I was reading a post by my talented friend, fellow mama, and blogger extraordinaire,
Cordula where she talked about the things her resume doesn't say about her. See this post
here.
This is such a creative idea.
I was recently contacted by a children's magazine asking me to pitch a few stories. The editor asked me for pitches, a resume and some clips. Whenever anyone asks me for my resume, I get nervous. I feel like my resume doesn't communicate
who I am. Essentially my resume is a list of random jobs I've held.
So Cordy, this is inspired by you. Here is what
my resume leaves out about me.
Here goes:
I've had a series of random yet life altering jobs. Here are some that I can remember:
- I once worked for a promotional company that allowed me to give out samples of Tropicana Sweet Valencia Orange juice to strangers in New York City while making conversation with them about their favorite Sex And The City character. Ironically (at that time) I had never seen the show! I liked this job beccause I got to interact with literally thousands of people
- The same promotional company let me dress up in a giant Monster suit which advertised Monster.com. I got to talk to college students about life goals, even though I was dressed as a monster.
- I worked for Harper Collins Publishing company as an Editorial Intern while I was an Undergraduate at NYU. While I was there, I had my own office (which I cannot believe looking back on it) and my main job consisted of reading and reviewing unsolicited manuscripts for novels. When I worked there, I would constantly show up late and listen to internet radio all day as I reviewed the 'scripts
- I was a Library Assistant at a progressive private school in Brooklyn. I had access to free books. This is where I read "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" By Dave Eggers. This book changed my life and made me want to become a novelist even more than I wanted to before. I quit this job when I realized that the head librarian hated me and I hated her. She died recently and now I feel terrible about hating her.
- I worked as a temp-to-permanent position in the Contracts Department of a Not-For Profit company creating and modifying contracts for vendors. I learned legal language and my meticulous nature was furthered at this job. My friend and I were hired for the same temp position. What the company neglected to tell us, was that we were competing for one job. Needless to say he won and he's still there.
- I worked as a Vocational Counselor at a residential drug treatment facility in the middle of nowhere in Queens. My clients consisted of ex-crack addicts and ex- dealers. Many of them relapsed. But I was able to deal with many types of personalities and became much more adaptable after working at this job.
- When I was working as a Rehab Counselor I became pregnant with my son. After I realized that my working environment was unpleasant for many reasons that I won't get into, I had my son and resigned.
- I went to go work at an outpatient clinic where I treated schizophrenic ex-crackheads.
I decided I disliked that even more. And that I had gained all I needed to gain from the counseling field. So I opted to stay home with my son for his first year of life.
- I resolved after having countless jobs that I disliked, I would not take a job for the wrong reasons anymore. I couldn't work just for the pay check. I thought long and hard about what I really liked, what I wanted to do. I remembered how much I liked kids. My friend Josina is a teacher, she convinced me to get my substitute teaching license. So I did it!
- Now I am working as a Sub for the NYC Department of Education. Subbing works perfectly for me. It's not a fixed schedule, I can work when I want. And when I do work, it involves children, who (as I already mentioned) I enjoy being with.
And now the most important thing that my resume leaves out: I am a writer. I've been writing since I can remember. I have journals from the 4th grade on filled with pages and pages of material. I wrote and self-published a novel that I began when I was a child and finished into my 20's.
I've always been afraid to promote myself as a writer because I'm scared that I'm not good enough to suceed in the highly competitive field of freelance writing. That's why when the editor of the Children's magazine asked me for a resume and "clips," I had an internal freak out. Then I called my mom, who is a writer for advice.
"Mom!" I said "She wants clips. I don't have clips! What do I do?" My mom managed to calm me down.
"Honey, it doesn't matter if you don't have clips. You have your blog. You can send her some of your blog posts."
I guess that's what I'll end up doing. My issue is this: being confident is not something you can list on a resume. But if you did, it might look like this:
Confident 2010- Present
New York City
Owner
Responsibilities:
- Having faith in myself
- Setting and obtaining goals
- Feeling positive my work
- Feeling good about me
What does
your resume leave out about you?
