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Thursday, March 12, 2009

My job resume is a joke; will you help me?

I'm currently stuck in this void of pathetic. I'm almost 30 years old and I have little to no "real" work experience. I cannot find a job and this is just crushing what little confidence I have left. I'm extremely depressed and can't seem to do anything about it; I'm stuck...I used to work for a temporary staffing agency back in 2002-2004. They kept putting me in factory after factory. I was making about $7.00 per hour with no benefits. This truly opened my eyes; thus, decided to go to school.I couldn't afford to go to a University at the time, so I had to settle with my local community college. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do, so I started taking all the pre-req courses, e.g., english, math, science, etc. I still don't know what I want to do. Because of this, I have an Associate of Arts. I wasn't interested in anything enough to want to go full-throttle; I didn't want to just pick a degree, as I feared of hating my future job.It's clear that I needed money in order to attend school / gas / books / rent / repairs: I got hardcore into eBay. In fact, I got so into it that I became a Power Seller with over 4000 individual sales. This is how I've been supporting myself. However, recent interviewers seem to dub me as a mere fibber. They don't say it, but I can almost feel them and their mild disbelief.I can't find work and my blood is absolutely boiling. I feel that I fall behind all the requirements needed for a decent job. I feel that I'm jnot smart enough to really do anything beyond the typical "high school" job. What can I do about my resume? What jobs do you think I'm even qualified for?I'd appreciate your advice.
Thanks.

I’m sorry you’ve hit such a rough patch, but don’t despair. There’s a type of resume called a functional resume. It highlights your skills, rather than your chronology, and from what I’ve read, you have a number of skills that would be desirable. As a Power Seller, I imagine you had to do a lot of customer service work: resolving complaints, answering questions, getting merchandise out on time, multi-tasking, having to be self-motivated, and more. These are all skills that are transferable to many, many jobs: sales, sales management, operations, merchandising, to name a few. In a functional resume, you list these skills below your contact information, so that they’re front and center for an employer to see. It’s comparable to how the shelves of markets are merchandised: The expensive stuff (your best experience) goes at eye-level, the inexpensive towards the bottom. Email me if you’d like an example of a functional resume or if you’d like me to look at one you’ve created.
Additionally, if you have a couple of folks you sold to on ebay willing to give you a good recommendation, that will be helpful, too.
Hang in there! You will get beyond this point!
Rita

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