Amber Gaia: Healthcare Organizer
Corrections or additions?
This story by Barbara Fox was published in U.S. 1 Newspaper
on April 22, 1998. All rights reserved.
Career Makeover Part II
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Greg Wheeler
609-799-9045,
E-mail: rgwheeler@aol.com. Objective: Product & Technology
Development Executive:
design/engineering/commercialization/marketing/lifecycle
management.
profile tells of 16 new products predicted to generate revenues of
$50 million annually and of four patents.
He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from Clarkson
College of Technology, has worked for PA Consulting Group on
Princeton-Hightstown
Road and Checkpoint Systems in Thorofare, was vice president of Besam
Automated Entrance Systems in Hightstown, and vice president of AW
Computer Systems in Mount Laurel — which just went out of business
due to lack of funding.
"The writer looks as if he has incorporated all the different
styles into one document," says Helen Neuman of the Professional
Roster. "The executive profile would be much more effective if
it zeroed in on three or four strengths."
Wheeler overuses adjectives and power words, says Neuman, "direct,
captured, delivered, orchestrate, one right after the other, it’s
over written." She thinks he should leave out his early
achievements,
even that he was an Eagle Scout, "That means something if you
have no other credentials. It shows leadership, but that is not
necessary
when you have other leadership."
The executive profile is too long, agrees Guarneri, and the diverse
experience in many industries "could show he has no focus."
But she gets excited about Wheeler’s top five achievements. They
achievements
are the "meat," says Guarneri, and he should feature them
in the cover letter. Then, says Guarneri, put these same achievements
in the appropriate places in the resume, "sprinkling them along
with the others, which says `I have ongoing achievement.’
"At his level, rather than resumes, he should be sending out
marketing
letters — door openers to exploratory meetings with
executives,"
says Neuman.
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Lois Yuhasz
609-971-6986,
E-mail jlyuhasz@juno.com. Objective: a "responsible position
that offers opportunity and challenge" full-time or part-time.
in all sorts of jobs plus considerable volunteer experience and
self-employment.
She has attended Georgian Court College and Douglass College and has
training in Total Quality Management.
"Responsible position?" asks Devlin. "All positions are
responsible. Knowing what is important and what is not is a crucial
skill, and she doesn’t know." She suggests heading the resume
with details on Total Quality Management training and college credits.
She refers Yuhasz to "The Job Hunters Word Finder: the complete
guide to key words and phrases for resumes, cover letters, and
interviews,"
by James Bluemond (Peterson’s, 1996, $12.95) for key words to use
for such jobs as general office clerk. Skills needed include data
entry, word processing, proof reading, file maintenance, work with
large paper volume. "Route incoming and process outgoing mail,
maintain office equipment, greet associates and visitors, assist in
accounting duties. Energetic, willing to learn, desire to develop
skills."
All the reviewers were concerned about how this resume looked. The
experience section is an impenetrable four-inch block of type. The
resume, says Marlene Devlin of Cittone, "is so hard to read I
might put it on the bottom of the pile and might never get to it."
you get a job, not the one that goes by the book. After all, as P.J.
Dempsey insists, "Everybody will tell you 50 different things
about 50 different resumes, but there is no right or wrong."
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Resume Sources
division at American Re-Insurance Company, 555 College Road
East. 609-243-4200. http://www.amre.com. An alumnus of St. John’s, Class of ’67, he has an
MBA from New York University and was vice president of human resources
for Squibb Corporation. He was featured in Fortune magazine in an
article on using your volunteer experience (he was chapter president
of American Red Cross) to help look for a job.
Solutions Inc. , 1 Independence Way, Princeton Corporate Center,
Princeton 08540. 609-734-9631; fax, 609-734-9637. Temporary and
permanent office and technical personnel placement services at all
levels. Colaprete has a CPC (certified personel consultant)
designation granted by the National Association of Personnel Services.
Clayton went to Trenton State College, Class of 1978, and has worked
at the Medical Center of Princeton for 15 years, most recently as
manager of the radiology department.
Institute at 100 Canal Pointe Boulevard. 609-520-8798;
fax, 609-520-8830. Business school offering certificate in court
reporting and office automation with main campus in Edison. A graduate
of Montclair State she has a master’s in educational supervision and
administration from Rider and, until recently, worked for IBM.
Route 1, Monmouth Junction, 732-438-6699. Full service employment
agency specializing in permanent placements for office support, and
technical employees in the biotech industry. Grober grew up in
Westchester, majored in history and economics at the University of
Arizona, Class of 1980, and has had a variety of communications and
sales jobs, including three years with a recruiting firm. He opened
this firm last February.
Educational Testing Service , Rosedale Road, 609-921-9000. http://www.ets.org. An alumna
of Queens College, Class of 1976, she has a master’s in industrial
relations from Rutgers and had a 20-year career in human resources
with Capital Cities ABC, followed by a job with Executine Information
Systems. She was appointed vice president of human resources at ETS in
June.
Works, 2139 Route 33, Lexington Square Commons, Trenton. 609-890-2121.
A division of Green Thumb Inc., a national nonprofit that helps
disadvantaged and older adults find jobs. Toht went to Rutgers
College, Class of 1967, with a business and sociology major and has a
master’s of gerontology at the University of South Florida in Tampa.
He has worked for government and nonprofits and, for 12 years, in the
human resources department of an industrial manufacturer.
Lawrenceville 08648. Jack and Susan Guarneri, partners. 609-771-1669;
fax, 609-637-0449. E-mail: resumagic@aol.com. Career counseling, job
search strategies, electronic resume database posting and Internet job
search, resume preparation by licensed, National Certified Career
Counselors, also human resource training and development.
Guarneri grew up in Wisconsin and went to the University of Wisconsin
at Madison, Class of 1969, intending to be a wildlife research
biologist. Realizing she needed to have contact with people, not fish,
she changed careers and earned a master’s in counseling from Johns
Hopkins. She is on the board of the Middle Atlantic Career Counseling
Association, a member of the Professional Association of Resume
Writers, is an adjunct faculty member at Mercer County Community
College, and has a consulting business.
Resources Group, 34 Washington Road, Princeton Junction. 609-716-1122.
Computer and business training center with temporary and permanent
placement agency, a division of the Placers, a Delaware-based wholly
owned subsidiary of a $2 billion firm, Accustaff.
Consultants Inc., 99 Moore Street, Princeton. 609-924-2411. Management
consulting with emphasis on human resources including compensation,
benefits, strategic planning, organization planning, policies and
procedures. Nielsen is also co-founder and facilitator of Jobseekers.
Roster, 842 State Road, 609-921-9561. Volunteer organization that
often attracts job listings that do not appear elsewhere. Neuman has
written books and articles on career counseling.
Research Inc., 609-799-3535; fax, 609-799-0005. Home page:
http://www.mathematica-mpr.com. Public policy research and surveys
for federal and state governments as well as private-sector clients.
Mathematica employs 300 people full-time, 175 in Princeton, and with
300 to 400 part-time jobs (starting at $7.50 per hour) is one of
Princeton’s leading part-time employers. Mooney went to Bloomfield
College, Class of 1973, and worked in various insurance jobs before
moving to Mathematica as benefits administrator in 1977. He has been
director of human resources since 1986 when the firm became
employee-owned.
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Amber Gaia: Healthcare Organizer
This resume was not used in the printed version.
clinical director for a healthcare agency in East Brunswick. She
starts her two-page resume out with 10 bulleted career skills (Program
Development, Employee Relations, Recruitment, etc.) followed by a
three line "objective," and then her education and experience. At the
end she lists "Languages: German."
Her objective: "Results-driven, dynamic organizer with exceptional
communication and interpersonal skills and solid performance record
seeks challenging position in human resource management with large
firm.
Gaia’s job history starts in 1983 with an executive assistant job at
Radio Free Europe in Munich, followed by a human resources position at
Van Note Harvey for five years, and then by four health care jobs in
four years: mental health professional, clinical social worker,
program coordinator, and clinical director.
Tara A. Colaprete CPC, of BAI Personnel Solutions, and Susan Guarneri,
of Susan Guarneri Associates, reviewed this resume. Both think her
objective should go first, education second, and career skills third.
For the objective, "If she is open to other possibilities than HR, she
should leave that out. If she makes her objective more general, she
would be great for a medical or nonmedical position in any
corporation," says Colaprete.
Both think the objective is too wordy. "Get to the point!" admonishes
Guarneri.
"Put the rest in a cover letter," says Colaprete. "Choose
results-driven or dynamic, communications skills or interpersonal the
same. And `solid performance record’ is ambiguous. Only for an HR
position can she get away with the full description."
Bulleted skills "should be in two columns; one straight-down column
doesn’t work," says Colaprete. "If she is bilingual or fluent in
German, that should be listed up top as a skill. What computer skills
does she have? I would assume that her computer skills are good but I
would list them."
Both object to how the education section lists degrees, years, and
GPAs (3.8 and 3.9) but does not list the majors or what the degrees
were in. "Even if it were art history, by leaving it off it makes you
question what it is," says Colaprete. One of the jobs was as a
clinical social worker but her education summary does not specify what
her master’s degree is. "If she has an MSW, she’d better list it."
Gaia’s resume switches from partial paragraphs to bullet points, and
Colaprete prefers the latter. Guarneri also objects to what she calls
a "brick wall paragraph," a job description in a five or six-line
paragraph that is confronts the reader like a brick wall.
Guarneri also criticizes a too-small eight point typeface and
confusing combinations of underlining, italics, bold face.
Gaia uses the past tense to describe her present job. Colaprete says
to either put an end date on the most recent job and leave the duties
in past tense, or put the duties in the present tense. Colaprete
suggests eliminating confusion by omitting the earliest job, in
Munich.
"With her next job she should stay for a while because she has been
job-hopping. I need to know why she left the last two. Unless they
merged or downsized there should be no reason why she moved from job
to job," says Colaprete, who suggests Gaia might apply to be office
manager for a clinical research firm.
Guarneri wants to see more "quantifiers and qualifiers" in this
resume. Gaia is managing administrative and client services of a
health care agency. How big is the client base, and how many people
does she supervise, Guarneri asks. If she facilitated an increase in
revenue — how much and how?
Quantifiers are something you get into in an interview, counters
Colaprete. "If you have an extraordinary event you want to discuss,
put it in your cover letter."
Corrections or additions?
This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com
— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
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