Hello all and welcome back to another discussion of getting out of that God-forsaken basement in your parent’s house.
Recently, I came across a few important tips and strategies to help you turn your one-time employment at Burger King (among other odd jobs) and turn it into a professional resume. I was just as shocked as you when I found out that anyone can come off as a professional. Firstly, this is NOT a way to cheat the system and lie to your potential employers but rather an epiphany into how important your first jobs can be. I won’t bombard you with obvious information so I’ll choose some that were enlightening in my opinion. So let’s get started…
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3 seconds is all that it will take for an employer to look at your resume and move on to the next stack of papers on their desk. So make as much information count in your resume as possible. Shorten it to a one-sided piece of information that will be your only means of finding a viable career in the workforce (at this point I was hyperventilating)
Add Monetary Value to your Experience Bullet Points
Huh? I was just as hung up on this as well. You’ve more than likely been in some job that dealt with customer service or money transactions involved. If you have, then simply put down how much (rough estimate) money you have been responsible for on a daily basis. Personally, I have been responsible for; let’s just say a LOT of money in my years of customer service. So adding, for example, $100 or even $40,000, that you’ve been responsible for to your bullet points for each job Who would trust me to handle their money? EMPLOYERS TRUST YOU.
Negotiate
As I’ve done more research into this field for tips on how to land a successful career, I happily stumbled onto a piece of information that I was hesitant on doing. The keyword is Negotiate. It sounds a little intimidating but once you’ve found a job AND have been offered that ridiculously insane amount of money (in my dreams) then the obvious fact is that they want you!
Now even though you may not want to Negotiate for a bigger salary, you can Negotiate for added health benefits and or more vacation hours. Below I will post what site I found this valuable word on.
That’s all I have for this week BUT STICK AROUND AND SEE MORE VALUABLE LINKS posted below.
The Peer Career Advisors like the ones in my school, are available on other campuses as well. They helped provide me with helpful tips for resume building and are specifically trained and qualified for cover letter building as well as resumes. If you are a student, I highly recommend talking and receiving their help for resumes.
The Negotiate site:
Related articles
- Resume Advice with Natural Flavors (ctcareerguidance.wordpress.com)
- Understanding the Significance of a Professional Resume in Your Career (resumesprofessional.wordpress.com)
Life's Ambition 
This blog is full of good advice (and made me chuckle a few times too…) I’m happy you found my article helpful! Thanks for linking it. I love writing resumes, but one I can’t stand writing is my own, so I feel your pain. 🙂 Seems like you found a good network in the career advisors to help you. If our group in CT can be of any help, just give us a shout.
The best way to negotiate is showing you have some knowledge of what your value is and some knowledge of what the median salary in your field is. The median is different from the average, as median calculates what most people in your field receive. There are a few websites that can help you get that median number, or even the average salary: http://www.mynextmove.org and http://www.careeronestop.org. For example, going along with a job at Burger King, I just found out the median salary for fast food workers in the United States is $18,300. This is the specific website I used:
http://www.careeronestop.org/SalariesBenefits/Sal_default.aspx