I'm composing the first draft of this post at one of the public computers at Worksource, sitting next to Allison, while we wait for our next appointment.  Allison has just met with our WorkFirst councellor, and is currently printing all kinds of stuff.

 

This week has been very educational. Being enrolled in Washington's WorkFirst program has kept us coming into our local WorkSource office and utilizing the classes on hand at a feverish pace.  Every one that I've attended has been beneficial.  Tuesday, we both had Perfecting Applications with Effective Letters & Resumes. The course was facilitated by a lady who bore an uncanny resemblance to my mother, but despite that she did a good job of showcasing the resources on hand at WorkSource and targeting the material to what each of us wanted to accomplish. I just got out of the Veteran's Job Club, which presented some great methods for marketing yourself, and provided great reinforcement for what I learned on Tuesday.

 

I knew this already, but I really need to rework my resume.  It has been made very clear to me that, at least with big firms and those preferring to outsource their screening processes, technology is king.  No longer do you need to stick with a single page for your resume.  Keywords and technical phrasology are what will get jobs, so making use of (of not outright copying) words from the job listing can be crucial to getting your application a second look.

 

 

My original (unaccomplished) plan was to generate four or five targeted resumes that I could use for a variety of applicable job openings.  I've learned that this is not enough, but is at least on the right track.  The trick presented to us at the Verteran's Job Club was to take ALL of your work and volunteer history, and make a bullet list of every task you have ever done.  There are many resources available to help jog your memory and make sense of your lack of accomplishment.

 

Once you have EVERYTHING down (we are talking tens of pages, hopefully), group these into lists applicable for each job you have held or volunteer event you have attended.  Save these lists for filling out job applications and set them aside.  The trick now is to trim everything unrelated out of this list each time you need to submit a new resume somewhere.  Our Vet's Rep said in the last year he had submitted 27 applications, and got called back 25 times.

I'm pretty darn stoked.