Along the left side of the program are several "menu" links. For the most part, these correspond to hyperlinks that will appear in your resume. The first two will present your work experience in a detailed or summary format. Your work experience consists of one or more "job assignments". Each assignment is characterized by a begin and end date, the company (or school), the location, some general comments and a list of short phrases summarizing your experience at this particular assignment. These "short phrases" are selections grouped by category. The remainder of the links appearing on the left are a list of these categories.
Each category has several selections to choose from. Some possible categories include "Positions", "Education", "Training". The category "Positions" includes selections such as "Trainee", "Assistant", "Intern", "Supervisor". These categories and their selections are saved in a template file (with extension "txx") that is associated with the resume's raw data (stored in a file with extension "rxx").
Click on the "Categories" link to see the list of categories. You will see that some of these categories are not checked. Only checked categories will appear as a menu link. Also, only the checked categories will be presented for you to make selections in each job assignment. You can also see this same list when editing a job assignment by clicking on [Modify this list] in the Categories list.
To see the selections available for a category, be sure the category is checked, press "Done" and select the category from the menu links on the left.
To modify the name of an existing category, bring up the list of categories and select the category that you want to modify. You will see that the category actually has two names, usually both the same. The first name is the name that will appear in the list of menu links at the left of your resume. When the potential employer clicks on any of these links, he or she will see a summary of your experience in that category. Above this list will appear the category's second name which can be longer than the rather short entry appearing in the menu. You can modify either the long or short names simply by clicking on either name and changing it. Note that if the two are the same, all you need to do is change the short one and the long one will automatically conform.
Each category has a corresponding unit of measure. The default is "years". You can use any plural word (or phrase) instead of "years". For example, for a new category called "Courses Taught", the units could be "semesters" or "credits" or even "semester credits". In the Job Experience section when selecting entries from a category, the program will automatically make the total number of years add up to the number of years spent on that job assignment. If you are using a measurement other than "years", however, the program will not perform automatic totals. (See Accounting For Years of Experience.)
To add a new category, click on [New category] and type in the short name. If necessary, modify the longer name to be more descriptive. The new category will automatically appear checked in the category list. Press "Done" and you will see your new category appear in the list of menu links. Be sure to click on the new link to add selections to this category. (See Adding/Modifying Category Selections.)
In general, selections within a category are things that cannot happen at the same time, while selections from other categories can occur during the same time period as any selection from another category. For example, John Smith worked for XYZ Widgets from July 1998 to July 2002. During these 4 years, he progressed from assembly line worker to widget inspector to supervisor. He first started out working on the model W widget assembly line but because of his obvious expertise was soon working in the clean room on the super-duper model WX assembly line. The kind of assembly line he worked on was simultaneous to his positions of "worker", "inspector" and "supervisor". Thus "worker", "inspector" and "supervisor" are selections he makes from the "Positions' category for that job assignment and "Model W" and "Model WX" are selections he makes from a new "Assembly Line" category that he has added to his resume's template.
If there any categories that appear in the menu links that you do not wish to use, bring up the category list and simply uncheck the category in question. Be warned that any items that you may have selected from that category will no longer appear within your job assignments. ( See Turning Off Unused Categories.) As John is editing his job assignments he notices that he does not wish to use the "Training" category. He clicks on [Modify this list] in the Categories list, unchecks "Training" and presses "Done". "Training" no longer appears in Categories list.