Jim Littlefield » How To

Sample Google Docs Resume

Jim (@JimLittlefield) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 08:30:45 +0000

Once you’ve created a resume using Google Docs you can either copy and paste the HTML into a blog page or retrieve it inline.

The resume below resides on Google Docs. Using a WordPress plug-in the resume is retrieved from Google docs using a 1 line of PHP code. See how the resume appears on Google Docs Resume.

One advantage of the Google Doc page is the ability to download the doc as a PDF or a Word document. Recruiters seem to be very attached to attachments.

Feel free to contact me if you want the plug-in code.

The sample HTML used to create the resume is below this resume. Though you can let Google Docs create the HTML for you I found formatting my own code made a better looking resume. If your resume is in Word I strongly encourage you to start from scratch. The HTML generated by Word is very ugly.

The resume above uses very basic HTML. Don’t let HTML intimidate you! Copy and Paste the code below into Google Docs under the Edit/HTML menu.

Your Name and LinkedIn Widget code

Subheading

Horizontal Rule

Bold Text ✔ Text

Employer

Job Title

Accomplishments 1
Accomplishments 2
Accomplishments 3

Researching Resume Keywords

Jim (@JimLittlefield) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:09:31 +0000

Some things I write about are just to put them out there. Other things like my resume, are pages I want people to find when searching with Google or Bing. Before writing you need to know the search words people are using to find what they want. That is the value of doing keyword research.

The keywords and keyword combinations are determined through keyword research. Research the search terms (aka keywords) people are using to find pages you want them to find.

The primary tools I use are:

My brain, based on my own knowledge of the subject
Google’s Search-based keyword tool and Google Insights for Search
Market Samuri which is a tool available for purchase
Job posts from positions you want

In some cases you might use a single keyword for very unique product names. If you’re targeting a very competitive keyword you’ll need to find keyword combinations. Some will be a few keywords other will have many keywords.

For example I have a job board site I created primarily for my own education and research purposes at Commission Sales Jobs. Using the search based keyword link tells me the keyword combination “Sales Jobs” is highly searched and highly competitive. But there are many additional and more targeted terms that people use to find sales jobs. These are the keywords you need to be using when building site content.

If you’re looking for employment look for keywords in job postings. Try searching on some of the terms and see the search results. I’ve had several recruiters contact me based on my online resume appearing in search results.

Searches with lots of keywords are a pretty good indicator that the person knows exactly what they want. I would argue that those are the people you really want to reach.

Planning a Class Reunion?

Jim (@JimLittlefield) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:34:36 +0000

A group of us from high school decided late in the year we wanted to have a 30-year high school class reunion. Because time was limited we needed a quick way to get the word out get classmates to attend. Using facebook, wordpress and eventbright we were able to have a very successful and well attended reunion.

Ticket Sales for High School Class Reunion

Jeff Davis Class of 1979 Reunion Registration Page

To ensure the cost didn’t keep people away, we sold several different types of tickets ranging from $0 to $75. There is no commission for the free events. Eventbright charges a small commission for priced tickets. Using the eventbright registration cost $115. For that raised $4,500 for the event by selling 214 tickets.

How I Zero-Inbox(ee)

Jim (@JimLittlefield) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 13:30:44 +0000

Fred Wilson wrote about a Boxee bookmarklet feature of the Boxee TV beta. Videos items from various sites can be tagged for later viewing via Boxee TV. My Read/Listen/View folder tends to fill up with video because I don’t want to take the time to download.

Seeing this as a potential solution, I was prompted to write about my experience with having a zero-inbox and how it keeps me focused on what’s important and worthwhile.

Having a zero-inbox eliminated that nagging feeling something important could be sitting buried in my inbox. The key idea is to process your inbox completely before taking on any activity requiring more than 3-minutes to complete.

If it will take less than 3-minutes, like a quick response, do it and archive it. The remaining items are placed in one of four folders. Heres how I have mine setup up:

.Action – Action is needed which is expected to take more than 3-minutes to complete.
.Read/Listen/View – Subscriptions, blog posts, etc. Many are deleted right way.
.Someday/Maybe – Someday I may do this but no immediate plans.
.Waiting – Items I’ve delegated or expecting a response. This become a ticker list to follow-up with after a few days.

I’ve presceed the folders with a period (.) so they sort to the top. All other items are archived (the Y key in gmail). If I need to refer to them again I can easily search for them.

After doing this for a few days, it also became apparent which lists I needed to unsubscribe. They either sent too much email or I just wasn’t that interested enough to ever read what they were sending. Some of these I just subscribe to via Google Reader.

One last bit of advice, don’t cherry pick or scan your inbox, process it from the top to bottom in order. If you start looking for the “really important stuff” it’s too tempting to get sucked into it, missing the other more important stuff.

How to Stand Out in a Crowded Job Market

Jim (@JimLittlefield) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 20:48:46 +0000

WSJ’s Sarah Needleman talks with David Perry and Kevin Donlin, author and co-author of Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters 3.0: How to Stand Out from the Crowd and Tap Into the Hidden Job Market using Social Media and 999 other Tactics Today

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Standing Out in a Crowded Job Market
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Buy Now on Amazon.com Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters 3.0: How to Stand Out from the Crowd and Tap Into the Hidden Job Market using Social Media and 999 other Tactics Today

Online Resume Tips

Jim (@JimLittlefield) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:24:08 +0000

I started by using Google Docs to convert and publish my resume as a web page then integrated it into a WordPress resume page.

The page’s URL and Title are both important parts of making your resume “search friendly” to leading search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. When deciding on a URL and title consider what search terms you want people to find you with. The more targeted and specific the better.

Online Resume/CV

Remember most people won’t know your name, they’ll be looking for something about you like “ruby on rails developer” or “resume writing consultant”. These are the terms you’ll use in your page’s URL and page title not “Jim Littlefield’s Resume”. Only people looking for my name will find me that way!

In my case I am currently in the top results for “software sales resume” on Google, Yahoo and Bing. After doing some keyword research, I’ve decided a better set of keywords would be “software sales executive atlanta”. The next time my site is indexed we’ll see what kind of progress I’ve made.

Being found in search engines is just part of the puzzle job seekers should also be using Linkedin (http://linkedin.com) to promote their visibility on the web. LinkedIn lets you add weblinks, one of them should be to your resume. Be sure to change the default “My Website” to one of your keywords (e.g. “Software Sales Executive Resume“) You can see an example in my LinkedIn profile.

One last point, if you want to search for other people’s resumes you’ll likely need to use some advance search techniques. Here’s a search tip; search for “resume software sales executive -jobs -sample”. The “-job” and “-sample” will remove most of the resume sample sites and job listings sites from the search results.

I’m giving some thought to writing a paper/article about using the web be found for jobs. Right now the web is very lopsided on the side of job requisition posting vs. job candidate posting. I’d like see more people post their resumes online. What do you think about that idea?

Let me know by leaving a comment or a voice message!

Create a Resume with Free Google Docs

Jim (@JimLittlefield) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:22:17 +0000

Do you want to create a resume online? I’ve found having my sales resume online to be a great way for recruiters to find me. You can too with little or no knowledge of HTML using Google Docs. If you know a little about HTML you can make your resume even better. I want to provide a few tips on creating your online resume and how to make it search friendly. By making your resume search friendly recruiters looking for workers with your skills and education can find you through search tools from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft (Bing).

Online Resume/CV

First lets talk about Google Docs. Google Docs is a simple, intuitive and free word processing tool you can use to create your online resume. Thought it’s not robust enough to replace Microsoft Word, I found it to be a much better tool for creating a web resume.

When I started I just copied the Word version of my resume into Google Docs. While that worked it didn’t look anything like the original. I ended up starting over by copying sections at a time vs. the whole resume and avoided using tables like I had with the Word version of the resume.

After I was happy with the result I simply told Google to publish the resume to the world… but nobody found it. In fact when I Googled for it, I couldn’t find it either! Why? Well there were a lot of reasons but the main reason was because the resume, as published by Google Docs, was not “search friendly”. You may be have heard the term search engine optimization (SEO). It’s a fancy phrase but don’t let it scare you.

There can be a lots of variables to get top search placement but there are also some very basic things you can do that can make a big impact. Once I made some of those changes my resume started to appear in all kinds of search results and for the kinds of jobs I’m interested in being hired.

That’s enough for now, but if you want learn all about creating a search friendly resume subscribe to this blog!

Posting to WordPress via Email

Jim (@JimLittlefield) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:04 +0000

Configuring WordPress to accept posts via email took some effort to get working. This is my first post sent via email.

Generally I am very happy with WP but was surprised handling posts via email was not a simpler process. The bottom line was WP works best with plain-jane POP3 email connections.

My primary problem was using GMail which requires SSL (secure socket layer) for authentication. By default WordPress is not setup handle SSL connections. Ultimately I ended up setting it up with a regular POP3 that used port 110.

One post I found said to use ssl://pop.gmail.com as the server name instead of pop.gmail.com. That only seems to work after recompiling WP with SSL. I don’t know how to do that, if you do, more power to you.