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Such an answer is understandable in these troubled times, but it's both misguided in terms of resume-writing and it's a ticket to misery in overall life. I know the latter from personal experience. Our certified resume writer help you write powerful resume. As the son of parents who had lived through the Great Depression of 1929-1942, when it came time for me to finish college and find a career, the message I got was, "Take whatever you can find and be glad you can get a job." What about a career? I asked. What about something related to my Bachelor's degree (English)? "Get a job, and stop this nonsense about a career."

The purpose of this column is not to weep and wail at my misfortune. After all, I was a grown man when I graduated. There was nothing commanding me to listen to my parents any more. But I did. And for the next 40 years, my professional life was miserable. The work I found could not have been further from who I was and what I wanted. It took me until 2009 to find a career writing resumes that connected to my true self. And I felt as if I'd died and gone to heaven.

So when people say, "I'll take anything," I tell them my story. I tell them about all the years of feeling like I didn't belong, and of feeling somehow like there must be more to life than getting up to go to jobs I hated. Along the way, I was fortunate enough to find mentors, both male and female, who helped guide me through the twists and turns, and who taught me many of the valuable skills that make me who I am today. So in spite of the awful jobs, I had considerable luck, and I can look back and see that there was a purpose to my wanderings in the dark.

But don't ever decide you'll take just any job, unless you're literally starving. Then take that "whatever" job to pay the bills but hold out for something better. Keep looking for that job that connects to you, and when that brass ring comes along, grab it with both hands and don't let go.

"If you just try all the doors, one of them must be the door into summer." - Robert A. Heinlein

I'm a Recent College Graduate - What Do I Have to Offer?

The following question recently crossed my desk:

"I am a recent college graduate and have never worked anywhere except at fast-food places and gas stations. How can I build a decent resume from that?"

Actually, this graduate has more going for her than she realizes. First of all, she needs to focus on where she is headed, career-wise. Do her college courses point her in the right direction? She can do a resume that shows her overall objective, followed by a summary of her skills and relevant courses, to show potential employers she knows her stuff. She should be sure to include her undergraduate degree and overall GPA (as long as it's above 3.0), and her GPA in her major, which should be significantly higher than the overall GPA.

There are plenty of items she could place on her resume, including her academic major (if it's relevant to where she wants to go), relevant coursework, academic honors, scholarship, co-op or internship, special projects, extracurricular activities... "What she learned while in college" could probably fill the resume if she thinks long and hard about it.

And she should not be so quick to belittle her experience working at fast-food outlets. Many such chains provide excellent managerial training for their staff, realizing that it's in their best interest to do so. More than likely, she learned the value of working with a team, of being in charge of a group of diverse people, of providing outstanding customer service; she may even have been selected to attend the chain's management training school.

In my own career, I managed a convenience store (too long ago to put on a resume now). The experience taught me how to balance cash receipts, how to multi-task (in the form of slicing lunch meat, performing the cash balance, and working a cash register), how to deal with customers in the most diplomatic way possible, and how to direct a group of part-time workers, molding these diverse personalities into a cohesive team all working toward a common goal. I certainly mentioned that experience on my resume back when it was more relevant.