Changing Careers while changing jobs

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At a age where most of you could be my children, I am trying to break back into the IT industry. I started out as a systems analyst and programmer in the mid 60's working on early man machine and graphics challenges.

While I have had lots of successes in varied organizational cultures and roles, most people don't know what to do with my resume that looks like it belongs to several people. Most of my career has been in relationship management or sales--have worked in small, large companies, federal and state government, non profit and owned my own business twice.

Thank you for your feedback and suggestions.

Chuck

-- Chuck Rhynard (poppatree@hotmail.com), October 19, 2000

Answers

If I take one of my dart throw observations here, I would bet that you need to look at your resume. A resume doesn't have to list every thing you have done but be honed down to close to a page as possible that highlights your achievements and crafted with particular job opportunties in mind.

For a document which is going to garner at most a couple of minutes of someone's time, check if you need assistance with developing your resume.

It's been a long time since I have sent a resume out but if I was working for someone, even if you are not looking for a job, it often is a good idea to test the market to see where you are at or simply to feel the buzz and excitement of a job search and to remind yourself that your contribution to the world of work is important.

Originally I would tailor my resume and cover letter to the target companies or careers I had focused on rather than send one standard resume. Later as I got older, I decided to go nutty and draw a creative flow chart. I knew I would be turned down by lots of people, but I would be turned down by people who didn't understand my creative genius and therefore people I could not work with anyway.

That's my 2 cents worth, I hope it helps.

(Mark Zorro is a pseudonym I use on-line)

-- Mark Zorro (zorromark@consultant.com), October 19, 2000.


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