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At some point in your life, you will want to go out and get a job for yourself. Sometimes it’ll be for money, to increase productivity, to get experience, or anything else really! One of the most requested items employers will ask for is a resume. So, what exactly is a resume?
A resume is a document that you will submit to your employer. It is a summary of your experience, contact information, skills, awards, references, and your goals for the job. The paper can usually be sent digitally or handed face to face, prior to interview or during the interview. In some situations, your employer may say that a resume is optional to turn in on the application you’re filling out. But should you still put a resume in? You probably should, as it shows you are prepared and they get to know your work ethic better. Next though, let’s go over more on what a resume includes. Please keep in mind this article will be going over a chronological resume, the most common and most preferred. Here are the four common things a resume consists of: Basic Profile – This is a big part of the resume, showing who you are and what you hope to achieve. Contact Information – How should people contact you? You can list your email, phone numbers, LinkedIn, and any other contacts you can think of. This is very important so that employers, managers, and fellow employees can contact you easily and don’t need to guess. Experience – What job or volunteer experience do you have behind you? This can be from your online moderation experience, any type of jobs, or anything that shows your responsibility. If you have extensive job history, put down the ones that are most related to the job you’re applying to. Skills – What can you do? This can be soft or hard skills, soft skills being skills like customer service, communication, teamwork, and more. Hard skills are skills like your typing speed, languages, and more. Just think of hard skills being able to be measured and soft skills being your character as an employee. AVOID using the linear points for this. Linear points are the items that say “3/10 with Microsoft Word”, and “1/5 with driving a truck” on resumes. Don’t use these as it doesn’t actually show how good you are at this skill and the employer doesn’t know how to measure it by. Are as an employee to increase the chances of getting the job, so contact your teachers and past co-workers (if you have any) to get a reference. So, a chronological resume will be mainly all of the key components up above, but how should you be writing this? 1) Don’t use bright colors but soft dim colors. You want your resume to be pleasant to the eye and not something that can make the eyes go sore. It’s more common to do a black and white essay, but you can use pops of colors as well (as long as they’re saturated). You can also do fully colored resumes, but make sure they’re saturated and balanced. 2) Be accurate and honest with your information. Make sure to put the dates of when you started and left past jobs, know what you did there and be truthful about what skills you have. If an employer finds out you’ve been lying, it can get you in trouble. 3) Be updated. Most likely you will use your resume multiple times, so make sure to update your information depending on the job, time period, and for your updated experience, education, and skills. This will show you’re on top of your responsibilities. 4) Don’t rush; make it neat. Make sure to not use Comic Sans but perhaps Time News Roman as a font. Use black or white text depending on your colors only and make sure it’s readable. Use columns to organize the resume to be more appealing and accurately name each section. Don’t forget to proofread it as well! 5) Be confident! Be confident in your experience and skills. Confidence is a huge plus because it shows how ready you are for the job and your overall mood about the job. If you act sluggish, they will get the wrong impression that you don’t want to be there. Show them that you do! Always feel free to look into resumes more and build on it by yourself. Try to make your own form of resume by testing out Word or Google Docs. Both programs are great for building them. You can also ask those around you such as teachers, parents, and friends. Now you know how to effectively write a resume, what’s included in a resume, and what to expect. Good luck out there! Emi
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Work experience can range from lots of different things and reactions, from excitement to dread and nerves to downright fear. Well, I’m here to shed a little light on work experience as a whole and to hopefully reassure you that it isn’t as scary as you may think. In the UK, a lot of schools designate a week(or more) to enable their students (usually those in Year 10 or 11) to go out and practice helping out in a real-life workplace. My school was a bit stingy and forced us to do everything for ourselves- which was very daunting- but, I think that most schools that enforce work experience tend to help you out along the way. The first thing I’d recommend to do is think about what you are interested in. It can even be something that you’re partially interested in and want to learn more about, even if it’s a career path you are 90% sure that you don’t want to go into, you still can’t allow yourself to disclude it entirely. This opportunity is less likely to show you the exact career path you’re meant for, but it’s still important to keep your options open, and with this, it can also give you an insight into what scenarios you hate, don’t mind, and enjoy! Secondly, If you’re interested, I would highly suggest checking to see if any local businesses offer work experience placements to students like yourself. With this stage, I would also recommend asking around to all associates and people that you are close with. They’ll likely know someone who works at a place you’d be interested in working for, and you may even get the placement easier because of knowing this person. I struggled to find a placement, even though I started searching for positions super early, I just couldn’t find a place I was truly invested in that was close enough for my parents to drive me back and for every day for a week. Luckily, when I told my form tutor this, he told me about a friend of his who worked at a vet, and from there, I managed to get a placement, even though they rarely take in students, simply due to this acquaintance. Connections are important when it comes to student occupations. If you still can’t find any student placements, use any online resources that are available to you. My school gave us the link to a website which listed loads of businesses that were open to having work-experience students, and yours may do the same. Although most of these were too far away from us to be realistic, doing this search gave me a good insight into the range of job prospects there are in the world, even if I didn't take much interest in any of them. So, by this stage of the process, you should have a list of around 5-10 possible placements that you are interested in. Before contacting these businesses, I would recommend you talk with your guardian/parent about each of them, and do your research on these businesses, verify that they are all commodious to you. It’s also important to know that you will need to be able to get transport there and back for the entirety of your placement, and this is something you should consider at this stage. After the researching of these businesses, you will have a remainder of about 3-6 companies, the next step is to send an email to them. This should include your name, the name of your school, dates you would like your placement for, description of why you would like the placement (I know this sounds bad, but you can lie here- just as long as you don’t pretend you have any qualifications- but even if you don’t want a career in science, it’s fine to say: ‘I am passionate about science and am considering a future career in this field.’). Make it short but sweet. Then, you wait. If you get multiple companies responding with “yes” then you need to think about which would be the most beneficial placement for you. Don’t feel bad if you need to send an email saying you’ve been offered another placement which you have decided to take instead. I promise it won’t affect them in the slightest. Overall, getting a work experience placement is nowhere near as daunting as it may first seem after trying these steps, which will allow you to get the best out of your placement and will hopefully aid you in the future when trying to decide your career. I hope this helped, - Non NonFocusing is my weakness. I’m barely able to maintain focus, especially when it comes to tasks I know will take more than half an hour. This is something I’ve struggled with all my life, and only recently have I found a way to work on it. Throughout school, I never really focused on my work. I got it done, but half the time I’d miss everything that was said. It was an issue in college, but I could still get work done in phases. Now that I’m in uni and drowning in work, I’ve realised that I need systems in place to help myself. Something else that I have difficulties with is procrastination. Mixing that with a lack of focus and a bad memory, especially when teaching is all online? You could say it’s a recipe for disaster, but it’s been a time when I can experiment with different methods to help me focus and tackle my work as soon as I can. When educational facilities are in person, it’s estimated that 1 in 3 students have issues with focus, leading to procrastination. 80 - 95% of students procrastinate, 75% consider themselves procrastinators and 50% procrastinate frequently and consider it a problem. Personally, I procrastinate to the point that it’s a problem. On the bright side, while trying to do my sound work, I do normally end up with a lovely clean kitchen by procrastinating. It’s safe to say that I’m quite the procrastinator, and it has started to affect my education. Online, I’ve found that my focus is getting worse. While on Zoom, I’m often distracted by the road outside, social media, or even what type of coffee I want to pick up from the local shop. I miss so much from lessons, which is a massive issue when it comes to assessments. When it comes time to work, I end up mentally rearranging my room, or even making a ground plan to move furniture about on it. So what have I found that helps me focus?
If you’re having a lot of issues with focusing, it could be worth going to your GP / Doctors / anyone in your educational facility. It can be a sign of an underlying condition, so it’s best to be safe than sorry. Just remember that you’re not alone in this, and talking about it can help. It won’t be easy to overcome it, and what I’ve said might not help, but it’s all about finding things that work for you. It’s all about trial and error, but you’ll get there in the end. You’ve got this! ~ En EN |
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Teenagers With Experience is an online organisation created to provide teenagers worldwide with an online platform to share their own experiences to be able to help, inform and educate others on a variety of different topics. We aim to provide a safe space to all young people. You can contact us via email, social media or our contact form.
Please note that the content on this website is created by teenagers. While we strive to provide accurate and helpful information, it is important to remember that we are not professional experts. If you are experiencing a crisis or need professional advice, please reach out to a qualified mental health professional or a helpline. |