A Look at Some High-Tech Help for Resume Writing : Software: New programs make design and proofreading easy and allow tailor-made final products.

By ANITA AMIRREZVANI

Sept. 8, 1992 12 AM PT

Anita Amirrezvani is a contributing editor to PC World

Writer’s block isn’t limited to writers. If you’ve ever had to write your resume, you know the terror of facing a blank page, especially one that must summarize your entire life.

“Even if you’ve been referred to a position, a resume is still the crucial screening device most companies use before setting up an interview,” says Alan Boris, branch manager of the Robert Half International employment agency in San Francisco.

The goal is simple: Cram all your work experiences, skills and know-how onto a single sheet of paper that sells. You can hire a professional resume service to do this for $75 to $200.

Or, if you’re a do-it-yourself type, you can use your computer to produce sparkling, custom-designed resumes for every job you seek.

The software on the market today won’t write your resume for you, but it can erase the tedium of designing, formatting and proofreading the final copy. Crucially, it will also make tailoring your resume for each job application much less traumatic.

“The important thing is to not to have a generic resume,” cautions Yana Parker, author of “The Damn Good Resume Guide.”

WinWay Resume for Windows is one of the best products available. (It lists for $69.95 but, like most software, can be had for less.)

You begin by choosing either a chronological or a functional resume, depending on whether you want to emphasize a solid work record or various work skills. After you select the headings for your resume--such as objective, employment, awards or references--WinWay prompts you to enter data into fill-in-the-blank forms.

Typing in the information is painless, and you don’t have to think about what to put where. When you’re finished, WinWay displays your entry in a number of pre-designed formats until you find the one you like best. You can see a thumbnail sketch of all formats, or you can display the text as it would actually appear in your resume.

Because WinWay is a Windows program (requiring an IBM-compatible machine), it provides all the advantages of working in a graphical environment. You can cut and paste data between files to quickly create multiple versions of your resume, preview your document before printing and add any combination of fonts or attributes (such as bold and italic) if you want to improve on WinWay’s resume formats.

My only quibble is with the spell-checker. Because of the way the menus are designed, you have to spell-check each heading individually instead of the entire document--a waste of time in an otherwise well-designed program.

If you don’t use Windows, you’ll want to consider a DOS program called PFS: Resume & Job Search Pro ($59.95). Although it’s not as intuitively easy to use as WinWay, it’s more functional. In addition to creating a resume, you can build a database of contacts, write a cover letter, develop mass mailings, track your appointments and build in automatic reminders.

PFS: Resume provides nine different types of resumes for typical job seekers such as students, academics and professionals. To create your resume, you fill out Rolodex-like cards on screen for each heading you select. But the program is much less flexible than WinWay when it comes to changing formatting. And making the few possible modifications requires entering arcane codes such as “L,A,D,C,BP.” Some users find this constraining.

The program’s modules are well integrated, however. Setting up a database of contacts and merging it with a cover letter was surprisingly easy, and PFS: Resume’s ability to print envelopes is a time saver. So if you need a resume program as well as a contact manager, this package is worth a test drive.

Another genre of resume software will appeal to people who want more flexibility and don’t mind less hand-holding. ReadyToGo Resumes (for DOS or Mac) and ResumExpert (for Mac or Windows) present a series of resume templates.

To create your resume, you simply type over the existing resume text, which is pre-formatted. Personally, I prefer the menu-driven approach and automatic, user-selectable formatting provided by WinWay Resume for Windows. But some users may enjoy selecting and modifying these pre-designed templates using the familiar and powerful capabilities of their own word processors.

You can of course prepare your resume with a word processor--those with advanced formatting capabilities, such as Ami Pro and Word for Windows, do an especially fine job. But you won’t get automatic formatting, and it won’t be nearly as easy to try doing your resume in several different styles.

If you’re not even ready to write a resume--because you’re changing careers, re-entering the workplace or fresh out of school--you might want to try a diskette version of “What Color Is Your Parachute?,” the bible of job-seekers who want to find themselves.

Career Navigator, a $149 package by the Drake Beam Morin career development firm, and Career Design, a $99 product from the Crystal-Barkley career consulting company, also fill this niche. Both are text-intensive software programs that force you to analyze yourself and your career goals.

With Career Navigator, you begin by entering information on your education and work experience, which is used later to create a rough draft of your resume. The program includes a simple word processor so you can design your resume further, but since it doesn’t provide many automatic formatting tools, it’s probably best just to edit the file in your own word processor.

The first section of Career Navigator, called Know Yourself, helps you analyze your interests, values and skills. You can take a personality questionnaire on screen, for example. This is a classic career development tool for identifying personality types and matching them to jobs. Once you find out how you rate as an “Intuitor,” “Thinker,” “Feeler” or “Senser,” you can turn to the extensive manual and get more background on each type.

But the real meat of Career Navigator is in developing your job search interactively. You’re asked to type in a list of people to network with, conduct research on a given field, create lists of references, plan a job search, develop weekly action plans, create mass mailings and so on.

Career Design focuses even more on self-analysis. The product uses methods created by the late John Crystal, whose techniques were used in Richard Bolles’ “What Color Is Your Parachute?” book. It’s divided into three sections: Who am I? What do I want? How do I get there?

To find out, you answer dozens of thought-provoking questions. What would you do on a two-week adventure if you had unlimited time and money? What message would you put on a billboard for all to see?

Career Design provides feedback on the amount of detail you give to each answer and collects all your responses in files that you can view and update at any time.

By the time you work through the program, you’ll have a database of information about yourself, and you’re sure to know a lot more about what you want. But if (like me) you enjoyed “What Color is Your Parachute?,” but never did any of the exercises, you probably won’t do them with Career Design or Career Navigator either. These programs are best for self-directed people who are committed to the job search process and who enjoy working for long stretches on their PCs.

Whatever path you take, you’ll want to supplement your efforts with printed references. Some of the best books available include “The Damn Good Resume Guide” (Ten Speed Press), Myra Fournier and Jeffrey Spin’s “Encyclopedia of Job-Winning Resumes” (Round Lake Publishing) and for career self-analysis, Barbara Sher’s thoughtful “Wishcraft: How To Get What You Really Want” (Viking Press) and Nancy Anderson’s “Work With Passion” (Carroll & Graf).

Software for Resume Writing

WinWay Resume for Windows

WinWay Corp.

5800 Madison Ave., Suite A-20

Sacramento, Calif. 95841

916-332-2671

List price: $69.95

PFS: Resume & Job Search Pro

Spinnaker Software

201 Broadway

Cambridge, Mass. 02139

800-826-0706