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Apropos of this has been in my drafts on Tumblr since I saw something go by there, and then in my DW drafts since I saw a couple people swearing at their job searches.
My System, for organizing my information for things like job interviews:
First, the way I used to do it, which maybe some people can do satisfactorily but made me very anxious: compile it all into a resume, then worry about forgetting things if stuff falls off the bottom, or what if I'm including too much information, or what if I describe something amazingly for one interview but manage to lose --
God. Horrible.
Now, the way that I am doing it:
Three (or more) spreadsheet tables.
First table: job history.
Columns to include things like: workplace name, job title, start date, starting pay, office contact info, summary of responsibilities, end date, ending pay, reason for leaving, supervisor name -- and basically any fucking impertinent question you've ever been asked to fill out about a workplace on some fucking application. As more applications ask more invasive questions, I add columns and backfill where I can.
This is where all that information lives permanently. Mine starts with the babysitting job I had when I was fourteen, which is never going to leave the spreadsheet, even as that approaches two decades in the past, and has long fallen off the actual resume. Having that information be in a permanent home and having a long enough work experience means that I can do things like leave unrelated positions off the resume (still including them when the employer asks for a full history of work experience for the past n jobs or n years, of course) because these days in all the fields I am playing in, the resume is about "why I am an excellent candidate" with past jobs as backing material, rather than the resume being "so what exactly have you been doing" -- that's usually done electronically nowadays in my experience. Your location and field may have different standards, so favor solid advice on contents/formatting from someone who knows your particular field over me blithely saying "oh yeah, you can leave stuff off the resume as long as you include it in the upload" because that may not be true for everyone.
Second table: job skills.
Columns: job identification, job skill, and a time I was awesome at work.
( Third table, references. Fourth, address history. Fifth, application history. Additional document: all the other fucking stuff that doesn't fit into the above. )
My System, for organizing my information for things like job interviews:
First, the way I used to do it, which maybe some people can do satisfactorily but made me very anxious: compile it all into a resume, then worry about forgetting things if stuff falls off the bottom, or what if I'm including too much information, or what if I describe something amazingly for one interview but manage to lose --
God. Horrible.
Now, the way that I am doing it:
Three (or more) spreadsheet tables.
First table: job history.
Columns to include things like: workplace name, job title, start date, starting pay, office contact info, summary of responsibilities, end date, ending pay, reason for leaving, supervisor name -- and basically any fucking impertinent question you've ever been asked to fill out about a workplace on some fucking application. As more applications ask more invasive questions, I add columns and backfill where I can.
This is where all that information lives permanently. Mine starts with the babysitting job I had when I was fourteen, which is never going to leave the spreadsheet, even as that approaches two decades in the past, and has long fallen off the actual resume. Having that information be in a permanent home and having a long enough work experience means that I can do things like leave unrelated positions off the resume (still including them when the employer asks for a full history of work experience for the past n jobs or n years, of course) because these days in all the fields I am playing in, the resume is about "why I am an excellent candidate" with past jobs as backing material, rather than the resume being "so what exactly have you been doing" -- that's usually done electronically nowadays in my experience. Your location and field may have different standards, so favor solid advice on contents/formatting from someone who knows your particular field over me blithely saying "oh yeah, you can leave stuff off the resume as long as you include it in the upload" because that may not be true for everyone.
Second table: job skills.
Columns: job identification, job skill, and a time I was awesome at work.
( Third table, references. Fourth, address history. Fifth, application history. Additional document: all the other fucking stuff that doesn't fit into the above. )
