as it was building to too large of a size. It got zero results. Too far ahead and too far from the norm.

A year ago, I did another, on the advice of a manager where I was about the be laid off. He said that was what he and other managers were looking for. I got very little response to it, and what usually I got, was a call from a recruiter to rewrite it in a conventional manner - title, company, time, job description and duties.

So my experience has been that even though this seems like the logical and right way to approach a resume situation like this, those doing the hiring are stuck in their old formal ways and discard it.

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References:
Re: Certification -- what's in it for writers: From: William Sherman
Re: Certification -- what's in it for writers: From: Gene Kim-Eng
Re: Certification -- what's in it for writers: From: William Sherman

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