No More Writer's Block
I am so excited! I have finally finished my resume!! I had an appointment with my career counselor, Jeff, this morning to review my resume, and he gave it his “blessing.” We then went to LinkedIn on the Internet and updated my profile with information from my resume. After that, we talked about the types of companies I would like to work for, and Jeff gave me a homework assignment: to come up with a list of organizations that I am interested in.
With the completion of my resume, I feel this huge weight lifted from of my shoulders. Putting my resume together has taken me several months. At first I was gung-ho to start working on it, but after I took a resume-writing workshop, I developed writer’s block. I believe it was caused by the pressure to produce a resume quickly in a format that was unfamiliar to me. At the resume-writing workshop, I learned that today most potential employers want to see an applicant’s accomplishments listed on their resume (functional resume) instead of just a job description-type format (chronological resume), which is what I was used to. Not having to actually apply for a job for almost 20 years (my last 3 jobs were obtained through “connections”), I hadn’t had to re-do my resume for a long time, though I had kept it updated during all those years. Problem is, though, I hadn’t reformatted my resume in all that time, so it was just one long listing of my jobs and what I did at each one.
Thankfully, I had kept a copy of each of my annual performance evaluations I received while working at the National Association of Home Builders, so I had these in my possession when I was laid off from NAHB. The good thing about these NAHB reviews was that all of my accomplishments from year-to-year were included; as a result, I didn’t have to expend too much brainpower to remember them.
So, I had at hand my accomplishments that I needed to write my resume, and I just had to rewrite the ones I chose to highlight in my resume so that they were understandable and clearly showed my achievements. In my resume workshop I was given a formula to use in writing my accomplishments:
.....................Challenge + Action = Result (CAR)
And this is where I got hung up.
To help me overcome this roadblock, I decided to list each accomplishment using the CAR formula. I started by making 3 columns: one each for each part of the formula; and then took each accomplishment and break it down into each of the three parts. This proved much more difficult than I thought, and writer’s block really set in.
For two months I struggled with writer’s block, and no matter how many hours I sat at my computer trying to finish my resume, I made little progress. It was only after meeting with my very good friend, Jo, who is head of HR at an IT company, and Jeff, my career counselor, about my resume that I began to was able to jump the writer’s block hurdle. Once I finally got going, I finished my resume in less than 3 weeks.
I can now start looking for a job. I know the perfect job is out there for me and I can’t wait to find it!
I am so excited! I have finally finished my resume!! I had an appointment with my career counselor, Jeff, this morning to review my resume, and he gave it his “blessing.” We then went to LinkedIn on the Internet and updated my profile with information from my resume. After that, we talked about the types of companies I would like to work for, and Jeff gave me a homework assignment: to come up with a list of organizations that I am interested in.
With the completion of my resume, I feel this huge weight lifted from of my shoulders. Putting my resume together has taken me several months. At first I was gung-ho to start working on it, but after I took a resume-writing workshop, I developed writer’s block. I believe it was caused by the pressure to produce a resume quickly in a format that was unfamiliar to me. At the resume-writing workshop, I learned that today most potential employers want to see an applicant’s accomplishments listed on their resume (functional resume) instead of just a job description-type format (chronological resume), which is what I was used to. Not having to actually apply for a job for almost 20 years (my last 3 jobs were obtained through “connections”), I hadn’t had to re-do my resume for a long time, though I had kept it updated during all those years. Problem is, though, I hadn’t reformatted my resume in all that time, so it was just one long listing of my jobs and what I did at each one.
Thankfully, I had kept a copy of each of my annual performance evaluations I received while working at the National Association of Home Builders, so I had these in my possession when I was laid off from NAHB. The good thing about these NAHB reviews was that all of my accomplishments from year-to-year were included; as a result, I didn’t have to expend too much brainpower to remember them.
So, I had at hand my accomplishments that I needed to write my resume, and I just had to rewrite the ones I chose to highlight in my resume so that they were understandable and clearly showed my achievements. In my resume workshop I was given a formula to use in writing my accomplishments:
.....................Challenge + Action = Result (CAR)
And this is where I got hung up.
To help me overcome this roadblock, I decided to list each accomplishment using the CAR formula. I started by making 3 columns: one each for each part of the formula; and then took each accomplishment and break it down into each of the three parts. This proved much more difficult than I thought, and writer’s block really set in.
For two months I struggled with writer’s block, and no matter how many hours I sat at my computer trying to finish my resume, I made little progress. It was only after meeting with my very good friend, Jo, who is head of HR at an IT company, and Jeff, my career counselor, about my resume that I began to was able to jump the writer’s block hurdle. Once I finally got going, I finished my resume in less than 3 weeks.
I can now start looking for a job. I know the perfect job is out there for me and I can’t wait to find it!
