job application question

If you are just sending off a CV but don't qualify in one particular area, don't say a thing. Your goal in this scenario is to simply look as attractive to them as an employee as possible. You must show that you have some experience (not necessarily industry), are prepared to learn (because you won't stop working), work hard and that you are nice to work with.

To be honest, they won't read your CV in great detail, but don't give them a reason to throw it away. Keep it concise, easy to read and the most important bits first.

As for anything else like interviews etc, just be yourself and listen.

I sent applications off to a couple of jobs (whilst applying for the one i got) as speculative ones, for jobs i knew i probably couldn't get, just to see what would happen. Also, i don't see anything wrong with sending your CV off to a job that is well out of your league with the intent of asking them if there are any junior positions available with them.

Dave

Its acceptable, and you probably should apply, however don't count on getting a call back because thats highly dependent on the amount of competition you will be facing.

Jobs are driven by supply and demand, you're the one offering the service and the first thing in order to "sell" yourself is to make yourself known.

If there is little competition (say only 1 other person applies), and you manage to impress the people doing the hiring at the interview, there is a chance you may get the Job.

Thanks for the replies.

Quote:

Also, i don't see anything wrong with sending your CV off to a job that is well out of your league with the intent of asking them if there are any junior positions available with them.

This is actually what I want to do; I was also thinking of seeing if they had a similar junior level position available. Where should I ask that?

Ask that in the cover letter.

The CV is a breakdown of you, your experience, what you have worked on before etc. That is something that is unlikely to change between jobs. The cover letter you customise for each application.

I read in this resume book that for my number of years of experience (less than 5) my resume should only be one page long. So far it is very concise, but I am running a little over. This sounds stupid, but can I use 10 point font? Or should I use 12? If I use 10 it all fits on one page.

That one-page guideline is more about making sure you don't put useless crap in your resume, not about fulfilling some kind of arbitrary requirement. How much experience do you have? What's on your CV currently?

Chances are there is some fat you can trim. Padding your resume is not a good thing. A shorter resume is better than a longer one when the longer one is filled with things of only piddling relevance.

Quote:

I read in this resume book that for my number of years of experience (less than 5) my resume should only be one page long.

I've heard that a page per decade is generally appropriate, but other times it is not.

Junior level should have a single page, and it is usually focused on education and relevant experiences. Don't exaggerate, don't pad -- we can tell. Just state what each project was and what you did. State what educational projects you were involved in and what you did. If you have relevant personal projects, state what you did as it pertains to what interests the company.

Everything you list should be in terms of transferable skills. Simply seeing that you took CS410 tells me nothing. Stating that you wrote a scripting language parser with lexx/yacc and C# tools for the network interface of a class project tells me quite a bit about what you can do and what you enjoy. (I assume that if you wrote about it, you enjoyed it.)

Unlike other businesses, experienced game developers can often get away with shorter resumes. Listing that you were a programmer on three listed titles at a game studio, two listed titles at another studio, and group lead on something else gives me a great view of your history.

Quote:

So far it is very concise, but I am running a little over. This sounds stupid, but can I use 10 point font? Or should I use 12? If I use 10 it all fits on one page.

Find a friend or stranger. Tell them to read it and report their impressions after 30 seconds. Hand it to them and start timing. Listen carefully to what they tell you.

When there are a lot of candidates to sort through, that's how long you have in order to make a good impression. If they can't figure out what you've done and what you plan to do within 30 seconds, it is too complicated.

A full page of dense text is generally too much information.

[Edited by - frob on August 10, 2007 2:04:15 PM]

My layout is

[centered]
name
address
phone
email
[/centered]

That wastes a lot of space unfortunately.

[objective]
One line objective statement
[/objective]

[skills]
5 concise one-line bullets describing languages, APIs, systems, software I am fluent with.
[/skills]

[education]
B.S. here and university name. I also mention some key courses that should be relevant to the job. I also mentioned that I attended a year of grad school.
[/education]

[work experience heading]
I chose three major projects I worked on for pay. I give a one line overview of the project and the a 4-6 line description giving specific things I did on the project.
[/work exp]

Unfortunately, the last work experience entry goes over to the second page. I'm 7 lines over.

Aside question:

For some online job sites, if you want to reply they just ask you to upload a resume in Word format. So I'm a little confused on how to include a cover letter in this case. (Sometimes they don't even give the company name.) Should I just make my word doc two pages--first the cover letter followed by the resume--or just send the resume and wait?

dude it can't hurt to apply. what do you mean "considered acceptable?" I consider it acceptable.

I am an english major who didn't have the BS listed as required for the job at the software company that I currently work 60 hour weeks in a code crunch for