CollinTheViking

My dad and I are huge fans of Myst. We used to sit at his computer and play for hours at a time trying to figure out the puzzles. I'm hoping I can buy this game for him for father's day but he can be stubborn when it comes to games that introduce too many new mechanics that he can't wrap his head around. How similar will the feel of Zed be to Myst?

I believe what he is implying is that there is little reason to omit the experiences as long as they communicate the relevant transferrable skills in the bullets. As a career counselor, I find that a common mistake clients make with writing bullets for positions that are not directly relatable to what they are applying for is not advertising the relevant transferrable skills they exhibited. He is saying that communicating the interpersonal skills and such that were exhibited will assure that the experience enforces the idea that they are directly qualified for the position they are applying to. My personal answer to the OPs question is no, they shouldn’t omit them, and yes, they are worth something as long as you tailor the bullets to the job at hand.

I get that, and I agree to an extent. A lot of the hiring process is just about conforming to the norms of stingy employers. Should it be this way? I don't think so. I believe part of it comes from how you get to know someone from just a resume. You can't really get the full scope of who someone is from just their resume, but if an employer gets an idea of professionalism and hard work from how you word and organize things on your resume, it could give them an idea of what kind of worker you can be. Are you going to be someone who works hard to elaborate on details, organize information, tailor to the job, and sell yourself, or will you do just enough to fill out the page, leaving the rest to assumption? Doing the former could give enough information about yourself to employers to understand you, and thus, increase their likelihood of consideration.

I also wouldn't assume that employers will know how all jobs are transferrable. There will be employers that will see something like Starbucks and say "this is not relevant to me at all". It's up to the applicant to sell that to them. I don't think that any employer will count off for bullets that are not related to them, but they will add points for bullets that are. I think that tailoring bullets also communicates a sense of investment in the position/organization instead of writing a general resume that is sent to everyone unchanged.

Lastly, it's important to note that you are potentially in competition with many others. If you do not put in the utmost effort into selling yourself on your resume, the next person will. Many employers will not spend much time on reading each resume due to number of applicants so it's important to them that you are able to advertise yourself in a way that's clear and not left to assumption.

Do I think that in a perfect world that this is the ideal way to go about things? I don't, I think that people have much more to offer than what is just on their resume. Does this process have its merit? I think so, there is a lot to learn about someone based on how they write their resume and sell themselves.

I understand, I'm sorry that you're going through this. It's difficult to get that first foot in the door. I wouldn't assume that you haven't developed skills for positions. A good place to start is transferrable soft-skills like leadership, communication, teamwork, etc., skills that you develop in any job and are applicable to just about anything you apply to. Go through the job description and implement as many of the things they are looking for as you can. If it's not said explicitly, think about what kind of skills they would want. For instance, a position like marketing is going to want skills like good communication, the ability to sell, and creativity, which are all skills that I'm sure you possess and have exhibited. If you see a common discrepancy between skills you possess and skills that are desired, is there any way you can gain them outside of a job? The internet is a wonderful place to learn new skills.

To answer your question, time spent can be important but is not a make-or-break. I would say 11 months is a good amount of time, I would say that 6 months or less in multiple successive positions would be of more concern, but even then, I personally think that diversity of skills and experiences can be as important as length spent doing one thing.

At the end of the day, applying to jobs is all a numbers game. Just get out as many applications as you can and someone will say yes eventually.