My new resume...

I finished a proof of my resume and I'd like to know if beeps or anyone else has any comments...

I tried to cut it down as much as I could, I always write too much (as many of you here already know...

You can find the proof at
-- The world is what we make of it --
-- Dave
-- <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.idexter.com>http://www.idexter.com</A>

That's impressive. I didn't understand most of it, but it sounds like you're really skilled and have had a lot of experience.
Good luck in the job search.
Where is Linden? I'm in Philadelphia.

I'm not far from Newark. Right next to Elizabeth if you've heard of that.

And I have a friend in Philly... yet another one from Star Wars.

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--http://www.idexter.com

Wow (((((((((Dave)))))))))))

What an impressive resume! The only thing I would suggest is for you to expand on your accomplishments....raising $18,000 for the Starlight foundation should be highlighted more. You should be extremely proud of yourself and I think it is great that you outlined all of your work activities, but you should showcase your accomplishments more. Also, make sure you put your website in there too.

Also, one thing I tell my clients is to make more than 1 copy of their resume.....I have one client who made her resume to look like a newspaper (she used Quark) and it is always noticed. Make a creative one too using all those skills you have. If you want I can send you a copy of her resume so you could borrow her template for it.

Would it be ok for me to share your resume with some of my contacts when you are finished? I am in awe with your skills....I knew you were talented but seeing it all there at once....wow.


Heather

Dave,

Heather is really the expert here, and her idea is a good one. The only suggestion I would add would be to think about moving your Work Experience ahead of your Skills. If you want to get some ideas for some different layouts for your resume, I'll email you mine too.

Anyway, other than that, I think it looks great, and your experience is very impressive!

Greg



"Beauty is truth, truth is beauty - that is all you know on earth, and all you need to know"

Wow...I don't do resumes well so can't help...though punctuation and spelling were fine, that I saw. You are very talented and the resume was quite impressive Good luck when you start sending them out



<font color=purple>Pain can indeed be a beautiful thing</font color=purple>

That is a very impressive resume!

I did find one list with an item lacking a period though. Under J&J Camera; daily responsibilities, you have one item not ending with a period when the rest of the list items have one. I wouldn't have noticed except that you said specifically to check for that.

Heck, I can't even remember how to spell in English this week - I've been studying Norwegian too much, and it really does tend to mess up my spelling. I typed up a resume recently, and had a hard time thinking of enough to fill one page. (It's been about a month and I haven't heard back, so probably didn't get the job I was after). You have really great experience! It really does look good.

Good luck!
Wendy

<font color=orange>"Never forget: 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2."</font color=orange>

Thanks so much heather... here is an update:
-- The world is what we make of it --
-- Dave
-- <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.idexter.com>http://www.idexter.com</A>

>> Under J&J Camera; daily responsibilities, you have one item not ending with a period

Thanks! That's the kind of thing that would have had me sulking for days if I found it after sending out copies of the resume.

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--http://www.idexter.com

Oh great... I was looking it over tonight in between sessions at my support group... I got my ADDRESS wrong! I reworked this from an old resume, I used to use a PO Box... at some point I took the PO Box off the address but I didn't change the zip code.

I'm glad I didn't list "attention to detail" on the resume.

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--http://www.idexter.com

I did some minor changes but also posted a different version with an alternate layout... I think it highlights my skills more but may be on the borderline of being too "busy"/hard to read. Right now I think it is on the safe side of the line but that may change in an hour

H see if you are able to open it now from the website.

Thanks for everyone's input.

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--http://www.idexter.com

I still can't open it Dave......I am unsure what is going on with it. I am prompted to save/open which I do and then it won't let me go any further with it.

I did get your email and will answer that in a bit too.


Heather

The new ones up there have no security at all so that isn't the problem.

Are you using Acrobat reader version 6?

Can you right-click and download them, then open them from your hard drive?

Do you have the Acrobat plugin installed for your browser... i.e. can you normally open PDFs directly in your browser to view them or do you always have to open them separately in the Acrobat reader?

In the meantime I will email you the two latest versions, if that is OK.

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--http://www.idexter.com

Also can you view my older PDF on depression successfully?


-- The world is what we make of it --
-- Dave
-- <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.idexter.com>http://www.idexter.com</A>

Everything is working now Dave. I had to uninstall photoshop to get it to work though.....oh the wonderful weird world of IT.

Thank you for your patience. Let me look it over and I will be emailing you.


Heather

Uninstall Photoshop... HA!!!

Adobe seems to often have problems like that, I'm in the habit of COMPLETELY uninstalling all previous Adobe products before installing the upgraded versions... always seems to be less grief that way.

I'm using the new CS suite of tools now BTW... really liking all, except GoLive is quite buggy and feels "unfinished".

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--http://www.idexter.com

>> Also, make sure you put your website in there too.

Another friend pointed out today that I have a lot of personal stuff on my site, including a lot of information on depression, and some personal poems and stories. Stuff that could possibly send up a flag to potential employers.

Any thoughts on this, pros and cons?

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--http://www.idexter.com

I think that where you have it posted as a personal website that you created, potential employers would be more impressed by your talent than the content....just my thoughts there.

I can see your friend's point, but personally I would not think it would be a problem.


Heather

Hi Dexter -- sorry it's taken me a long time to respond to this, especially after you were so kind to help me. I will look at your resume shortly, but I wanted to respond to your question about the personal stuff vs professional stuff. I personally don't have ANY depression stuff on my professional site. I think if were a job-hunter's market, I wouldn't care but I don't want ANYTHING to jeapordize my chances at finding good work, so it's not worth it to me to keep anything personal/controversial on my site. There are enough free places on the web where you can host personal content, so I keep it on a separate page.

We are ALL going to be a-ok!

Wow - STELLAR formatting! Just a few comments -- I think that your resume, in general, looks fantastic!

- Ideal Jacobs, page 1 -- I would list the company website achievment first -- it sounds the most sophisticated of the acheivments.
- Ideal Jacobs, page 2: you list two titles in Bold (Full Charge Bookkeeper and ISO Compliance Manager) but where you titled "Database Design", I would have expected a job title not a skill or responsibility.
- Also under "Database Design", I would try to use a stronger
verb than "determined the need for...". How about "Managed system implementation for...". Maybe also see if you can note the number of users. You can look at my resume for implementation terminology, if you like. I'd throw something in there like "make-to-order production", since that is a lot more complex to manage than make-to-stock production. Of course, in printing it's ALL make-to-order, but if you are interviewing for a non-printing industry job, the "make-to-order production" line would jump out.
- Full-Charge Bookkeeper, page 2 -- "undertook revision" sounds a little awkward. I'd change it to "revised" or "streamlined". Same with page 1 with regard to the Ideal Jacobs company website.


We are ALL going to be a-ok!

Cancel what I said about the depression stuff. I just looked at your personal site again, and a potential employer would REALLY have to dig deep to figure out that the depression part of it applies to you. Your personal site looks great -- so don't change anything.

We are ALL going to be a-ok!

Thanks so much Heather and LMo for your help and suggestions.

I think I'll rewrite some of those things LMo... one of the reasons I put "undertook" is because I wanted to emphasize that these were not part of my job, but rather things that I saw needed some work and took it upon myself to work on and fix for the good of the company. But I agree that "undertook" is awkward.

In the car before I was thinking of "initiated" instead. That's a much better action verb I think, and also better descriptively of what I was trying to convey.

Same thing with "Determined the need for". It wasn't something that I was assigned to do, nor was it a project that was begun that I jumped in to. Everyone was chugging along with the old database program, I thought the old program was sucky, so I asked the boss if I could do a new one, which I did, wrote, and implemented. I'll see how I can reword that maybe, but I still want to convey that I was a "take charge" sort of guy for that.

As for number of years... it was only a few months really... it was one of the last things I did before my "breakdown" there, and in fact it still was a work in progress, although it was functional enough to be up and running. I have no idea if they are even still using it or if they scrapped it because no one there could finish cleaning it up.

If the whole thing wasn't so anxiety ridden for me I'd ask them if I could finish it from home and have them pay me for it. Just the thought of interacting with them enough to do that puts me in a tailspin.

I should do something about the Database Design entry... I kind of wasn't emphasizing that because first of all it was way outside my job functions but also because it is something I puttered together on my own... while it worked very well it was far from a "professional" job, I'm really only beginning to learn such stuff... and although I thought it was worth mentioning I also don't want to pretend I am a pro database designer and get hired on that basis. However I think I'm just really too timid in that regard... I should either highlight it or take it out if I don't think I'm up to it... poop or get off the pot, so to speak. I'll think about giving it a title. Maybe I'll move it under "Vice President" or something because I think that is kind of lost there by itself. Truth is the "promotion" to VP didn't involve any additional duties nor did it involve a pay raise... it was party the boss just giving me recognition but MOSTLY so that I could sign off on some of the ISO paperwork and give a break to one of the other VPs there. The one I got in trouble with, BTW. Bitter memories.


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--http://www.idexter.com

I revised the sections as you recommended, I agree they are much better now and reflect what I was intending to portray even better.

The database section may still be a little awkward, but I've been mucking with two sentences there for so long without a break I'm not sure if I'm a good judge anymore.

I also didn't like "learned" but I wanted to get across that I "self taught" myself the subject so I changed that as well and I think it works better also.

For the heading I could have just changed it to "Database Creator" but I tried "Author" and I think it is either very good or very bad .

I made the revisions to both versions (layouts) but for now I think I will stick with the newer layout? Is that the one everyone likes so much?

I have to update these on the website now... I may put up just the one version or both... it'll be a surprise .

Thanks again

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--http://www.idexter.com

I posted the revisions, same place:
-- The world is what we make of it --
-- Dave
-- <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.idexter.com>http://www.idexter.com</A>