Vincent Cheung

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Friday, January 20, 2006

CV and resume critique

Went to the career centre to have my CV critiqued. I tried before Christmas, but they wouldn't do it b/c I wasn't registered for that semester, but I was at school and was registered this semester. Whatever...

Anyways, I highly recommend that if you're in a position where it's possible, to go to the career centre and have your CV or resume looked at by one of the people. If you're no longer at school and don't have access to a career centre, find someone else to look at your resume and/or CV. Obviously, someone that's seen a lot of resumes or CV's would be the best to have look at your document(s).

I had my resume looked at twice at the U of M and they helped a lot with formatting, organization, and pointed out some important things that I overlooked, eg. I put my GPA on my resume, so I put down 4.49, but someone looking at my resume would go like, 4.49.... out of what??? 9? B/c some schools do it out of 9, others out of 4, maybe some people would assume it's out of 5, but who would think (outside of people from U of M) that some school would use such a weird system out of 4.5??? Best to leave no room for ambiguity.

Today was more of the same. I hadn't had my CV looked at by anyone before, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Everything I know, I learnt from the Internet :p. The guy was really nice and carefully looked over the document with me. He suggested changes to the flow of the document, some things to add, etc. Very helpful, and at the very least, reassuring that the document generally makes sense and there are no glaring mistakes.

I'm not using my CV or resume in particular right now, but it's good to keep it them updated. For one, you'll forget what you did in a job/volunteering position or forget to include information if you delay. Second, you never know when you'll need it. Maybe there's a job posting or a career fair. Opportunities can spawn out of nowhere. Best to be prepared. Finally, writing it all out, you'll see where your strengths and weaknesses are, then you can take action to fix those weaknesses, eg. not enough volunteer service, inadequate computer skills, no job experience, etc.

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