Bad Luck with Downsizing - RESUME HELP!!!!

I would never list reasons for leaving on a resume or cover letter. Face it, a job loss of any kind is a negative and you don't want to call attention to negatives. Keep everything positive. Moreover, negatives give prospective employers excuses to exclude you. Don't hand them such excuses. Of course, you may have to own up to why you left each job, but leave it for the interview.

You need a resume that emphasizes your knowledge, skills and abilities, and deemphasizes your employment history. One way to do that is with a functional resume.

A functional resume places KSAs up top and employment record toward the bottom. Take stock of the KSAs you collected from your jobs, i.e., you must have had similar duties and responsibilities in each job. Organize them into groups, with headings and a bullet point setting off each skill line by line.

Don't forget to list your accomplishments, especially those which improved your companies. You could set up a separate "Accomplishments" section on your resume.

Toward the bottom, just before the Education section, list your employers. You could list the employers for which you worked the longest. Or else list all your employers but don't list dates of employment.

You can find functional resume examples by googling "Functional Resume."

Hope these ideas help. Good luck with your job search.

I tried to post a link to a functional resume format, but the board software blocked it. You can find it by googling "Resumes That Rock" (www.bankrate.com) and clicking on the second hit. The functional resume format appears under "Resume No. 1."

Hope that helps some more.

The job market in Ohio is pretty tough. Take a breath. I can help.

For one thing, your work history is fairly long. That's good.
Also, the two most recent positions that you've held are of a year or longer durations. That is also good.

Depending on the types and levels of jobs to which you are applying, you might exclude some of the older positions from your resume. This enables you to highlight your more recent, more stable work history, while honestly removing the positions of shorter term. Get to the interview first, then honestly explain the missing years if the company asks. I agree with DLP about excluding explanations of this nature from your resume.

Stay confident and good luck!