Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Resume Writing the Black Art of Job Hunting

So far, I have had 3 separate and dissimilar groups of people say the same thing, my resume sucks. I answer, “This format got me a job 20 years ago, what could be wrong with it now?”, they smirk at me knowingly.

I am being facetious, maybe, however the science and acumen to write the “killer” resume is not currently in my writing capabilities (but it will be very soon). The resume is the key to the front door of any job you apply to (unless you have amazing contacts) and it needs to capture the interest of someone who is going to spend no more than a minute reading it (unless this is an electronic system, like Workopolis or Monster, which has other parameters to keep in mind). A resume must catch the reader’s attention quickly (not like a blog, which can ramble on and on, mindlessly about singing horses, or why you hate the banks or whatever else is on the mind of the blogger). Writing punchy, short and catchy phrases is important, this is one of the reasons your resume sucks.

Why Does Your Resume Suck?

Well for the obvious reasons given, that most folks never take a course on how to write a resume.  I will be attending a seminar on this exact skill tomorrow, so I might know more soon, however, a lot of folks that will review your resume, tell you your resume sucks, because, they want to rewrite it for you and charge you $600 for this service (at least).  Another reason they say that your resume sucks, is because they want you to buy their book on how to write a resume, or attend their seminar on how to write an effective resume.

Does your resume suck ? I have no idea, however, remember that if someone tells you that and then wants to offer you an expensive service to fix it, you should wonder what their motives are.

I do know that my resume sucks .

Bank Fees Back

As I have ranted in the past, I love Free Banking (i.e. no fee banking) and my year of “Bank fee vacation” has ended with TD, and I haven’t had time to go in and argue for another year’s grace period. I got nailed to pay $12.95 again, and I am not very happy.

I may have a new angle of attack, which is that there is a new bank branch opening of RBC right near my house, and I may ask them, “How long can I have free banking with you?”, and then simply dump TD, we shall, see, but I will keep you all posted on that as well.

Why I don’t Go Into TD Bank Branches Much

On Saturday I went into my local TD branch to deposit a cheque, which my wife had endorsed (it was a larger cheque, so I figured it would be easier if she endorsed it and then I could deposit it, without problems (although the account it was going into was a joint account, so what I was worried about, I have no idea)).

I was informed by a flabbergasted Teller (young lady)  that I could not in fact make a deposit at that time because all the banks computers were down, due to storms in the Toronto area. I looked at her a little puzzled and explained that I really didn’t feel safe wandering around with a cheque endorsed by my wife for the next two days, until their computers were fixed.

She said she could take a note, and deposit the cheque once her computer came back up (it was 2:45 PM, the bank closes at 3:00 PM, it was a Saturday, I did not hold out a lot of hope that much would change in 15 minutes), so I agreed.

The Teller then did the following:

• She wrote down my access TD card ID number, in a writing style, where I could barely read what she had written.
• She filled out my instructions on a bank form.
• Signed the form
• Photocopied the form with a copy of the cheque and stamped it dated for Monday for me.

What does this mean? I have no idea, I know that so far nothing seems to have happened in terms of the cheque, as my on line banking does not reflect any changes.

The humorous part then was, when I asked if the Interac network was down, and she informed me that no it was still up and I could also withdraw cash from my TD account if I wanted to then as well. I left the bank feeling very nervous about what might be happening to that cheque. I walked over to the Loblaws and deposited the other two cheques in my PC Financial account.

Yesterday I found out that there is a class action suit that is being brought by a group of employees against my current employer.  I am unfortunately not part of the class, as I am still too young to join into the group, which is unfortunate, but it will be interesting to see if this group can extract a change with this suit. The suit has to do with the Pension changes made last year, where my employer changed from a Defined Benefit pension which had been in place for decades to a less expensive pension system.

Retirement Planning

This drastic change to my pension plans last year, meant that my assumptions at the time (though naive, because they assumed I’d make it to 55 or older with this employer) are now flawed.  I have been putting my RRSP money into a spousal RRSP, assuming that I would have a pension and my wife could then draw on the RRSP income thus creating an income splitting model, however, now that my pension will be drastically smaller, I will need to rethink that portion of my plan.

I also need to increase my RRSP inputs, which for the past 20 years have been debilitated by the Pension Adjustment that was in place (I could only put about $2000 a year into my RRSPs), the problem being all that growth that might have happened over the past 20 years is now lost to me, even if the CCRA gives back the RRSP room that I lost from the Pension Adjustment. This problem is kind of like my Golf Game, I need to go back in time and fix it about 20 years ago.

My other hope was an ability to retire earlier than 65 with this pension, but without it, those plans are much less likely, unless I find a new income source that can help compensate for this lost savings.

Would have been nice to have been part of that “Class”, but I must now re-think and re-plan.

But I need $520 for My Loan Shark

BMO has lowered the daily cash withdrawal limit to $500 to help combat debit card fraud (at ATM machines). Interesting idea, evidently the amount of ATM fraud last year was over $160,000,000 for BMO, and this is to slow this down. I don’t actually take large hunks of cash out these days, but more interestingly who ends up paying for this fraud? Does the Bank? The Consumer? Any horror stories from my readers that they care to share? The daily purchase limit is still around $2500 I believe.

No Fed Interest Drop?

That is the word, that in the U.S. there are no further interest rate cuts planned, which might be a very good thing given that Inflation is heating up. Canada has already held the line this month, so it shouldn’t effect the Canadian Dollar, but what might it do to stocks? We shall see.