A Skills Resume

I said in my first entry that I would help people with their resumes, and in several entries I've mentioned subjects that pertain to resumes. But in this post, I want to talk about one particular kind of resume, one that is based on jobs that all have skills in common.

If you are trying to structure a chronological resume, one that is based on the job titles you've held, with the jobs listed chronologically, you would use a form where each job is featured, and the duties you fulfilled for each position, any honors or awards you received, or any particular kinds of praise you were singled out to receive would all be structured similarly.

(I'm apologizing in advance for certain quirks in this blog program. I could not get it to give me even space above and below heads, so to get rid of some of the obnoxiousness, I eliminated a line space after the heads, but on your resume, you should try to have a line space.)

But what happens, for instance, if you work in the restaurant business, particularly in the kitchen? The restaurant business is still one of the most open types of job you can go into, if you like it. You can take a job as a dishwasher, knowing absolutely nothing about kitchen work, and you will be taught by various people who work with you to do chores they need help with. One of the first responsibilities you might be given is food prep, along with your normal dishwashing duties. Prepping means washing, cutting, slicing, cleaning, or whatever is needed for the foods the chef plans to serve for the upcoming meal. You might be asked to wash ten heads of lettuce and run the leaves through a salad spinner. If you got the dirt out of the lettuce and there were no customer complaints about grit or bugs, you might find yourself washing lettuce every day.

But what usually happens is that you are taught how to use knives, how to stir a pot of stew or soup, how to cut vegetables for certain dishes they serve, and so on. Every day you go to work, you may be asked to do two things you've done before and one you need to be taught. But the method is to train you to dig in and help the staff get the orders to the customers in a timely fashion.

In a larger establishment you might be promoted to doing nothing but prep and not doing any dishwashing again, unless the dishwasher called in sick. In this way, you can learn each station in a professional kitchen or in a diner or some other type of eatery and advance.

However, if your employer goes under, suddenly you need a new job and how do you find one? If you're used to making burritos, how can you apply for a job making crepes? What a lot of people do is go to work for specialty temp agencies that send you out to this kitchen or that one for a short-term gig or a long-term one. Suddenly, in the space of a month, you've worked at ten different places, and if you do the temping for any length of time, you will have worked at dozens of places, many of them more than once. So the chronological resume is no longer of much use to you. If you simply list the temp agency you worked for, it doesn't give a prospective employer any idea of the kinds of jobs you did, and listing all the places themselves could become a spider web of overlapping assignments--lunches at one place and dinners at another.

If you're in this position, a skills-based resume can be the answer. Here is a possible template for such a resume:

OBJECTIVE
To find a position where my six years' of experience in the restaurant business can fulfill the business objectives of my employer

[You should always include an objective, and it should always be worded in such a way to make it clear that you want to contribute your effort to your employer's success. It's always a phrase, no period, and avoid saying "I." Never say anything about needing a job or something to the effect you want a job to make money. These things are obvious. The business owner wants to know specifically how you can contribute to his/her success. In one phrase.]


SKILLS
[Since all the positions in a restaurant utilize similar skills and responsibilities, you can make a list of the six or eight most important skills you've learned and give them as a bulleted list right here. The absolute best place to go for the best wording and most thorough summaries of any kind of job is http://online.onetcenter.org. On the splash page, or home page, go to Find Occupations. The first entry you'll see, on the upper left side, is "Keyword or O*NET.SOC code." In that box, type the term for the most prestigious position you held, such as "saucier." As it so happens, there's only one place it takes you to: Cooks, Restaurant. If you click on that, you'll see a bulleted list of duties for a saucier.


However, if you want something more inclusive and general, you can use the terms "dishwasher" or "food prep" or "grill man" or something else you may have done. You will then get a list of all the different positions that are part of the organization of a restaurant kitchen. 


When you use O*Net, you can copy and paste the items you need, but you'll have to customize them to your own preference in order of jobs and maybe even choice of words. Just make sure you spell anything you add correctly. These listings are from Department of Labor sources for all the different kinds of jobs there are in our society, so you can use them as they are without fear of plagiarism. If you make your resume in Microsoft Word, which I recommend, there are buttons for setting up bulleted lists, and you should use them.]

• Inspect and clean food preparation areas, such as equipment and work surfaces, or serving areas to ensure safe and sanitary food-handling practices.
• Ensure food is stored and cooked at correct temperature by regulating temperature of ovens, broilers, grills, and roasters.

[These two items were taken verbatim. I think they sound a bit wordy, and I'm sure most sauciers would know how to word these responsibilities better, but I did this to give you an idea of how the process works. Note that I copied and pasted, and the entries came in blue and in Arial. 


When you are working on a resume, avoid Times or Times Roman and Arial. They are so common that when people on the other end see them they could just toss your resume in the trash rather than read it. On the other hand, don't choose an italic font or a really fancy one. Stick with the ones that come with the program.]


EMPLOYMENT
[Here, instead of trying to make a chronological list, just set up a one-, two-, or three-column list and give the names and addresses of all the restaurants where you worked. Give a supervisor's name only if you have the first and last name of the person; otherwise, leave it out. Give city, state (as a Zip code abbreviation), and Zip code; phone number if you have it. Do not give intersections, approximate locations, or any other nonspecific way of expressing an address. If you cannot be exact, put nothing. The best way to resolve the problem, though, is to use Google maps to find the place. If that fails, put nothing, but be aware that it counts against you should anyone check. If you can, buy a small notebook to keep track of all the places you've worked, how to spell their names, and their exact addresses and phone numbers.]


Finally, do not list your references on the resume. Do not put "References available on request." Instead, type your references on a separate sheet of paper and when the prospective employer asks for references, have it with you to give to the interviewer.

EDUCATION
Give a simple list of your education, for as high as you went. If you graduated high school, give the name of the school and the city or town where it's located. If you got a GED, give the name of the place where you earned it and omit any mention of the high school you attended.

If you earned a bachelor of arts or a bachelor of science, give the name and location of the granting institution. Do not bother to give the name of your high school. If you started your graduate work but did not finish it, give the name of the school you attended, years of attendance, and leave out any mention of a degree. If you started college and dropped out after a month, leave it off your resume. This advice goes for undergraduate as well as graduate work. You just look like a person who can't stick with a job or responsibility. If you got a certificate from someplace like the Culinary Institute of America, definitely include it.

Do list any honors or awards you have in your field under a head for HONORS AND AWARDS or something similar. If you are/were a member of a professional organization, union, or hold an office in your church, put that down. Under a head for VOLUNTEER ACTIVITIES, list anything you do such as work at the local food bank, work at the food pantry at your church, deliver hot meals to shut-ins, and so on. These special activities help you look employable. If you coach your child's sports team, likewise.

In closing, I hope this form of resume will help people who have only performed one kind of work all their adult lives. The one thing you want to do not want in your resume is a lot of repetition. Remember, you have 60 seconds to make a good impression!