The first thing an employer sees when they evaluate your candidacy for a job is your resume. It tells them what you're all about, where you've been, and what you're capable of bringing to the table. It's an extremely important sheet of paper (or these days, digital document).
Realizing that, I've found some useful tools on the Web that will not only give you ideas on writing your resume, but they'll also help you improve it. If you're looking for a job, you'll definitely want to try out at least some of these sites.
Improve that resume
CareerBuilder: CareerBuilder might specialize in job searching, but the site is also a great place to get some help with your resume.
On CareerBuilder's Resume page, you'll find several useful tools for improving your resume. One option is to get paired up with a CareerBuilder resume expert who will help you write your resume. If you choose that option, you can work with the expert to create a resume that's directly tailored to your skill sets. You'll receive a first draft of the resume within four days. Prices for that service range from a $175 one-time fee for recent grads to $279 for director or "c-level" executives.
If you've already got your resume started, you might want to try out CareerBuilder's free resume review. Simply upload your resume to the site and an expert will evaluate your resume. It's a neat service that should come in handy as you start looking for that new job.
CareerBuilder's resume tools help you find the right job.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)HowToWriteAResume: HowToWriteAResume provides several features that aim at making your resume as strong as it can be. But where the site really shines is in its resume builder.
When you start creating your resume on the site, you'll have the option of inputting everything from your name to your achievements throughout your career. The service takes you through six pages that require you to input information. Once complete, you can choose between several resume formats. Unfortunately, the site's free account offers you only one format option. If you want something a little nicer, you'll need to pay a one-time fee of $10.99. I found that the premium resumes are nicer, but whether or not they're worth the price is up for debate.
If you're already happy with your resume, you can use HowToWriteAResume to get expert advice on what to include in the document, as well as some basic tips. It's an all-around useful site. I'm just not convinced that the premium resumes are worth the $10.99 fee.
HowToWriteAResume makes you pick a resume format.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)
Assuming you're in a position of hiring new people to work for your company (instead of laying them off), there's a new productivity boosting service called The Resumator that launched early Wednesday. It's part job-posting tool, part paperwork reducer, and also manages to throw in a recommendation engine that tells you which Web job boards are worth posting to based on the kind of job you're trying to hire for.
Of all the features, I find the most attractive one to be the document organizer, which sorts submitted resumes into different buckets for each job. You can search through these and narrow them down into groups by keyword, making it simpler to see who has listed certain skills, schools, or workplaces. It uses Scribd to convert each file into a browser-friendly document, and throws in a few neat Webby features like a five-star rating system and optional checklist that lets you quickly give each applicant the yea or nay in a centralized location.
What I really like about this system is that it's collaborative. Say, for instance, you're involving a few people in your company with a hiring process, you can give each one of them access, and they can rate each applicant respectively. I had helped out with this in a previous job, and Resumator's system would have been a whole lot better than wading through paperwork, adding sticky notes, and marking up each person's printed resume.
Resumator costs $59 a month and lets you post and manage an unlimited number of jobs. If you're trying to hone your resume, also worth checking out is Razume where others can mark up your CV and tell you what areas need work (Disclosure, Razume founder and CEO Sam Blum is an old friend of mine).
Related: The spreadsheet of sunshine: Who's hiring
The Resumator lets you dig through uploaded resumes and view them right in your browser using Scribd. You can also grant other members of your team access to this listing so they can rate and comment on applicants.
(Credit: Charlton Ventures)
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