Your first resume means you have nothing to write on it because you have no experience, no manageable skills, and you probably don’t have all the relevant qualifications yet. So you have nothing to write? Wrong, everything is experience. Ever owned a dog? Then you have experience with animals. Did you clean your room? Then you have cleaning experience. Are you good with people, punctual, hardworking, a team player? If so, then enter that into your resume too. As Resumeble.com have said, it is time to get creative because there are a whole bunch of other people in your position, and they are not submitting blank resumes to employers.
Make a Great First Resume
Include Every Salable Aspect of Yourself
As you may have gathered by the Resumeble advice in the introduction, it is no time to be modest. Compared to people just five years older than you, you have very little to put into your resume, so it is time to start including stuff that others wouldn’t. What counts as experience is very vague, so you can use that vagueness to pad out your resume. It is only a short-term problem anyway because once you start getting jobs, you will be able to fill out the padding with genuine qualifications and skills.
Do Not Forget Skills
Just because you do not have 20 years of experience working on your skills doesn’t mean you do not have skills. Just because you have only been studying graphic design for two years, and your competitors have been working in it for 15 years, doesn’t mean you do not have the skill. Enter any skills you think you have, even if those skills are new. Many times, a job opening is going to ask you what sort of skills you have, and if you have anything close, then enter those skills into your resume before you send it off with your job application.
Add More Hobbies
Look at other people’s resumes and see what they have written. You can perhaps lift a few of their hobbies and make them your own, or list a few of their lesser qualifications and put them on your resume. For example, maybe you also took the Chamber of Commerce 6-week business course.
Concentrate On What Managers Hate
You do not have the skills, qualifications of experience to compete, but you still be the sort of person a manager wants to hire. Here are the things that managers hate. The list is in no particular order. They are the pet peeves of most managers, especially those that have to deal with minimum wage employees.
- Lateness
- Sick days
- Mouthing off
- Going too slowly
- Overly-long breaks
- Taking short cuts
- Excuses
- The blame game
- Excessive Smartphone use
If your resume can somehow highlight how you are the opposite of this list, it could go a long way to getting you your first job. For example, you could mention how you had no sick days for the last 4 years of your school life. You could mention how you put a lot of stock in turning up on time, being respectful, and being efficient. You could mention how you do not make excuses because you learn from your mistakes rather than hiding from them, and you could mention how you are attentive to detail without letting it slow you down.
Conclusion – Copy And Fake it Till You Make it
Nobody is saying you should lie on your resume, but you certainly shouldn’t be following the same rules as people who are thirty years your senior. They have epic amounts of work experience, skills and knowledge to add to their resume. Their resumes are all about established features, but your resume is about potential. Your resume is showing what you can become rather than what you have been. Keep that in mind, and your first resume will turn out fine.
About author: Ava Williams is a career development specialist. She is interested in traveling, online learning and courses, and the job industry. Ava enjoys writing on education, career, and blogging tendencies. Find out more about Ava’s work by visiting her career blog. You can also follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn.
