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Expert Resumes For Career Changers
Millions of people have been forced (or are choosing) to change jobs or industries in order to stay employed. The seventh title in the highly successful Expert Resumes series is a collection of resumes aimed at people who are transitioning from one career to another. This book gives strategies as well as 180 pages of sample resumes for successful career changes. The authors present sound resume-writing advice, including how to create and use an electronic resume. The appendix includes Internet resources for an effective online job search.
288 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 19, 2019
Normally, I would accept that these books shouldn't be rated along with regular books one might enjoy but I feel like reading this would just confuse the average resume writer.
I'll start out with the positive. There are hundreds of phrases one can get inspired from to use for their own resume. That's it. The rest of the tips and examples are awful. There were so many 2 or even 3 paged resumes that it was a crime. Their general policy was "have a non chronological job title based resume" and just want people to sell themselves by their qualifications. I have been to at least 3 different career counselors and browsed other resume websites, forums, and books, and I have never in my life seen a qualification based resume. If I was a hiring manager, I would just look at it, get confused in 10 seconds, and promptly move on to the next one. And I guess this is just projecting, but some of the qualifications were so vague, like just "communication". If an adult would tell 20 year old, jobless me that soft skills shouldn't be a resume, I have no clue why these alleged executives would include it there. I guess boomers really are entitled...
They also break their own rules, a lot. They say resumes should be in a plain font, then that gets broken. They said there shouldn't be quotes, but don't worry! These job hunters quote everyone, from Einstein to former coworkers. Resumes should only be one column, unless of course, you decide to use two columns! That's fair game. One resume even included a doodle (no, it wasn't a graphic arts position).
The cover letter section was also cringeworthy. I realized it was the last 10 pages of the book, so I wasn't expecting much, but they actually recommend closing a letter with "If you do not contact me by next Friday, I will call you up to set an appointment". I sincerely hope nobody would do that. It's not just bad career advice, but I feel like the author is one of those smug "millennials are the participation ribbon generation and that's why they don't know how to get a job!" people after reading that.
Some of these mistakes would be okay if the book was about executives or other people with over 20 years of experience applying for a job, but it's not. It's for career changers. I hoped it would help people transfer from the public to the private sector, from the business world to human services, from self employment to corporate America, from main street to Ivy League, from administrative assistant to anything. But instead the author blames you for calling your experience "transferable skills", as you're reminding the HR person that you're not directly appropriate for that role.
Another mistake this book (and many career people) makes is thinking that most "low level" (obviously every job has value and deserves respect, but I'm talking about most entry level jobs/assistant/retail positions) jobs have markers of success or anything you can quantify. They don't. The average TJ Maxx employee won't be able to figure out that they increased their amount of customers by 56% or if an administrative assistant redirected 300 calls a week. You don't get to keep track of that information and even if you do, it's not like most people would be impressed. Most jobs won't let you access your stats like you're playing a video game. I don't understand why career experts always shift blame onto job seekers for not being able to come up with random numbers for positions that weren't numbers based.
And the search for a career book for social science majors continues...
My advice for an expert resume for career changers? Watch Working Girl (1988) or Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (1991).
I'll start out with the positive. There are hundreds of phrases one can get inspired from to use for their own resume. That's it. The rest of the tips and examples are awful. There were so many 2 or even 3 paged resumes that it was a crime. Their general policy was "have a non chronological job title based resume" and just want people to sell themselves by their qualifications. I have been to at least 3 different career counselors and browsed other resume websites, forums, and books, and I have never in my life seen a qualification based resume. If I was a hiring manager, I would just look at it, get confused in 10 seconds, and promptly move on to the next one. And I guess this is just projecting, but some of the qualifications were so vague, like just "communication". If an adult would tell 20 year old, jobless me that soft skills shouldn't be a resume, I have no clue why these alleged executives would include it there. I guess boomers really are entitled...
They also break their own rules, a lot. They say resumes should be in a plain font, then that gets broken. They said there shouldn't be quotes, but don't worry! These job hunters quote everyone, from Einstein to former coworkers. Resumes should only be one column, unless of course, you decide to use two columns! That's fair game. One resume even included a doodle (no, it wasn't a graphic arts position).
The cover letter section was also cringeworthy. I realized it was the last 10 pages of the book, so I wasn't expecting much, but they actually recommend closing a letter with "If you do not contact me by next Friday, I will call you up to set an appointment". I sincerely hope nobody would do that. It's not just bad career advice, but I feel like the author is one of those smug "millennials are the participation ribbon generation and that's why they don't know how to get a job!" people after reading that.
Some of these mistakes would be okay if the book was about executives or other people with over 20 years of experience applying for a job, but it's not. It's for career changers. I hoped it would help people transfer from the public to the private sector, from the business world to human services, from self employment to corporate America, from main street to Ivy League, from administrative assistant to anything. But instead the author blames you for calling your experience "transferable skills", as you're reminding the HR person that you're not directly appropriate for that role.
Another mistake this book (and many career people) makes is thinking that most "low level" (obviously every job has value and deserves respect, but I'm talking about most entry level jobs/assistant/retail positions) jobs have markers of success or anything you can quantify. They don't. The average TJ Maxx employee won't be able to figure out that they increased their amount of customers by 56% or if an administrative assistant redirected 300 calls a week. You don't get to keep track of that information and even if you do, it's not like most people would be impressed. Most jobs won't let you access your stats like you're playing a video game. I don't understand why career experts always shift blame onto job seekers for not being able to come up with random numbers for positions that weren't numbers based.
And the search for a career book for social science majors continues...
My advice for an expert resume for career changers? Watch Working Girl (1988) or Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (1991).
August 6, 2018
I checked out the original version from 2003 which is dated. Still, it seems like a decent effort and is packed mostly with resumes from a range of life situations that workers may be returning from, having a child, self-employed, a divorce, etc.
October 15, 2010
Learn how to formulate your resume according to your career change.
June 9, 2012
A terrific resource for the "mature" student heading out in to a new career. Great ideas for repackaging skills and optimizing readability.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews