OT: Resume help needed

[kingnebwsu]

So another thread sparked my interest in applying for a job at GameStop. I just put together my first resume (pretty much ever) and I'm looking for some feedback from you guys. I'll edit it as I get feedback, and hopefully by the end I'll have something good enough to get me a job!!!

Any feedback (no matter how nit-picky or small) is welcome. I've cut it down to one FULL page!!!

UPDATE 1: EDITED 1:54 PM 7/23/05
UPDATE 2: EDITED 12:33 AM 7/24/05

I've also cut it down to one column! Everything is aligned left.

KingNebWSU

OBJECTIVE
Use my years of management experience at the top national video and game rental chain and my extensive gaming knowledge to obtain a management position at GameStop
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
• #9 store in the region (94 stores) with Movie Pass subscription sales as of November 30, 2004
• Named “best store in the district” for January and February, 2005
• Improved store from “the worst Blockbuster ever” (Zone Vice President) to an overall rating of “9” by April 2005
• Finished Movie Pass subscription drive as the #2 store in the region in May 2005
• Only store in region to score 100% on eight consecutive mystery shops (January through June 2005)
• Reduced shrink from 7.1% (in October 2004) to .3% in June 2005
• Promoted to a higher volume Blockbuster in July 2005
WORK EXPERIENCE
BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO
Store Manager, 7/05 to present (Huber Heights, Ohio); 9/04 to 7/05 (Fairborn, Ohio) Assistant Store Manager, 8/02 to 9/04 (Beavercreek, Ohio)
Customer Service Representative, 6/99 to 5/02 (Beavercreek, Ohio)
• Recruit, interview, and hire an effective and motivated sales team
• Develop sales goals and coach employees to maximize sales opportunities and increase potential profit

• Create schedules that will minimize labor costs as well as ensure business success
• Train staff on loss prevention behaviors that will deter internal and external theft
• Use game and movie knowledge to meet customer needs and drive revenue
EDUCATION
Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio
Bachelor of Arts in Music, June 2002
Honors: Cum Laude, 3.43 GPA, Spanish minor, 251 credit hours earned
Activities: Private Lessons Instructor (9/98 to 6/02), Wright State University Spirit Band - Student Director (9/99 to 3/02); Section Leader (9/97 to 3/99)

[Psmith]

That is a damn good resume for someone who's never written one before. My suggestions (and I'm not experienced in business, so take them for what they're worth): 1) 2.4 pages is excessively long for a resume that only covers 6 years in the workforce. You don't really need to make a separate column for the headings. Bold, all caps, underlining, bigger font, or some combination of these will make the headings stand out just fine in a one-column format. Also, you can shave a few bullet points. Do you really need to inform people that you went to monthly meeting? They'll probably assume that of a manager. 2) Did you get paid in your student band positions? If so, fine; if not, they should go under your education section. 3) The second-to-last section, where you list your achievements in quantifiable, specific facts, is THE most important part of this resume. Don't bury it at the end of the resume, on the second/third page. Put it in or immediately after the work history. Don't give people the chance to set aside the resume before they see that. 4) Please, please, please, can you replace "utilize" with "use"? Just to please my tender sensibilities?

Good luck!

[Logan]

Get rid of that "objective." 1. You don't want to make it so specific to one job. 2. You don't want to have that whole "fantastic" thing going.

A resume objective should be simple. Go with something like "To obtain a job in the retail sales industry, utilizing customer service, technical, and interpersonal skills."

That's how I learned it. Simple objective, then list 3 skills you have that would make you a good fit.

[Logan]

dola...

You can shave off some length by getting rid of your reference section. When I was in school last year, we (my fellow business school classmates) had to take a forum class where we would hear a bunch of corporate America-type people come in and speak. Any HR-related person said the same thing about resumes: Get rid of a reference section. The popular thing these days is to list "References: Available upon request" but get rid of that shit too. 1. They're going to want to see references so they'll request it separately, usually after they have already chosen you for further consideration based on the resume. 2. Everybody has references, and your resume is supposed to show what you have and others don't.

[jbmagic]

a resume should be one page only.

[kingnebwsu]

Thanks for the tips guys, I updated my resume above.

I don't think I can cut it to one page, but we'll see.

Further tips are welcome, as I think it's still kind of a rough draft

[Logan]

Multi-page resumes are starting to become more accepted. Personally I wouldn't do it, but that's just me. I've also never seen/heard of 2 columns in a resume. Again, I wouldn't do it, but if you really can't see yourself cutting it down I guess that's okay. But to have a combination of both these things I would say isn't great.

Some other nitpicky things...

Like I said before, I would take the "Gamestop Manager" out of the objective. This should be a resume that you could be giving out to 4 different stores.

Don't list every single one of your job responsibilities in such detail. You don't want them to know everything about what you've done--that's what the interview is for. You want them to ask you questions so you can talk up all your achievements . They should look at your resume and want to ask a question such as "I see you performed a lot of administrative duties. Can you tell me about what you're interaction with other employees was like on a daily basis?" Stupid shit like that.

Education section should be above work experience. Order should be Obj, Ed, Work Exp, Achievements/Activities.

For your jobs in the past, put your verbs in the past tense. At that job in Beavercreek, you're not "maintaining store appearance to current standards." You "maintained" it, damn it. Yes its nitpicky, but its accurate. I feel that you're nitpicky too, since (unless it was a typo) you said the resume is 2.4 pages long, not 2 and a half.

One thing though...all of my suggestions are on the basis of what I've learned for typical resumes you would send to corporations. If the retail sales industry is different, don't hold me responsible.

[Loren]

the length is fine, more bosses seem to want more information on resumes now, used to get away with a one pager before, but now it seems they want more and more, get to the interview and they're asking, why you didnt inculde a cover page or a page about yourself..soo that shouldnt be a problem, i dunno about "bullet'ing" every one of your job descriptions for each job though, makes it kinda look like you're TRYING to make the resume longer..just word it together, and edit it, on the blockbuster description you mention evaluating employees twice, cut it down...
and Logan's right, the only place you should mention the actual store name is on your cover page where you address THEM, not on your objective, your objective should be something basic about the kind of job you're looking for...a short paragraph about what you're looking for in a job and how you could apply those skills to it...

[Passacaglia]

I agree with the others -- cut it to one page. Multi-page resumes are acceptable if you've had several careers. If you have only one previous job listed, it definitely shouldn't be more than one page.

[yabanci]

Good luck. Here would be my advice.

Cut it down to one page max. More than one page is a big mistake, no matter what anybody tells you. Ditch the dual columns. Another mistake. You want to have a standard, professional resume. Anyone who encourages you to break the mold is doing you a disservice.

If you are going to use an objective, make it sell better. Saying that you want to use your "game expertise and retail experience" isn't going to differentiate you from anybody. And the retail experience is more important than playing games, so mention it first. It should say something along the lines of, "use my years of management experience at the top national video and game retailer to obtain a management position at gamestop." Whatever, but you want to sell it more.

Make it more personal and specific. You have to remember that somebody is going to have a stack of resumes and you're lucky if they look at your resume for more than a minute. It's critical that the first paragraph be something impressive that makes you stand out. You don't want to start out with the generic job descriptions that you have now. They sound like they were cut and pasted from some vanilla blockbuster training manual.

The things that really stand out are your accomplishments, but you have those buried down at the bottom where they probably will never get read. If you want to catch someone's eye, the first thing you should say that you took the worst performing store and turned it around to the "best store in district," that under your management the store finished blockbuster's movie pass subscription drive as the #2 store in the region and was the only store to score 100% on eight consecutive mystery shops. That's somebody I want to inteview. Starting off by saying that you "ensure customer service standards to maximize customer experience" and "schedule, organize and direct assignments" is dull and meaningless.

You should sit down and think about what the gamestop people are looking for in the person they want to hire. Then show specifically and persuasively that you have experience in successfully doing those things. For example, I doubt they are sitting around saying, we really need to find someone who can encourage store employees to take ownership for their performance and career development plans and then follow up on a regular basis. You shouldn't have that listed as your #4 selling point. It shouldn't even be listed.

You need to be specific and pointed. Think about it like an interview, as if you had one minute to sit before them and answer the question, what experience you have that would be relevant to us? If you said, I "ensure customer service standards to maximize customer experience and utilize labor management tools," their eyes would glaze over and they'd say, what the hell does that mean? If I were you, I would take the bullet points you have as a jumping off point, but ask myself what are they looking for, what am I really trying to say, and then say it specifically and concretely in plain English. For example, how big of a store did you manage, how many employees, etc. These are specific things that should be noted. You don't want to be too specific, but the worst thing you can do is be generic.

Another thing I would recommend is not separating out your job titles. It wastes a lot of space, tends to be duplicative, and breaks up and minimizes your experience. Consider doing it like this:

Work experience
BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO
Store Manager, 7/05 to present (Huber Heights, Ohio); 9/04 to 7/05 (Fairborn, Ohio)
Assistant Store Manager, 8/02 to 9/04 (Beavercreek, Ohio)
Customer Service Representative, 6/99 to 5/02 (Beavercreek, Ohio)

This immediately shows that you are a dedicated company guy who has moved up the ranks and necessarily has a ton of experience in all aspects of running this kind of store. If you start by describing your achievements as I suggested above, then go into a better description of your responsibilities/experience, you come off like a guy who has been in this business long enough that he knows how to take over a store and when given the opportunity, he can turn a bad performing store into the best in the district, etc. That's what they are looking for.

With respect to education, the format should mirror the work experience format and you shouldn't have the band stuff separated out. In my opinion, there's too much emphasis on the band stuff in this resume. If I'm looking for someone to hire, I'm glad they have a degree cum laude, but I don't care if they sang songs with the cheerleaders. Think about doing it like this:

Education
Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio
Bachelor of Arts in Music, minor in Spanish
Honors: Cum Laude (any others?)
Activities: Wright State University Band - Student Director (9/99 to 3/02); Section Leader (9/97 to 3/99)

(by the way, if you speak Spanish, that should be noted somewhere because being bilingual is a big plus).

Hope this helps.

[cthomer5000]

cut it to one page.

[DaddyTorgo]

got a resume question: if i was in a job for say...less than 3 months, should I even bother to put it on my resume, or would it make more sense to just leave it off?

[AlexB]

don;t know if things are exactly the same in the US as the UK, but yabanci has said almost everything I was going to and more.

In your case it is vital to list the Blockbuster roles all as one section beacuse if I'm reading it right you've been in the current position for a maximum of 3 weeks? Don;t lie about it, but mix it in with the other information to show clealrly that you have worked for them for a longer period.

And it might be the next step on in any interview you get, but make sure you have a damned good answer for why you are looking to move on so quickly after taking up a new role, as this is going to be a question you are asked. You have to convince them why when you were promoted to a higher volume store you immeadiately want to leave - that it was not because of the pressures of a busier store - and that you will be able to offer them a longer term of service.

Overall, with the advice given by the various people above, it should read all good apart from this obvious alarm bell.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by yabanci

Good luck. Here would be my advice.

Huge amount of fantastic advice snipped

B-I-N-G-O.

And also forgot to wish you luck with this. Definitely keep us posted on your status.

[kingnebwsu]

Yabanci, you're my hero...thanks!!!

Big cheers to everyone who has contributed thus far. It's Saturday late-night right now, and my goal is to take this resume to my local Gamestop on Monday afternoon. Any further tips before then would be appreciated. I tried to take all of your advice and incorporate it. I left out a few things, but I'm pretty happy where it is overall.

It's down to only one page!!! That took some doing. Everyone please be super-nit-picky about wordings/phrasings/locations/things I left out/whatever. I really wanna impress people with this resume. I think it's way better than yesterday. I've spent like 5 hours on it so far...so I'm hoping it can help me get a job

Updates on the actual resume:
All the main sections (work exp, objective, education, etc) are bolded and underlined. My name is in the upper left part of the page. My phone # and address is in smaller font in the upper-right part of the page. Things are double-spaced between the sections, but everything within a section is single-spaced (except the bullet points). I know that's vague and confusing, but I can't cut&paste 100% into the forum.

Any further advice would be welcome...I've received so much helpful advice already!!! I'll definitely keep everyone posted. I'll be watching this thread on Sunday!

-KingNeb

[kingnebwsu]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

got a resume question: if i was in a job for say...less than 3 months, should I even bother to put it on my resume, or would it make more sense to just leave it off?

Unless you were laid off (or even if you were), I would probably leave it off a resume (unless it's part of continuous employment). Anytime I see somebody at a job for only 3 months, it's an alarm bell. Maybe it was a summer job (which was fine), but if it was like Feb-Apr, I'd leave it off.

[DaddyTorgo]

that's pretty much what i was thinking king. just wanted someone else to be thinking the same way

[cody8200]

Hey guys, my g/f just graduated and is trying to make a good resume. Any specific tips you could give to make the one she has better?


Objective
Motivated individual seeking a position to utilize gained knowledge to effectively change society and the betterment of the development of children

Education
Indiana University Bloomington, IN (June 2005)
Bachelor of Science in Cognitive Science, Concentration in Cognition
Earned 15 credits towards Informatics and 19 credits in Psychology

Work Experience
Counselor
Girl Scouts of Limberlost Council Syracuse, IN (Summers 2004, 2005)
• Demonstrated team dynamics with fellow counselors and female children ages 6-15
• Maintained the well-being of children for periods of one week
• Developed curriculum for girls in archery and arts and crafts


Volunteer Experience
Lab Assistant
Indiana University Psychology Department Bloomington, IN (September 2004-June 2005)
• Utilized database and recruited infants from the Bloomington and Indianapolis areas for
• Performed actual Distractor study
• Coded video of experiment using computer program called Noldus Observer


Computer Skills
• Efficient in Windows Office with proficient skills in Word and Excel

Certifications
• First Aid and CPR certified
• Level 1 Archery certified by the IFAA

[Logan]

As you can see in what I suggested for the original resume, I think objectives should be very straight-forward and no-nonsense. So personally I would advise getting rid of the "effectively change society." Just sounds too cliche. Plus, unless I'm not reading it right...I don't think the statement itself is grammatically correct, tense-wise.

[Raven Hawk]

Sorry to have not seen this earlier, but being in the HR field, I can offer this advice:

To Kingnebwsu:

Your bullet points aren't very concrete. As an HR person, this is one of those things that drives me crazy. From your resume, here are a couple of things that would annoy me.

1. How many subscriptions did you sell, and what did you do to accomplish this? Did you do anything special or did it just happen?

2. Most of these list items appear to have happened when you were the Assistant Store Manager. My first thought is that you got lucky enough to work for a good Store Manager who made these things happen. You need to make me believe that you contributed to the success of these projects.

3. Don't assume that a rating of "9" is meaningful to everybody. Is that out of 10 or out of 20? It would also be beneficial to mention what it was rated when it was considered the worst Blockbuster store . . . ever.

4. Other things I want to know: How many employees worked at the store? How big was the district (# of stores)? How big was the region? All of your accomplishments should have concrete numbers and tell the tale of how you contributed to those numbers.

5. Remove future references. Words such as "potential" and "will" are all bullshit. People want to know what you have done, because there are plenty of people who have good intentions. Employers want people who have good track records.

6. One of the things that you really have going for you is that Blockbuster promoted you on two different occassions (sp?). Make sure that your prospective employer knows exactly why they did that.

7. I really like your education section. It shows that you took school seriously and also took positions of leadership.

8. As a rule of thumb, entry-level to mid-level job seekers should only have 1 page resumes (0-7 years). When you start looking for those upper level jobs, then it is OK to go over 1 page, but rarely is it OK to go over 2 pages.

9. Cover letters are just as important as a resume. Make sure that you write one and that specifically states why you are qualified for the job. Also make sure that you request an interview, (i.e. "Please feel free to contact me at xxx-xxx-xxxx so that we may further discuss my qualifications for the job.")

Sorry if this seems hyper-critical and it may be too-little too-late. I tend to be hyper-critical of resumes and I have seen recruiters toss resumes into the "do not call" pile for the most minute of things (i.e. not punctuating all bullet points the same/properly.

If I saw your resume for a store manager for your position, I probably would call you, because you have some impressive stuff on it. But there would be some hard questions for you to answer. Make sure that you are prepared to take a phone call. Don't worry about having to call somebody back if it's a bad time for you. I actually recommend that you do this. It will allow you take the interview into your own hands and give a little time to prepare. You know the recruiter will be prepared and there is nothing worse than shooting from the hip because a recruiter caught you off guard.

Good luck, Kingnebwsu, I hope that it works out. Give us an update.

[Raven Hawk]

Dola,

To cody8200:

Unfortunately, there really isn't much that a fresh grad can do to spruce up the resume. Take a moment to look at some of the points that I made to Kingnebwsu and work that into the resume.

What will be important for your girlfriend is listing projects that she has worked on in college. College work experience usually doesn't transfer over to the professional work environment too well. School work is a much better indication of how somebody will fare in the corporate environment. When listing projects, make sure that they are big projects that she worked on, how she managed the workload, and what the resulting grade was. What is more important for her to show (since her list of accomplishments is short) is not necessarily what she's done, but how she's done it.

It would be a good idea for her to list her GPA (providing that it's over 3.0). However, hiding it pretty much blatantly tells a recruiter that the person is not proud of their GPA.

Some suggestions for rephrasing:
1. "Worked with fellow counselors to supervise and coordinate activities for (insert total number of children) children ages 6-15"
2. "Created curriculum for camp activities in the areas of archery, arts, & crafts."
3. "Performed Distractor study where (tell me what the hell a distractor study is)"

That's about it. Like I said, it's not easy creating a resume for a recent grad. She really needs to show that she's motivated and responsible. The work experience may come in handy if she applies for positions where she would use those specific skills.

[Desnudo]

If you have more than college + internships, more than one page is fine. My main advice would be to describe achievements. Like:

Reduced shrink from 7.1% (in October 2004) to .3% in June by implementing blah blah blah

If you want me to elaborate further, please let me know.

[KevinNU7]

Originally Posted by cody8200

Computer Skills
• Efficient in Windows Office with proficient skills in Word and Excel

Computer Skills
• Efficient in Microsoft Office with proficient skills in Word and Excel

[cody8200]

Originally Posted by Raven Hawk

Dola,

To cody8200:
What will be important for your girlfriend is listing projects that she has worked on in college. College work experience usually doesn't transfer over to the professional work environment too well. School work is a much better indication of how somebody will fare in the corporate environment. When listing projects, make sure that they are big projects that she worked on, how she managed the workload, and what the resulting grade was. What is more important for her to show (since her list of accomplishments is short) is not necessarily what she's done, but how she's done it.

How would she go about putting that in her resume? Would she cite it as class group work? Where would she put the grade she received? For example, How could she say that over the period of a few weeks she set up an EEG experiment, led group meetings, wrote an indiviual report on the experiment, and presented the powerpoint presentation for the experiment? I think that in this experiment she showed her responsibility, her ability to work as a team and do quality work (she received an A for her part in this experiment).

BTW, she wanted me to thank everyone for their input and help.

[Raven Hawk]

Originally Posted by cody8200

How would she go about putting that in her resume? Would she cite it as class group work? Where would she put the grade she received? For example, How could she say that over the period of a few weeks she set up an EEG experiment, led group meetings, wrote an indiviual report on the experiment, and presented the powerpoint presentation for the experiment? I think that in this experiment she showed her responsibility, her ability to work as a team and do quality work (she received an A for her part in this experiment).

BTW, she wanted me to thank everyone for their input and help.

I'd do it something like this:

Education
Indiana University Bloomington, IN (June 2005)
Bachelor of Science in Cognitive Science, Concentration in Cognition
*Earned 15 credits towards Informatics and 19 credits in Psychology
*Led EEG experiment for (insert name of class). Responsibilities included setting up and facilitating group meetings, writing the report, and presenting results to class. Project Grade: "A"

No need to mention Powerpoint in the bullet. If she wants to say that she is proficient in Ppt, she should mention that in her "Computer Skills" section. After all, it would seem silly to mention that she wrote the report using Microsoft Word, right?

Use other bullet points for other accomplishments while she was at IU. Some things might include things like fundraisers, academic organization memberships, and honors she might have received.

Good luck to her. Let me know if I can be any further help.

[kingnebwsu]

Thanks for the further info guys

I turned in my resume 17 days ago and still no reply I gave a follow-up call to the store manager at gamestop (the guy who let me know about the position) four days after I turned it in. He said something like "hopefully he'll give you a call this weekend either way." Of course, no phone call. I decided it'd been long enough so today I left a message on the District Mgr's phone. Hopefully he'll call me back. (Shrug) I know I don't call people when I'm not interested, but this kinda sucks I think I have decent qualifications (but I know my resume is still kinda raw).

I do appreciate the advice and I will definitely reference and repost in this thread when I go job-seeking again. I think since Gamestop hasn't contacted me yet, I'll just stay at Blockbuster through the end of the year and maybe check out Best Buy or something in Q1 next year. I dunno, though. I'm kinda bummed, because I know I'd be great at a place like Gamestop. Maybe I'll even reapply to GameStop in Q1 or Q2 of 2006 after all the dust has settled on the EB merger. That's the ticket...my bad timing...yeah, that's it

I did include a cover letter that further expressed my interest and I thought it was pretty solid. It did include my phone #'s on it.

(Shrug) I try not to think about the whole thing, as it kinda bums me out. This is the first job I've applied for since I became a store mgr. and not getting even an interview makes me sad (tear).

Thanks again for the advice and I'll bookmark this thread for when I update/redo my resume

[Raven Hawk]

Don't fret, kingnebwsu.

Trust me when I say that the retail industry isn't well known for its staffing practices. I hate when people don't at least call if they say that they will. That's so unprofessional. I don't mind it so much if somebody says: "If you don't hear from us in two weeks, we're not interested." At least that way you have a place to hang your expectations, and summarily abandon them when the two weeks passes.

I hope that the guy is just busy and hasn't had a chance to call people. Good luck!