Spicing Up Your Resume With Extra Information

I am sure that all of us have some unknown skill that we have always wanted to add to a resume just because it looks good. In today's tight job market, employers are looking for people who can do more than just the job they are hired for. In essence, they want to hire a jack of all trades for a position.

Decide what looks good

If you played water polo in college, that is probably not going to secure you a job on Wall Street. If, however, you coached for the city league basketball team, it might help you secure a job at a local high school. Coaching ball exhibits that you are able to deal with young people in organized activities.

Organize your extra info

Once you decide what looks good, you can add sections to your resume like Civic Responsibilities, Volunteer Activities and even Additional Information just so I have somewhere to list this information. One friend was applying for a job that involved a lot of writing so he added an additional information section where he added facts about two articles he had published.

Your cover letter is a good place to mention a skill and then expand on it in your resume. If you are applying for a very civic-minded or non-profit organization and you have volunteered or participated in local civic activities then add a section on your resume to include that information.

What is your goal?

Your main goal should be to create a resume and a cover letter that shows you are uniquely qualified for the position in question and that you possess skills outside of the everyday applicant. You also want your resume to show that if greater demands were put on your for different tasks, you could easily handle them.

Finally, you want to appear to be a dynamic and interesting individual that will contribute to a company as a new employee. You should only list information that can somehow be considered applicable to the job, to you as an applicant or to the company in general. You are trying to create a positive picture with your additional information.

Once you add your unrelated information, sit back and read your resume objectively. If you laugh out loud then it might mean you should remove that info. If it makes you think twice or think how neat is that, then the information is probably warranted and should stay on your resume.

So, whether you are black belt in martial arts or were in the ROTC in high school, use whatever skills that you have developed outside your work experience to make yourself appear to be the most competent and sought-after applicant for the job.

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About Scott Brown

Scott Brown is the author of the Job Search Handbook (www.JobSearchHandbook.com). As editor of the HireSites.com weekly newsletter on job searching, Scott has written many articles on the subject. He wrote the Job Search Handbook to provide job seekers with a complete yet easy to use guide to finding a job effectively. To download your own free copy of the Job Search Handbook, visit http://www.JobSearchHandbook.com.


And here is another random article you might be interested in...

Payday Loans are the World's Most Expensive Cash

If someone told you that they would lend you $500 today if you repaid them with $5000 a year from now, would you take it? What if the repayment amount were only $2500? Would that strike you as a good deal? This may sound like an insane amount to repay on a small loan, but that, in effect, is what thousands of consumers do every day when they take out a payday loan.

Payday loans, also known as cash advance or quick cash loans, are short term loans that typically last about two weeks. In exchange for borrowing relatively small sums ranging from $100-500, the borrower pays a fee that can range from $10-40 per $100 borrowed for the two-week loan. The borrower writes a postdated check for the borrowed sum plus the fee, which the lender may cash two weeks later.

These fees may seem relatively small, but when viewed as an annual percentage rate, they actually amount to anywhere between 250-1000% per year. That's an astronomical amount of interest in a world where a credit card loan at 25% is considered to be high. And yet, the payday loan business is thriving and there are now some 23,000 stores in America that offer some form of these cash advance loans.

Why do people take out such loans? The primary reasons are convenience and a lack of better alternatives. These stores are now so common that there are often several of them on a single block. They don't do credit checks and they will lend money to pretty much anyone with a steady job. And the borrowers tend to be people who do not have access to other borrowing options, such as credit cards, friends with money or a local credit union that offers short term loans.

Defenders of these financial products say that they are simply offering a product that the public wants. That may very well be true, as these businesses are doing very well. What remains to be answered is whether the public really wants to borrow money at 500% per year. In all likelihood, they are doing so only because they cannot find a less expensive option. Anyone who needs a short term loan is more than welcome to go to a payday loan store to get one. But any potential borrowers should realize that they making use of one of the world's most expensive forms of lending.

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About Charles Essmeier