[olug] part-time job hunt suggestions

[Bill Brush]

On 11/17/05, Matt Anderson <manderso at cs.wisc.edu> wrote:
>
> Working at a university (or similar environment) sounds pretty good,
> and UNMC is very close to where I'm living, but they don't really
> have any positions posted and I haven't been able to identify anyone
> to talk to 'on the inside' about unadvertised positions (if there are
> any).

I work in the Unversity setting in Lincoln, and in general there are
two kinds of positions.  Permanent positions are either advertised, or
they are open only to internal applicants.  Either way there's not
much of a way around the bureacracy on those.  Temporary positions are
frequently not advertised because there's no paperwork necessary to
hire or fire a temp worker, so most managers don't bother to go to the
trouble.  These are the positions you may need a contact for (and no I
don't have any at UNMC), but they are few and far between in my
experience.

>
> I had CareerLink suggested to me recently as a good local resource,
> and it does indeed seem to have a lot more Omaha listings than say
> Monster or Jobs.com or the like.  I'll have to give it a very
> thorough sifting-through very soon.
>

Very important and critcal tip for Careerlink specifically and
everywhere in general:  Do NOT submit your resume' via e-mail.  The
formatting very frequently gets completely mangled and becomes painful
to read for the reader.  As a frequent hiring committee participant
here I'm required to read all the submitted resume's but I will tell
you right up front that I spend about a quarter the time on a
Careerlink or other mangled resume' that I do on one that's mailed in
on proper resume' paper.  I honestly don't think we've ever had
someone in for an interview who submitted their resume' through
Careerlink.   That's out of hundreds of resume's.  Other general tips
would be:  tailor your resume to the advertisment on a point by point
basis (if they're advertising for a an administrator they don't care
how good of a developer you are);  write a cover letter specific to
the company you're applying to;  have someone else proofread your
cover letter and resume' (we've frequently gotten cover
letters/resume's referencing a different company and that's a killer);
 and finally keep it short, a resume's should not be more than one
page unless you have something really extraordinary to present that's
relevant to the position.

I realize you're experienced, but I've seen all of these mistakes from
very experienced people, and I've read more resume's than I care to
think  about.

Good luck in your search.

Bill