{"id":48520,"date":"2013-11-20T10:30:12","date_gmt":"2013-11-20T15:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=48520"},"modified":"2013-11-20T09:43:11","modified_gmt":"2013-11-20T14:43:11","slug":"extreme-resume-makeover-library-technician-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=48520","title":{"rendered":"Extreme Resume Makeover: Library Technician Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Lauren Bourdages, Head Editor, INALJ Ontario<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Extreme Resume Makeover: Library Technician Edition<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"laurenbourdages\"<\/a>As a job seeker, one thing I inevitably spend a lot of time doing is reading career advice blogs and one take away from them is new advice and tips for resume writing. I enjoy writing, and I think, hope, that I am good at writing. I am good at summarizing and drilling ideas down into bite sized pieces; I think this is what helps me most when I\u2019m working on a resume. Anyway, as a result of my reading and my own enjoyment of writing I have gotten pretty good at putting together a resume (again that\u2019s my own opinion and my own sense of other people complimenting my resume) and because of that fact, combined with the fact that I\u2019ve always been the go-to editor\/proofreader for my friends means I regularly get asked to help them with their resumes. So far, every friend that I have given a resume makeover has gotten at least one interview immediately after using the new resume. After my latest resume makeover landed my friend an interview after she used it with an application, I thought it might be appropriate to share my tips with the LIS job seekers.<\/p>\n

Every friend I\u2019ve given a makeover to has either been using a Microsoft Office template, or has been using outdated resume advice so when I get their resumes, they are definitely in need of a pick me up. Here\u2019s the \u201cbefore\u201d for this particular case so you can see what I mean.<\/p>\n

Library Technician Resume – Before<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a terrible resume, but it\u2019s not the best it could be either; if I were the hiring manager looking at it I wouldn\u2019t be engaged. So what did I do? Here, have a look at the \u201cafter\u201d and then we\u2019ll discuss it.<\/p>\n

Library Technician Resume – After<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

I started by changing the fonts. A good tip to remember that I have read over and over again is to use a sans serif font like Arial, Tahoma or Century Gothic. This is because sans serif fonts were designed to be easily read on a screen, and for the most part, the first person encountering your resume will be reading it on a screen, so make it easier on them.<\/p>\n

You have a few options for a font scheme:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Use one font for the entire resume using formatting and sizing to make things stand out.<\/li>\n
  2. Use a serif font for the headers and a sans serif for the points (this is the choice I made for this makeover; I used Georgia for the serif and Tahoma for the sans serif).<\/li>\n
  3. Use a single font family, such as the different types of Franklin Gothic.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Just remember, when choosing a font, if you\u2019re not saving your resume as a PDF (and you SHOULD be to preserve your formatting!), then you have to use fonts that you can be 100% certain all of your readers will have. For that reason as a rule, I never use downloaded fonts for resumes, even when I am saving as a PDF.<\/p>\n

    Once you\u2019ve decided on your fonts, choose the style of resume you want to write, you have 3 major options, chronological, functional, and hybrid. All the best resume advice articles will tell you NOT to use the functional style and I agree with them. The hybrid style is my personal go-to and signature resume style and you can see it used here in the \u201cafter\u201d. One of the most common resume writing tips is to showcase all of your best achievements \u201cabove the fold\u201d e.g. as close to the top of the resume as possible. For that reason I always start a resume with a Professional Profile as seen in the \u201cafter\u201d. This allows me to group my accomplishments under headings that are pulled directly from the language of a job posting and shows a hiring manager all of my achievements in that area grouped together regardless of where I achieved them.<\/p>\n

    Whether you choose the hybrid style and a professional profile or stick to chronological, make sure you\u2019re not just highlighting your duties (i.e. \u201cEnforce and explain library policies and procedures including accepting payments for overdue fines & other fees\u201d) but also your achievements (i.e. \u201cAs one of the co-organizers of the Storytelling Series for the Anytown Museum, arranged all aspects of the series\u2019 events from arranging speakers to presiding over the each event\u201d). If you figured out a way to streamline a process that resulted in improved statistics for example then a hiring manager would want to know that if you\u2019re applying to a position where it\u2019s applicable. The other reason I like the professional profile is that, for me at least, it makes it a lot easier to tailor my application to a specific posting. I can swap lines and sections in and out with ease on a whim.<\/p>\n

    Another change you\u2019ll notice is that I swapped the position of her work history and education; that\u2019s another thing all of the advice out there agrees upon, your work history is more relevant than your education (when you actually have a work history as is the case here). Usually the advice states to only list positions from the last 10-15 years. Obviously that\u2019s going to change based on how many positions you\u2019ve had and how relevant they are. You\u2019ll notice between the \u201cbefore\u201d and \u201cafter\u201d that I not only combined her employment and volunteer experiences, but that I actually removed a few of her jobs. I chose to do this because in this instance she has enough relevant library experience that she doesn\u2019t need the insurance positions to prove that she has customer service skills. I also left a position from the 1990s on there because it is a relevant position.<\/p>\n

    I did the same thing in the education section, I could have deleted most of her education because of its age, but I felt it was all still relevant enough to leave it on. With Library Technician positions, sometimes they do ask for someone with a BA, so it doesn\u2019t really matter when she got it, just that she has it.<\/p>\n

    The one or two page debate is another piece of resume advice that crops up often. It\u2019s been my experience that anyone with more than two or three positions relevant to a job is going to need two pages, especially if they achieved a lot in those positions. When you get five or six positions or more, and start including volunteer work and professional activities you\u2019re definitely going to need more than one page to paint the full picture. So it\u2019s my tip to worry about length\u00a0less than you worry about content. Your resume is about painting a picture of your best professional self and why you are the person for a given position. To do that you need details, concise details, but details none the less and they take space.<\/p>\n

    Another section you should be including is your professional activities, this includes any professional development you\u2019ve done, presentations you\u2019ve given, and professional associations you are actively a part of.<\/p>\n

    In summary then, just remember, keep it clean, keep it concise, and keep it consistent. If you do all of those things and remember to tailor it each time you apply, then you\u2019re giving yourself the best chance of having your application package selected for an interview.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    by Lauren Bourdages, Head Editor, INALJ Ontario Extreme Resume Makeover: Library Technician Edition As a job seeker, one thing I inevitably spend a lot of time doing is reading career advice blogs and one take away from them is new advice and tips for resume writing. I enjoy writing, and I think, hope, that I…<\/p>\n

    Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":28554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[69,5747,3592,5146,293,5746,3603,3841,4431,5745],"class_list":["post-48520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-article","tag-before-and-after","tag-blog","tag-education","tag-experience","tag-font","tag-inalj-ontario","tag-lauren-bourdages","tag-library-technician","tag-resume-makeovers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/laurenbourdages.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-cCA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}