Resume / portfolio Optimization

I’ve been working on my Curriculum Vitae, in preparation for the launch of AndrewJBonham.com. It’s very much still a work in progress, but I wanted to have a “professional” site to advertise myself. Then, when I’m applying for jobs, I can reference it, and if I do a little SEO (search engine optimization), it’ll be near the top when potential employers google for information on me. All good, except that I feel like my C-V is pretty blah right now (and I need to make a resume, too!).

So, I’m curious– what have you done to put some razzle-dazzle into your C-V or resume?

As you can see (if you visit AndrewJBonham.com), I have a pretty well-developed Research section, but my Curriculum Vitae is (1) not very well formatted (I just pasted it in from google documents) and (2) pretty bland.

So, how to improve it? Teisha already suggested making the Teaching section more prominent and higher up the page, since that’s my goal; a good suggestion. But i feel like the whole document is too dry and passive. At the same time, I don’t want to go crazy and have a document that doesn’t look professional.

Also, I haven’t written anything for the Interests section yet, since I’m honestly not sure what face I want to present to potential employers about my hobbies: Do I mention my love of tabletop roleplaying games? What about computer games? Should I talk about my amateur programming and web design (probably)? What can I add to put my best foot forward?

Those are my primary dilemmas, but I’d be interested in hearing about (or seeing) your resumes as well, and how you’ve crafted them.

3 Responses to “Resume / portfolio Optimization”

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I gotta point out, there is a on your CV under the Research section for your PhD, the last bullet point ends in “Blah”.

I’m still reading this all btw. As far as interests go, I think sticking with programming and web design would be a good idea, along with maybe a section on working with the Sci-Fi Club at UCSB (I can provide you any documentation you need on it), and then if it seems at all brief MAYBE do the roleplaying section. Lots of people still look at that oddly.

CloneBot2350 - April 3rd, 2008 at 4:15 pm

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I don’t have a lot of experience with CVs, but for resumes my focus is on making them as tight as possible (ideally only one page), and in customizing them for each job you apply for.

Depending on the position, your most important section is either Experience or Education, so I’d start with that. The other important thing to have on a resume is the “keyword section”. I have what I call the “Summary of Technical Skills”, which is really there in order to satisfy the keyword matching systems that HR has to analyze resumes. I don’t want to miss out on a job because my resume doesn’t say Ethernet anywhere on it.

If you’re interested in the latest version of my resume, let me know and I can email you a copy.

Ted - April 4th, 2008 at 10:34 am

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I think there are a few things you can do to dazzle. One of them is think about some of the more archaic things that you know about that not many people do. I “know” how to do hybridomas… I haven’t done it in like 5 years but I know it. Also I put down everything I’ve done on there, so my research is all over the place, plants, development, epigenetics, crystallography, fruity SERS clusters. I also up my own importance through some fun language such as “knows care and maintnence of lab animals” Read: I changed the water in frog tanks and put them back when the jumped out.

flakeytheleper - April 28th, 2008 at 8:16 pm

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