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.

Top Of Page
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."

Top Of Page
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.

Top Of Page
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?

— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.