Free Dream Job Tryouts With a Cover Letter

Imagine on your next vacation you get to try out any dream job anywhere that you want. Charter fishing boat Captain, Surfing Instructor in Hawaii or Underwater Marine Photographer imagine the possibilities. Think about what a great idea this would be to give it a tryout before you leave your current secure employer. After all how will you really know the real truth about your dream job until you give it a go yourself? For a while when I was younger I had the itch to be a Chef in a fine dining restaurant. That was before I took on a job at a restaurant called Bell’s Farm Steak House a local RI favorite while I was going to college at Bryant.

As I worked my first month as a waiter I had a lot of contact with the kitchen. I could see the tremendous pressure the Chef was under to pump out the food. Dishes had to be perfect, hot and look great all at the same time. In addition all the diners would generally come in all at once, so the kitchen would get buried with orders shortly after. If that pressure wasn’t enough, the banquet side of the house used the same kitchen and Chef. While working there I learned the real truth about the late night hours, extreme stress and the hot humid working environment you can’t escape from. That one was crossed off my list fast.

So how could you try out any dream job your heart desires? Simple really use a targeted resume with a professional introduction letter (cover letter) offering your services for free in exchange for a mentoring opportunity from your target. In case that first attempt does not work you can offer to exchange any other valuable services or products that might work. If you are an Artist, you might be able to exchange one of your oil paintings you would normally sell anyway. As a final resort you could always offer money too. You could try doing a little background research on your target and find a passion which might induce cooperation. If your would be mentor is a big golfing fan you could send him a weeks free membership certificate to a great golf course.

Even at my former employer Bell’s Farm Steak house in Smithfield, RI it was fairly routine for our Chef Dave to host future Chef candidates from Johnson & Wales University, a local culinary college.

They simply exchanged their free labor for a two week mentoring opportunity from a superb Chef. It helped keep down labor costs, and the better performers in the program where actually hired on. Wouldn’t it be the same with virtually any other profession? My advice is to take one small step towards living your dream right now and write up a great cover letter. Make an outline first with the ultimate goal in mind. If words are not your forte’ you can always hire a writer. Remember researching your target helps increase your success rate.

By the way, I happen to know this works well since this is exactly how I started my mortgage career way back when. Good Luck!

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

How to Write the Perfect Restaurant Manager CV

In writing curriculum vitae, you should take note that you are not competing with other people for the position, but rather with brochures, advertisements, and leaflets of people who are selling themselves to get the job. Therefore, you need to learn the trick and beat these people in their own game.

Writing the perfect curriculum vitae is essential in winning a job vacancy. In addition, this is practically the only chance that you will have to ensure your employer that you are capable of doing the job.

This may sound unbelievable, but a lot of people do not know how to make their own curriculum vitae, much more the perfect one. In applying for various positions, there are specific details that are needed to be included in the curriculum vitae. For restaurant managerial positions, a vast work experience is certainly a plus factor for the job. How is the perfect restaurant manager CV made, and what are its contents?

The word perfect is actually relative. It is relative because it only achieves its meaning when its purpose is achieved as well. The only way to write the perfect restaurant manager curriculum vitae is writing an honest, detailed, and informative description of your qualifications as a restaurant manager. However, before this can be achieved, it is important to know the basic parts of the winning CV.

Header. The header contains the initial information about you. It includes your name, age, address, email address, and contact numbers. This is all that should be and nothing else. Do not put extra details that are not anymore important in this part of your curriculum vitae. Remember that that employer is primarily interested in knowing your name, and your contact details in the early part of job recruitment.

Professional Summary. This is s short summary of the important skills and traits that you possess that makes you unique from the other applicants. This part should be done as simple as possible, but should also act as the sales pitch of your curriculum vitae. In other words, this is a subtle way of convincing the employer to hire you for the job.

Achievements. This part of the CV should not be abused. It is recommended, but not required. This should only be included if there are notable achievements that you have done in relation to the job qualifications that you are applying for. As a restaurant manager, one example of an achievement is an award that you might have received as most productive employee, or anything of this kind.

Work Experiences. For restaurant manager vacancies, work experiences are very important. These experiences serve as testimonies and proofs to your capability as a manager in the past. Specific work details can also be added on specific work experiences.

Education/Training. This part of the CV confirms that you meet the academic or knowledge requirements of the position. All details of educational attainment and trainings should be included.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

Writing an Awesome Restaurant Resume

As a restaurant management recruiter I am constantly bombarded with resumes all day, every day, on weekends and holidays. It is amazing how many great managers out there can run a profitable restaurant operation inside and out, but they have no idea what to write when it comes time to shop for their next opportunity.

In the restaurant industry it isn’t about where you went to school, what degree you have or what you like to do on your days off. Plain and simple is the best strategy for getting an interview in this field. You have to understand that the hiring managers who review your resume see more resumes than I do any given day. We are talking in the mid hundreds depending on how they have their needs and job hiring goals presented to the public. Many times a resume is passed over because it isn’t user friendly or it is out of order chronologically. The worst thing I ever saw was a resume that stopped over 2 years ago with no explanation. Go ahead and file that one in the round outbox on the floor.

Before we get started let me tell you if you are not using Microsoft Word you will probably never get another job. Compatibility is the key here and whether you like it or not Word is the king of word processing software. Please don’t try to reinvent the wheel using Word Perfect or something else obscure in the marketplace. When someone gets a file that can’t be opened with their existing software they take the path of least resistance and delete it. They don’t try and contact you via email and you just lost a potential career opportunity. So step one is always use Word or you will regret it later.

The first thing a resume should have is your name centered in 14-point bold Arial font. Arial is easy on the eyes and it doesn’t distort like some other fonts. Under that you want to put your address and phone numbers a smaller 10-point Arial. You do not need an email address on there and remember just because you have a cute or clever email address that your friends think is cool doesn’t mean anyone else will. And for your sake please change the messages on your phones to something clear and precise and welcome in the job arena. This is not the time to express yourself!

The second thing you need is an objective statement, which looks great in 12-point Arial. I would suggest keeping the text size and font the same for the rest of the résumé. This objective description should be clear and driven. Don’t ramble on for three sentences and think anyone will care, because they won’t. For example, a nice statement about how you want to contribute to the bottom line profitability of a team using your past experiences often works well. Throw in some upward growth potential and you’re on the right track.

Next is the most important part and that is experience. Starting from the present and going back is the only way to go. All you need here is the name of the company, your title and the dates (from past when to present when). Don’t worry about exact dates, but do include months and the years obviously.

After that you will need to briefly bullet statements regarding actions while in that position. These should be one-sentence statements that are clear to the reader. Don’t tell them you are a great manager because that is vague. Instead tell me why I should hire you. For instance, did you increase sales over a two-year period or did you increase sales by 12% over a two-year period using local store marketing and targeting repeat guest counts? Do you see the difference? One statement keeps you reading and one is clouded in vagueness. Take this and run with it on all other details such as labor, food and controllable costs. Any training and development of team members is also a very good example that you are part of a team and you care about their success. Because of this you will also be successful and it will help you delegate lesser jobs onto key hourly team members.

If you follow these guidelines you will probably have about 6 to 8 bulleted statements that should get you noticed. Repeat these steps for all your previous positions as well until you have described your last 5-8 years depending on the timeframe of your career. No one cares about what you did 15 years ago in this field. They want to see the most recent performance and some career progression.

As far as references go I would consider them a waste of space. No one is going to ever list a reference from a bad experience and hiring managers know this. If you have a great looking resume that flows and is widely acceptable you will be getting far more calls from interested parties than those others who don’t invest their time upfront.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/