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Nothing majorly drastic, but she said that since I'm new to this field (the field of web analytics/SEO/internet-marketing-make-website-double-plus-good/etc) I should put my education at the top, and add a skills section, to highlight the salient attributes I possess. Do you guys see any major problems with this, so long as I can still keep it all on one page?

TomW's picture
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If your resume already covers what you did, how you did it, and what technologies or methods were used along the way, the skills section would be redundant.

Placing your education first implies that it's more important than your experience, which might be more common for complete entry level jobs for which your only qualification is your education (no projects, no internships, no related work experience).

If your only background in the field is your education, then I could see the skills section because it's the only way to say what skills you have.

RDHodgson's picture

 Yeah, that *is* my position. :) Basically, I'm taking something of a... turn in my career. I was pursuing the academic route (academic philosophy) but that's gone a bit... belly up. So I want to get started in a different career path, with similar skill set. The kind of analysis involved in web stuff is very similar in principle to what I do normally, even if the concretes change. That's something I can get across in an interview, but not in a resume.... so as far as the resume goes, I'm thinking first I gotta build up the relevant skills, stick them in the skills section at the top, along with my education, and then send it out there.

jrosenau's picture

3 thoughts:

1) If you recently graduated, you can move the education section up; however, if it's your 2nd degree, I would leave it near the bottom.

2) You should be conveying your skill set in the resume.  Some companies may worry about whether or not you have experience with a particular piece of software; but the majority of companies are worried about the skill set rather than any specific technology.

3) You should use a cover letter to effectively communicate how your skill set and what's in your resume line up with the companies' needs for the position you are applying for.

Good Luck!

John

markbyantaylor's picture

At the risk of starting a long conversation about CV/ resume formats;

I've been reading CVs for many years for techies.  I really like to see skills - ideally with years commercial experience, but a list of skills works.  Unforutantely so much of the jobs process now works of keywords it is difficult to avoid it.

I should then be seeing the skills in the exprience as well.  It has to tie in.

I would leave the education to the end after work experience.

Reading between the lines - I get the impression that being new to the field means that you don't have the relevant achievments to boast? (Please correct me if wrong).  If that is the case then I'd suggest doing as much "free" work as you can get your hands on to build you portfolio of work.  Look for local charaties or small business and do FOC.  You then can use these in your experience to prove the "skills".

Good luck, Mark