Penned by Carolyn

Last week, in the first installation of Bright Green Talent’s Resume Boot Camp, I discussed some general tactics for not having your resume immediately thrown out.

Before I get started on formatting and other juicy resume advice, let me just give a plug for Bright Green Talent’s newly unveiled career counseling and resume services. We try to give catch-all advice on the blog, but everyone has their own unique issues and getting personalized advice can make all the difference.

So, as for formatting:

• Rule #1 – Simplicity reigns. We receive resumes all the time that look like they were composed in Kid Pix – colors everywhere, different fonts, clip art… scrap all of that. The flashiest your resume should get is bold type on the schools you attended and the titles of positions you’ve held.
• Rule #2 – Do not succumb to the desire to have columns in your resume. I don’t know from whence said desire comes, but it makes the resume visually confusing and a lot of automated applicant tracking systems will mangle all your information as they upload your resume.
• Rule #3 – As lovely/mature/handsome you might look in photos, please don’t include any in your resume. Nick, our Managing Partner, sums it up as such: “It distracts from your accomplishments and oftentimes lowers recruiter’s opinion (makes it seem like you’re relying on your good looks, or are over-confident).”
• Rule #4 – And while we’re on the subject of visuals, let us touch upon video resumes… basically, we’ve yet to see one done well. In the future, they might become the norm (for instance, keep an eye on Visual CV) – but for now, it seems like the flashiness and entertainment value are covering up weak experience or some other shortcoming.
• Rule #5 – Don’t make any of your resume too text-heavy. Bullet points are a great way to go  — they make your resume seem digestible at a glance, which will in turn increase the likelihood of someone reading through the whole thing. Plus, it’ll make you avoid rambling and vagaries, which there’s no room for in a one-page resume.

Rules 6 and beyond to come next week. Stay tuned! For advice in the meantime, find us twittering away.

Penned by Tom

I’m going to attack one of the simpler, yet one of the most important questions we’re asked tens if not hundreds of times every day: What’s the best way to find green jobs?

Now, I’m recruitment-company-biased, but I’ll try to leave that green hat aside for a minute and help you; whilst also re-donning the hat for a moment to introduce you to a new service we’re launching called our ‘Bright Greenhouse’, which aims to answer that question in a LOT more detail. Details to follow… but for the time being here are some of my top tips:

There ARE green jobs out there, but they’re not as prevalent as the media or Obama might have you believe. As such, it’s important to ensure that you’re using the right methods to go about finding a green job.

1) Use your experience, skills and network to open opportunities, rather than going cold to a new sector, company or people – personal connection is still one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal. Use them wisely.

2) Think on your feet. Everybody and their mothers-brothers-dog knows how to use google or search a job board. Sit down in front of a blank piece of paper and create a simple strategy that plays to your strengths, examines your weaknesses and analyzes your differences. This will help you find your niche.

3) Do your homework. Read about and discuss green jobs for a while. If you’re new to the arena, you need to understand what you’re looking for before you leap in. Nothing pains the employer more than getting 100 resumes that are completely off track.

4) Be realistic, see point 3 above.

5) Network; there’s a plethora of events and opportunities to chat about green jobs…

And once you’ve got the opportunity in front of you:

6) Tailor your resume to the job you are applying for. If you’ve got a generic resume, it’s easy to spot and it does nothing for the person reading it. It makes them feel like they’re one of a hundred other people that have received it. Unless you’re one in a hundred of the people applying, it’s not going to get you noticed.

7) You have more avenues than a resume, ring the company to have a chat with the person hiring, if only for a couple of minutes. It’s one way to get noticed… but make sure you’re very careful about it. It could backfire.
PLAN FOR INTERVIEWS. Too many people think they can wing it. Too many people talk about themselves too much, rather than what they can do for the company!

9) Use a recruiter… even if they can’t respond to you individually, you never know – one day they might have a job that fits your skills and if you’re not registered with them, you’ll not find out! Damn, there’s that hat again.

Happy hunting (in the non-animal-killing sense).
Tom

It’s the moment you all (or least we at Bright Green US) have been waiting for — our UK founder, Tom Savage, is on a plane from England with bike and kite-surfer in tow, coming to settle in San Francisco. He’ll be helping spread the Bright, Green word far and wide and work on getting many more of you into the careers you’re dreaming of.

Our Friday blogspace will be his domain for answering all your burning questions about green jobs — so before he gets here, we’ll fill you in on why he’s so very qualified to do so.

Tom received undergraduate and post-grad degrees in Business and Management from Edinburgh and then Oxford, where he was awarded a prize scholarship for his MSc. After turning down funding to continue with a PhD at Oxford, and being frustrated after a short stint in investment banking, Tom took off on his own to pursue his passion for green business.

In 2003, Tom started a social enterprise called Blue Ventures (www.blueventures.org), which runs global conservation projects. In 2005, BV won the SEED Awards at the UN and the 2007 UN Equator Prize, as well as four Responsible Travel Awards and a Skal Eco-tourism award. In 2005 Tom also founded Tiptheplanet (www.tiptheplanet.com) a green wiki site. In 2006, Tom ran Social Enterprise Day for the Cabinet Office, guest-editing their ‘Trailblazers Magazine’ and advising the new minister for the Third Sector, organizing events  as well as co-founding a new internationally-acclaimed social enterprise, Make Your Mark with a Tenner. In 2006, Tom co-founded Bright Green Talent.

And he’s gotten a fair amount of credit for all his hard work. In 2007, Tom was awarded the ‘Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year’ award. He was also selected as one of 30 ‘Everyday Heroes’ in the British Prime Minister’s book of the same title, with a chapter dedicated to his work. Tom was recently named one of Striding Out’s Future 100 Young Entrepreneurs, one of 35 “Young Guns” by ‘Growing Business’ magazine (the only social entrepeneur to make the list), and was Highly Commended as an “Enterprising Young Brit.”

We could go on, but I think we’re making him blush. Tom will hit the ground running next week, and you’ll start to hear things from his perspective. From the team at Bright Green US: welcome!