STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

Here are some ways to cut it down and other random things that come to mind:

• For irrelevant jobs that you still want to list for reasons of showing you were employed, combine your accomplishments into a one line type of thing.  Only list accomplishments you think the particular interviewer will care about.


• If there are skills that you would be listing for multiple jobs, put them under a separate Skills heading.


• Don't list any kind of general office work.  They will assume if you are underwriting and doing marketing campaigns that you know how to use a computer and answer phones. Or they will assume if you were a retail manager that you helped customers.  I would stick more with accomplishments, such as how you increased sales or started a successful promotion, and not really list duties.  If you feel the need to list duties, I would put them in paragraph form instead of wasting space by bulleting them.


• I think jewelry design and theater can go into the skills heading I mention in the second bullet point.


• Definitely put Administrative Assistant instead of Receptionist!  Administrative assistants do a lot of work.  Many receptionists answer phones and greet people only and may not even have a computer.


• How many retail jobs have you had?  I would only list ones where you were a manager.


• I would list the writing you do for ST as a job.


• Due to the crappy jobs you have gotten stuck to, I would probably put it in this order:  education first, then skills, then employment. 

You may have already done some of these things and you may not agree with others, but I hope you find some of these things useful. 

Ohhhh, you know what?  I don't think you should list Stylethread after all.  What if they come and read the posts?  I think you should just list other places you've written for.

You can either leave out the restaurant experience (or list it without any skills gained or accomplishments) and put something like this under your accomplishments for school:

Demonstrated time management and prioritizing abilities by working full-time while attending school full-time.

You should probably drop any experience that precedes your last 3 or 4 positions unless it is extremely relevant.  I would probably do:  your current position, your website writing, your last retail management, and then your internship experience (of course, I don't know every job you've had, so maybe you would do it differently).  I would then change the heading to "Relevant Experience" instead of Experience because I feel it would be less likely to make them think you had a huge gap in employment, but would still allow you to eliminate anything unnecessary.

The awards and honors....where are they from?  If from school, I would list them as accomplishments under your school information.

overall i would play up your management experience. i guess the impression i would go for is that everystep you've taken to date has been to gain more experience in management.  didn't you say the position you were hired for was office manager. if so, i would probably use that as my title instead of admin. asst. (more in line with the whole management theme) then i would start with current work experience and list education last. sort of like this

*current employer: title, accomplishments etc.

*free lance writer: i'm not exactly sure where to fit this, but as far as stylethread etc. i would lump them all under this category and say something like portfolio available upon request. also i don't think anyone would read the forums, and even if they did, they would have to figure out your username first.

*jewelry designer: again not exactly sure of the placement, but since it's something you currently do i would list it b/f your prior experience. although depending on the type of job you're applying for you might want to list it & stylethread under a general outside interests/hobbies section. just in case you don't want to give the impression that a corporate job is just to tide you over until your business takes off

*last retail management job

*job b/f that, etc.

*education -- in this category i would list the theater accomplishments and any awards that you received during undergrad.

i personally wouldn't include the server experience if you want to show time management, i would list it as a skill under one of the jobs.

hth!

well first i think you should have at least 2 resumes, one for more business oriented stuff and one for stuff that is purely creative. even though you're not going for mgmt/business jobs, i think if you focus on mgmt it might make your resume look more cohesive in the sense that you've been exploring various mgmt opportunities in different industries, and it'll be easier for you to explain various jobs, as opposed to just saying your ex-boss was crazy so you had to leave. (which of course was true, but the first sounds a bit better). 

as far as referring to yourself as office manager, unless there is another person with that specific title i would go for it. from what i've read from your posts, it seems like your current employer is kind of small so i'm thinking they're not going to be as fixated on titles as a larger more structured company. also the things they've asked you to do pretty much fall under the scope of an office manager. finally, i think office manager sounds a bit better than admin. asst. -- at least in a corporate hierarchy, and again from the standpoint of having to explain you're job switches, it's easier to make a switch to an office mgr seem like a lateral move, whereas going to be an admin asst. kind of seems like you just got burnt out with retail.

honors & awards -- it depends outside of graduating with honors i wouldn't necessarily include college honors unless they're really, really imp. like you were the only person in your graduating class to receive them. however, i would include work awards, or if you got special recognition for your theater work 

i should say that since i'm coming from a more corporate environment i've been kind of trained to look at resumes a certain way, but ultimately think about it from a spin perspective and draft it in a way that allows you to put the most positive spin on all your experiences.