Improvement Reviews for USAJOBS 3.0 Profile, Resume Builder and Resume Upload
Monday, October 24, 2011
Get our articles delivered in your inbox for free! Sign up here.
USAJOBS 3.0 went up last Wednesday and there are there are some excellent improvements in both the Profile and the Resume Builder. You can build a more focused federal resume with a friendlier USAJOBS Resume Builder. There have been intermittent connectivity problems, busy notices, and the Advanced search is challenging … but the Builder, Profile and Upload sections of new USAJOBS 3.0 are better!
NEW! Now your USAJOBS Account is managed by your email. You could actually have more than one account if you have more than one email address. The previous USAJOBS accounts were managed by Social Security number; now this is not a field in the Resume Builder. Be very careful if you change your email. You probably should use a personal email address for your USAJOBS resume, rather than your government or business email, since they change frequently.
Big News! USAJOBS will be searched by HR recruiters now! The new, all-important instructions are written here, with the emphasis that USAJOBS resumes will be searched now by HR recruiters. They might be looking for applicants with all of the information from the Profile section, as well as the resume content.
Customize your job search! The instructions also mention that you should “customize your search experience”. This means that you should customize your resumes to improve searches, instead of posting one resume for one all applications.
“Welcome to the new USAJOBS! If you are an existing user, please take a few minutes to review and edit all your profile information for accuracy, as it has been transferred to a new system. While you are there, check out some of the new profile questions. Having a completed USAJOBS profile will help you:
- Save time during a job application
- Get your resume discovered by recruiters, if you opt to make your resume searchable
- Customize your search experience” --USAJOBS Resume Builder Notice
WHAT’S NEW IN THE PROFILE AND THE RESUME BUILDER PAGES
First, check out your user name and change your password. You can reset your password if necessary. You can have 5 resumes in your account.
The Profile is different for USAJOBS 3.0 and it is specific for HR searching. Go through the 5 pages of the Profile and answer the questions to update your information. As the USAJOBS notice states above, this information will be used for mining/searching for resumes by recruiters. This is new for USAJOBS 3.0.
Make searchable. Make your resumes searchable so that they are ready to be viewed by HR recruiters. Each of your 5 resumes could be targeted toward different occupational series, agencies and grades.
Your SSN disappeared with USAJOBS 3.0. Do not write your Social Security number on any document in USAJOBS. Review your attached and uploaded documents, and take your SSN out of your documents.
Personal Information - Current Goal (500 characters): Use this field to write about your goal for this resume. This should be an update you can make for each position, or change it for each occupational series you are seeking. You could write the title of the position, grade, agency, city, state and a statement about why you would be interested in the position.
Hiring Eligibility – This is much clearer for individuals who having Hiring Eligibilities, and the definitions are great. This will be very helpful for HR searching.
Preferences – Again, this will be used for searching for individuals who are looking for positions in certain states, who are seeking internships or permanent, temp or term positions. Carefully complete these fields.
Account Information – Remember the answers to your secret questions. They are case sensitive. And be sure to check off all the notices that OPM offers to send you about announcements closing.
Resume Builder Improvements:
BEST NEW FEATURE! Now you can write 5,000 characters with spaces, rather than the previous 3,000 with spaces. This is great, especially for federal employees who have been in their position for 5 or more years. You can write the description in 5,000 characters, hopefully without using the Additional Information field for continuing that description.
You can expand the Work Experience block, so that you can see more than 15 lines of type. You can now see about 50 lines of type and visualize your resume much better!
GREAT NEW FEATURE! The Work Experience job listings are on the top of the Work Experience page now! Many times a resume writer would go to this page and see blank fields. They might think that all of their work experiences had disappeared, unless they happened to scroll down. So, just flipping the listing of jobs to the top screen is a great improvement.
GREAT NEW FEATURE! Education page is improved because the list of colleges and universities in the Top Screen; and the blank fields for writing are in the second screen. As with the Work Experience listings, they flipped the information, so that resume writers wouldn’t think they lost all of their content by coming to a screen with empty fields.
Training and Publications increased to 5,000 characters with spaces from previous 3,000 characters.
Additional Information can be expanded and shrunk so you can see your content better. This is still 20,000 characters.
References – One reference is mandatory. You will have to fill out the information to view your resume and complete the builder.
A QUICK AUTOMATIC VIEW TO SEE YOUR RESUME! Final Resume View comes up automatically. After you complete the last letter on the references, you will be able to view your resume in a very nice screen showing the entire resume.
DRAMATIC IMPROVEMENT HERE! Resume Upload. You can upload a Word document and evidently it can be searched by recruiters. There is even a sample federal resume that is acceptable, and tips for writing a good federal resume on this page. This is a big help. But there is still the warning that uploaded resumes may not transfer to some of the questionnaire systems.
Overall, the improvements in the Profile, Resume Builder, and Resume Upload are very good. I especially like the restructure of the Work Experience and Education pages, so that the listing of jobs and education is on the top screen. And the 5,000 characters are now great (especially for former CHART resumes), and I like the Expand and Shrink work experience blocks. AND … the final preview of the resume before the FINISH button is really nice. That is a great finale for a lot of hard work!
Thank you, USAJOBS 3.0 Resume Builder Team. This is a great improvement for thousands of resume builders who would like to land a federal job or internship!
© 2012 The Resume Place, Inc. All rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced without express written consent from The Resume Place, Inc.
