I’ll be frank here – Job searching stinks.  It’s one of the worst experiences we as a consumption-loving race of people have to endure.  It encompasses all the huge crappy feelings – uncertainty, doubt, humility, blows to the ego, stress, worry, and sadness.  The hunt for a position also has a process of getting one’s hopes up and then plummeting said hopes and aspirations right through the ground down to one of the inner-circles of hell.  I felt sharing my story of how I got a job might help others re-examine their statuses, realize it’s not personal, and hopefully adjust current processes to land a job.

 Okay so when I started actively searching for a job I really believed it would be so simple.  I have my Masters (just about), I have experience, I have great references, but I didn’t understand until a month went by with no leads that my resume stunk.  It was too vague – it didn’t have the right kind of experience on it for potential employers to even understand who I was.

 Here is what my first resume looked like:

 

 

Not very specific huh? Well after getting help from a family friend, I worked on making my resume ‘mirror’ an actual job description of my ‘dream job.’  I actually used a statistician position from the treasury department and modified it to them using all their specific lingo and words.  That is really essential in building a resume – it has to contain more than enough ‘buzz words’ so the computer filter that scans the document will send your resume on for the next round of judging. Think of it as a Hunger Games for your resume.

 

So here is my current resume:

 

I left my information on there because if you were paying attention you would have already seen my professional blog that is attached to this domain name. http://briannadconnelly.wordpress.com I have work examples etc. there take a look if you get bored and want to read some older, but riveting Economic work from me.

 After completing this revision I started re-submitting and changing my resume .pdfs and the next week I got a call for the job I had first applied for (my dream job) that my old resume was not even considered for!  So funny!  Anyways if you’re currently in a job hunt and need resume help or advice you can always email me and I’d love to help!