My college’s career office was, well, pretty crap. One of the only things they taught you how to do – and I use “taught” loosely here, as it was really more along the lines of “Here are some instructions. Yeah.” – was write a resume (or a CV, as basically everyone outside the States calls them).
As probably most of you have experienced in your own lives, that first resume out of college is pretty pitiful. You spend hours upon hours trying to stretch your work-study job and those two months volunteering at the local Boys and Girls Club into something that would make someone think they should hire you. You add skills like “proficient in Microsoft Word” because that’s what the dinosaurs at the career office tell you to do, even though anyone who isn’t proficient in Microsoft Word is, basically, unhirable.
It’s like saying, “Breathes air.” Good for you, boo.
I recently returned to the dusty old resume because a freelance job I was applying for asked for one. Unlike that about-to-graduate-college time, this time around I actually had some real experience and skills to add. I realized that in my three and a half years of blogging professionally, I’d accumulated over 700 posts on my byline and written for a wide range of publications. Rather than a tiresome slog, the whole thing ended up being kind of an ego boost.
However, one element of resume writing that is unnecessarily annoying, no matter where you are in your career, is the formatting. Figuring out what should be bolded and what should be italicized and exactly how to indent those skills sets is tiring to the extreme. Don’t you wish there was just some application that could do it for you?
Surprise! (Or maybe not such a big surprise, considering the title of this post…) There is! It’s called Seeveeze (see what they did there?) and it could potentially save you hours of formatting time. You fill in the little boxes with the appropriate information – name, phone, experience, etc. – and let Seeveeze do the rest!
The site offers a free version, which should suffice for most job-seekers, but they also offer upgraded ones for all you ballers out there. Seeveeze also shows you real-time updates on your resume as you type it, so you know throughout the whole process exactly what it will look like.
Finally, they have a handy little tip box on the bottom righthand corner that suggests different things you should – and shouldn’t – be doing.
If your career office in college sucked as much as mine did, or you’re just ready to update that ancient resume (pro tip: delete anything related to Microsoft), don’t waste hours formatting it yourself. Seeveeze has you covered.
