Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2014-01-10 06:36 am
azurelunatic) wrote2014-01-10 06:36 am
Entry tags:
My current job application/work history system.
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.
The job identification column can be further broken down into any sub-columns that would help you sort it better, but the main idea is that you should be able to sort this table by various positions you have held. I break it down to workplace and job function, so I have records related to my phone interviewing job function at Survey Hell, records related to my QA Monitor function there, my Bullpen Wrangler function, and my administrative assistant stuff. Some people may go through a job and only wear one hat; some people may wear a lot of concurrent hats; some people have worn many hats but sequentially. Just put something there that makes sense so when you're going through trying to build a resume, you can sort for the positions that make sense to talk about.
The job skill column is the one I often leave until last to fill in. With the way my brain works, it can make more sense to me to talk at length about that time when I noticed that three fields in a web based application appeared to be ever so slightly out of alignment because they had inconsistent shadow effects, and one was missing a colon, and then realize that this is a great example of "detail-oriented", than to say "Gosh, what is one time that I was detail-oriented? Oh, I know, that!" (Sometimes it does work the other way for me.)
The time I was awesome at work column is the best column. Basically I stick accomplishments or work anecdotes that make me look good in there, then label them with the workplace and role that it relates to, and then figure out what pithy description of a job skill (one, or sometimes a few) which apply. (For data integrity reasons, I put them on separate lines, because I sort by the job skill column later.)
So later, when a job application says I need the following list of skills, and ordinarily I would be racking my brain, I go into the job skills table and sort it by the job skills, and figure out which of my skill descriptions map to their list of skills. Then I have several examples to highlight on my resume, to mention in the cover letter, and bring to the interview. If the position mentions skills that I have, but that I don't have listed, I search my brains for an example of a time when I did something that fit, and then add it to the table so I'll have it for next time.
Third table: references.
This has entries for every possible personal and professional reference, and a few impossible ones. It includes all managers and supervisors I can think of (whether they would prefer to be contacted or not, whether I would prefer to have people contact them or not), the employment verification fax line at the domain shop, and my actual personal and professional references. Columns include name, contact methods, relationship to me, how they prefer to be contacted, time of our meeting, whether or not they can be contacted, and the like. Columns are added when places ask me new and increasingly horrible questions about these people.
Originally my thing stopped there, but apparently there are other things that should be tracked.
Fourth table: address history.
WHO EVEN NEEDS TO KNOW THESE THINGS. People who need background checks as part of the application process, apparently.
Fifth table: application history.
Job applications are obnoxious as hell, and it can be hard to track wtf is going on with them. Keeping tabs on that is an administrative burden in its own right. I heard of this concept after the last time I was actively job-seeking, but here are the things I might recommend:
Date of application/last contact. Company name. Company contact info. Position title. Link to job ad. Where you are in the application process (such as "researching", "resume sent", "side-eyeing like hell", "haven't heard from and it's been 3 months", "interviewed", "2nd round interviewed", "rejected", "interviewed and never heard from again"). Notes.
Generally, applying twice for the same position is a bit of a no-no, and something like this can help with that. It can also help when maybe you interview with a company in like 2005, you realize that one of the people that you would be working with is a heinous pain and you are never, ever, ever going to be able to work with them, and then you don't remember in 2009 and accept a job there when sadly you'll be working closely with them, albeit with a certain amount of interference run by your mutual, and long-suffering, manager.
Additional document:
ALL THE STUPID OTHER INFORMATION THAT DOESN'T FIT INTO THESE OH GOD WHYYYYYYYY EVEN THIS IS BULLSHIT.
This does mean that each time I apply for a job, I generate a new resume, unless an older one can be retrofitted. I save a copy of every one that I submit, and print more than one copy when attending an interview. I also print and bring a copy of my spreadsheets, although I do not hand this over to the interviewer directly. I will have them on hand for reference if there's a question about something, or if they have me filling out forms.
I also realized quickly that my initial naming scheme for my resume document was bad, because it prioritized me as the user, rather than prioritizing the person who would get it as the user. Therefore I start the file name with my own name now, so the recruiter or HR person or whatever will be able to tell at a glance whose this is.
Good luck, and feel free to share things that work/don't work for you.
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.
The job identification column can be further broken down into any sub-columns that would help you sort it better, but the main idea is that you should be able to sort this table by various positions you have held. I break it down to workplace and job function, so I have records related to my phone interviewing job function at Survey Hell, records related to my QA Monitor function there, my Bullpen Wrangler function, and my administrative assistant stuff. Some people may go through a job and only wear one hat; some people may wear a lot of concurrent hats; some people have worn many hats but sequentially. Just put something there that makes sense so when you're going through trying to build a resume, you can sort for the positions that make sense to talk about.
The job skill column is the one I often leave until last to fill in. With the way my brain works, it can make more sense to me to talk at length about that time when I noticed that three fields in a web based application appeared to be ever so slightly out of alignment because they had inconsistent shadow effects, and one was missing a colon, and then realize that this is a great example of "detail-oriented", than to say "Gosh, what is one time that I was detail-oriented? Oh, I know, that!" (Sometimes it does work the other way for me.)
The time I was awesome at work column is the best column. Basically I stick accomplishments or work anecdotes that make me look good in there, then label them with the workplace and role that it relates to, and then figure out what pithy description of a job skill (one, or sometimes a few) which apply. (For data integrity reasons, I put them on separate lines, because I sort by the job skill column later.)
So later, when a job application says I need the following list of skills, and ordinarily I would be racking my brain, I go into the job skills table and sort it by the job skills, and figure out which of my skill descriptions map to their list of skills. Then I have several examples to highlight on my resume, to mention in the cover letter, and bring to the interview. If the position mentions skills that I have, but that I don't have listed, I search my brains for an example of a time when I did something that fit, and then add it to the table so I'll have it for next time.
Third table: references.
This has entries for every possible personal and professional reference, and a few impossible ones. It includes all managers and supervisors I can think of (whether they would prefer to be contacted or not, whether I would prefer to have people contact them or not), the employment verification fax line at the domain shop, and my actual personal and professional references. Columns include name, contact methods, relationship to me, how they prefer to be contacted, time of our meeting, whether or not they can be contacted, and the like. Columns are added when places ask me new and increasingly horrible questions about these people.
Originally my thing stopped there, but apparently there are other things that should be tracked.
Fourth table: address history.
WHO EVEN NEEDS TO KNOW THESE THINGS. People who need background checks as part of the application process, apparently.
Fifth table: application history.
Job applications are obnoxious as hell, and it can be hard to track wtf is going on with them. Keeping tabs on that is an administrative burden in its own right. I heard of this concept after the last time I was actively job-seeking, but here are the things I might recommend:
Date of application/last contact. Company name. Company contact info. Position title. Link to job ad. Where you are in the application process (such as "researching", "resume sent", "side-eyeing like hell", "haven't heard from and it's been 3 months", "interviewed", "2nd round interviewed", "rejected", "interviewed and never heard from again"). Notes.
Generally, applying twice for the same position is a bit of a no-no, and something like this can help with that. It can also help when maybe you interview with a company in like 2005, you realize that one of the people that you would be working with is a heinous pain and you are never, ever, ever going to be able to work with them, and then you don't remember in 2009 and accept a job there when sadly you'll be working closely with them, albeit with a certain amount of interference run by your mutual, and long-suffering, manager.
Additional document:
ALL THE STUPID OTHER INFORMATION THAT DOESN'T FIT INTO THESE OH GOD WHYYYYYYYY EVEN THIS IS BULLSHIT.
This does mean that each time I apply for a job, I generate a new resume, unless an older one can be retrofitted. I save a copy of every one that I submit, and print more than one copy when attending an interview. I also print and bring a copy of my spreadsheets, although I do not hand this over to the interviewer directly. I will have them on hand for reference if there's a question about something, or if they have me filling out forms.
I also realized quickly that my initial naming scheme for my resume document was bad, because it prioritized me as the user, rather than prioritizing the person who would get it as the user. Therefore I start the file name with my own name now, so the recruiter or HR person or whatever will be able to tell at a glance whose this is.
Good luck, and feel free to share things that work/don't work for you.
no subject
NOTHING WORKS FOR ME. *wailsob*
Sorry, I'm having a pessimistic time of it.
More specifically, I do not know how to deal with job ads that want to know what sort of emotions I have about working. I'm not on very good terms with my emotions anyway, I find lying difficult, and I feel like my emotions shouldn't be for sale anyway, particularly not if the job I'm applying for does not nominally involve emotions. Unfortunately, this seems to be nearly every job ad.
no subject
Ughhhhhh. :(
For me, job related emotions are an acting job on top of the ostensible requirements. Can I convey the appropriate feeling while doing the other thing? I may not actually be feeling it, but I can pretend I am if it is a job requirement. This is how I get mistaken for a people person.
no subject
Much less if it's an unnecessary job requirement (e.g. "passionate about data entry" when there is no reason they need passion, just competence.) It's an access issue. :(
no subject
Bleh. :(
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If someone wants me to be passionate about typing numbers into a spreadsheet, they are looking for people with no life. I might be passionate about analyzing the data, but not drudge work. Spare me the passion, give me competence.
no subject
I've been trying to figure out how to make a new resume now that I have a shiny new degree, where I have no specific experience in that field but a swarm of experience in related fields.
SPREADSHEETS. I NEED SPREADSHEETS. This is awesome, thanks!
no subject
no subject
no subject
Tool to help with my overwhelming dunwannas about jobsearching is much appreciate. Thanks. <3