Customer Reviews

Blue Collar & Beyond: Resumes for Skilled Trades & Services

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This author produces the best resume writing materials on the market! This book fits perfectly for those individuals not targeted by many other resume writing books. Many of these skills are transferrable and I encourage clients to browse through the entire book.

In my position as a state and federal employment counselor, I deal with large numbers of displaced blue collar workers. Many have limited computer skills and writting ability. BLUE COLLAR & BEYOND has become my most used source book. (In fact I recently purchased a second copy as the first on was wearing out) Using BC&B to teach folks how to prepare their selves to re enter the workforce has raised my success in placement rate to over 75%. VERY EXCELLENT TEXT! Must HAve! Must Buy! Must USE! C. Baugh

This resource is a gold mine. As an employment consultant I have found Parker's book to be practical, realistic and extremely helpful, especially since I primarily work with the Blue Collar sector. If you are experienced in writing your own resume, this book offers great tips on polishing it and if you are new to the resume process, Parker also takes you through it step by step in a manner both instructional and interesting. This should be on every employment consultant's bookshelf. Easy to read and easy to understand; simple but not simplistic.

We provide workshops on job searching, resume writing, interviewing, hidden job market etc. for a varied background of people. Some of our customers do not relate to resumes prepared for the executive or highly educated job seeker. These customers can now understand and see how their similiar skills can be marketed. We now use this resource in every district office. With many employers using the resume instead of applications for screening and with most occupations now requiring resumes, this book is essential for all job seekers.

As a Career Guidance Technician I often find it difficult to recommend a resume book to our library patrons. Many resume books often focus on formats and strategies for job seekers whose incomes are in the $50,000 plus range. "Blue Collar and Beyond" gives the rest of us some where to look for resumes for real people. If you need to do a resume I would highly recommend this book, and others by Parker, as she offers an approach that makes doing your own resume both practical and "possible."

Blue Collar and Beyond, by Yana Parker, also the author of The Damn Good Resume Guide, has done another damn good job in creating a comprehensive source of trade jargon, terms and skills otherwise not found in resume publications. As the employment market grows increasingly competitive, many people are finding it difficult to land quality jobs without a resume. There are hundreds of resources available to people who generally wear a suit and tie to work - yet where can the construction worker, waitress, or auto mechanic turn to find support they need? This book addresses over 100 prime examples of quality resume writing for the sometimes "forgotten" salt-of-the-earth laborer. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who needs assistance in knowing exactly how to describe theiir accomplishments, skills and abilitities while still presenting them in a professional capacity. In addition to guidance on how to prepare a professional resume, this book positively addresses many resume hurdles such as "job-hopping", age discrimination, gaps in work history, and re-entering the job market after a prison term. None of these experiences, easy to deal with - but again, Yana has remembered and addressed the concerns with readable, useful and professional alternatives. All said and done, is it refreshing to know that there is at least once source of valuable information for the thousands of hard-working, very skilled "blue collar" workers. As a resume writer, who is constantly looking for valuable additions to my "library", I consider Blue Collar & Beyond an invaluable reference guide and source of impressive material.

I am an employment specialist at a community college. I work in a special program that assists low income individuals with job search. The "Blue Collar and Beyond" resume book has been a valuable tool for me in helping clients create their resumes. The book is a collection of resumes in the following employment categories: Construction and Maintenance, Customer Service, Food Service, Office, Trades, Warehouse, and a few others). These cover 80% of the types of jobs that my clients are looking for. I give the book to my clients to provoke their thinking about the work they have previously done. This gives them ideas for their own resumes. I have found that most resume books focus on professional level jobs. The resumes in this book are simple and straightforward. My clients almost always find a few things that are helpful to them when they read the resumes related to the type of work they are looking for. This is a unique product that fills a special need, and I can recommend it highly.

Finally, a resume book for jobs that do not require a college education. The book has 171 resumes for jobs such as master cake decorator, clerical office worker, plumber, cruise line customer service. It has a helpful section telling how to get around difficult problems such as job gaps, lack of experience, a spotty education record, and age discrimination. It is readable and encouraging.

This was adapted from the Annotated Bibliography of Learning A Living; A Guide to Planning Your Career and Finding a Job for People with Learning Disabilities, Attention Deficit Disorder, and Dyslexia