Friday, September 24, 2010

A New Resume Twist

September 24, 2010

When I was job-hunting, the man at the employment agency asked if he should put down my time at Target or leave the time at Target as a gap in employment. (There are so many schools of thought on resumes--how to write them, what to put in...)

I told him to leave it in. I took the job for good reasons:

A) I needed the money
B) It had the hours I wanted--I could work while my daughter was at school and be home when she was home

Thinking about it later, I realized that I could add something new to the resume game: I could put in what I learned at Target, not what I did there: I learned about retail; I learned a lot about how creative people are from watching what they bought, and talking about how they're going to use it; and a lot about fashion (yes, really!) (Mostly that designers are blind, but no need to go there on the resume.)

So yes, put that Target time in there. I'm not ashamed of it, and I learned things, and as long as you're learning things, you'll be valuable to your next employer.

1 comment:

7 of 7 said...

I love this!

Also, there's actually a school of thought that says you can list accomplishments under a job. Don't know if your lessons qualify as accomplishments but they should. This sure sounds like a potential book title: What I Learned From Working at Target. I wonder if more people would by it if it were titled something like: Learn to Evaluate Your Personality By What You Buy at Target. You know how folks are about wanting to know about themselves (even from stuff they could figure out themselves). In any case, I like the nice things you note learning and you should at least write an entire essay call "What I Learned While Working At Target."