Needle, Meet Haystack

I may have mentioned this before, so I apologize if you’ve already read it.  But it bears repeating (provided I said it before), especially if you’ve been working for less than five years.

There’s a tendency to put one’s education on the top of a resume, after the header.  Unless you went to an Ivy League school (or foreign equivalent), don’t do this.  All you need to do is put it after your work experience section.  Seriously, that’s it.

This simple trick will make it appear that you’ve been in the workforce longer, and that you prioritize your experiences over your book learnin’.  And if you look more experienced, it’s more likely that your resume will stand out among all the others.

If you don’t have any work experience, though, this is a bad idea.  Instead, highlight some activities, volunteer opportunities, or choice skills that you have that would show your assets to your potential employers.

So when I made this post, there were a few things I didn’t mention.

But here’s the thing about being an expert: you have to be careful about sharing your expertise.

What I mean is this: if you are looking to be an expert in a creative field, like entertainment, advertising, architecture or something like that, the problem is that you cannot be an expert without also being a critic.  As these fields are partially based on aesthetics, you can’t be as expertly on them as another field with more concrete procedures and knowledge, like finance, economics, teaching or medicine.  Since creative fields have knowledge based on case studies, it’s a bit harder to assess them.

This is part of the reason why I have a job search blog instead of an advertising blog.

I haven’t worked in the field for long enough, so I don’t have any clout or enough examples to back me up when I say that something is amazing or crap.  Not to mention that since I would like to get a job in that field, I might be accidentally insulting perspective employers.  If I were an old warhorse, with years of experience and accolades and awards under my belt, that would be less of a problem.  But alas, I am not.

So if you’re going to be an expert, make sure that your expertise won’t kill your chances at getting a job.