Résumé - Love it or Hate it?

Gotta love the cheesy pictures I find.

First. "It's résumé. Not resume." A memorable quote from an extremely high-strung woman at ASU's career center. But nonetheless, her advice has stuck with me, and I do my best to press "option-E" when sending emails to prospective employers. ("Option-E" is for Mac. Don't hate.)

Moving on. Many friends are currently in the process of updating their résumés as graduation nears which has caused me to think about the costs and benefits associated with this piece of paper. One obvious cost of résumés is that they take hours upon hours (sometimes even days and weeks) to create and edit. When you think you're done, think again - because you're not. There's always something that can be improved... and this sucks. Also, this single piece of paper is just that - a single piece of paper. It is stressful trying to put years of relevant experience in this small space.

But don't get me wrong. I also LOVE the stupid thing. After the hours of labor; trying to get the wording just right, the spacing perfect, and the overall look to be professional and clean, it becomes a point of pride. When your résumé gets to this point, you can't help but emulate confidence when you're handing it over to a recruiter or sending an email with it attached in PDF form.

So despite the dreadful hours spent reviewing and revising, the time and effort will payoff when the recruiter is impressed by the professionalism of you and your résumé and decides to give you the opportunity of that first interview.


HAPPY APPLYING/INTERVIEWING! :)

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I apologize...

I have been trying to minimize the number of times I muster the words "I'm sorry" in an attempt to not admit fault or sound weak, but I feel this may be an appropriate time...

I'm sorry to all of those I asked forced to follow me on this thing and then neglected to update. I'm not making any promises, but I'm hoping that the next few months will be filled with exciting yuppie stories that I must share via the internet.

First a brief update of my life... Since my last post I obtained a summer internship in the Finance department of Boeing. I was asked to stay on part time throughout my senior year at ASU, which I gladly accepted. Fall 2011 semester I applied for a variety of positions with many different companies and was offered a full time position with a few prospective employers. One position was here in good ol' sunny Arizona, one was in Boston and one was in Northern California. I accepted the position with a consulting firm in Northern California and look forward to beginning my career in July of this year! 

Anyway... future posts that I am really excited about include: résumés, suit shopping and yuppie cars (because I just purchased a car). Stay tuned!

P.S. I have also ditched the BlackBerry & switched to an iPhone. 

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The Copenhagen Wheel

I figured yuppies have to be (or have to pretend to be) up to date with new upcoming technology so I thought I might share this with you. I just finished my marketing plan on the Copenhagen Wheel and did such a good job I pretty much convinced myself that I have got to buy this wheel (and a bicycle to attach it to).

Basically this wheel helps propel riders when they need an extra boost. (For example, when going up a hill - not that we have hills in Arizona...) The technology hidden within the hub of the wheel stores energy created from pedaling and braking until the rider needs it. The wheel also communicates with a smartphone interface (so far only iPhones & droid based phones, unfortunately no BlackBerrys) and displays pollution levels, traffic congestion and road conditions in real time. You can also lock your bike with your phone! And if someone attempts to steal it you'll get a text message immediately so you can chase the thief down.

Not only does it do all that but it helps improve the city as well. The wheel and phone allow riders to share the information collected from their rides with city planners. With the data collected from Copenhagen Wheel users, cities can "cross analyze different types of environmental data on a scale that has never before been achieved" and "build a more detailed understanding of the impact of transportation on a city's infrastructure." Ok, I'm starting to sound like a salesperson so I'll stop. But I do think that this is a great product and I can't wait to see how it performs on the market!

Check it out yourself if you're interested enough: The Copenhagen Wheel

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Kristin is LinkedIn

I am apparently a terrible blogger, because I have gotten more than one threat from friends claiming that they will "un-follow" me. So I figured I should probably force out a post now that I finished my second midterm for Law & Economics.

Anyway, I wanted to briefly complain about the time I have wasted on LinkedIn and how I foresee 0 economic benefit from using it. First, I have about as many "connections" on LinkedIn that I have "followers" on blogger: 10. Second, it takes about as much time to complete a LinkedIn profile as it does complete your résumé; which for a future yuppie like myself, is a long time. And last, LinkedIn requires that you get "recommendations" from some of your professional connections - but here's the thing, I'm not going to waste my colleagues time to write a nice paragraph about me that just about no one will ever read. (I would hope my colleagues would spend their time on something slightly more important... like reading my blog).

So now that you have read this I hope I have convinced you to invest some time in creating a LinkedIn profile. & while you're at it, be sure to add me as a connection & write me an elaborate recommendation too!

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Don't Always Trust Your Blackberry

I have owned a Blackberry for the past 4 years of my life. My Blackberry has never done me wrong and has always helped me keep in touch and stay punctual. I love the brand & love my Bold... or at least up until yesterday...

Some background information: I am a permanently late person, I always show up to things 5 minutes late (I can't help it - it's an Asian thing).

Anyway, yesterday, because of my Blackberry's advice I was an hour and five minutes late to everything. Thanks to the combination of too smartphones, my trust in my Blackberry and my stupidity, I was an extra hour behind. I woke up an hour late, got ready an hour late, left my house and hour late, got to breakfast an hour late, etc. Not until when I discussed golfing with my roommate, Lauren, did she make me feel totally retarded and did my Blackberry make me feel completely betrayed. My Blackberry's time had changed overnight because of daylight savings (something that us Arizonans know nothing about) and I chose to believe my phone's time over my laptop's, my iHome's, my microwave's and my car's. Yes, that is how much I trusted my Blackberry to supply me with up-to-date accurate information. & oh, how I was wronged.

I was upset for 5 minutes about losing an hour of productivity to extra sleep, but more upset that my companion, my Blackberry, had been so dishonest. I obviously had to forgive my Blackberry for its mistake, but from here on out, I will be skeptical of how much I trust this single electronic device. To put it simply, it's just too smart for me.

By the way, since this event I have changed the time zone from "Pacific" to "Arizona." & Thank God it wasn't a Monday.

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I suppose I'll start here...

The last time I blogged was in Junior High on LiveJournal where I would whine about the trials and tribulations of being a 13 year old. Now (7 years later) I am blogging about the trials and tribulations of being a business student at Arizona State University. I intend on graduating in a year and a half, which will hopefully improve my chances of landing a solid yuppie job. However, my professors & advisers still seem to be a bit skeptical despite any improvements in the current economy.

This leads me to the reason I decided to start this blog. I want to share my insights as a student about to graduate and job search in a less than perfect economy. I also want to discuss the insights shared by my professors and colleagues. I'm not claiming that these insights are any good, they are only thoughts and experiences I find interesting enough to share with others.

Anyway, let's start here. What is a yuppie? Urbandictionary.com (a very credible source) defines "Yuppie" as:
Informal for (Y)oung (U)rban (P)rofessional, or Yup. Turned into "yuppie" in the 1980's. A term used to describe someone who is young, possibly just out of college, and who has a high-paying job and an affluent lifestyle. Can now be used to describe any rich person who is not modest about their financial status. Yuppiedom (yuppie-dum) is a term used to describe an involvement in being a yuppie.

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