A resume is a professional reflection of you as a potential employee. Your resume should include Objective, Summary of Qualifications, Education, Relevant Coursework, Work Experience, Honors, Activities, and other pertinent headings. The goal is to present your resume in a way that showcases confidence. Follow these eight steps in creating a more effective resume.
STEP 1 – GETTING STARTED:
How do you get started? - You should begin your resume with a heading that includes your name, address, phone number, and E-mail address. You may want to include a permanent address and alternate contact information. Be sure to include a zip code and telephone area codes.
What is your objective? - Prepare a brief, clear statement stating the type work you are seeking, the field you are interested in, and the skills and strengths you bring to an organization.
STEP 2 – INVENTORY YOUR EXPERIENCE
What have you learned? - The Education section highlights the knowledge you acquired and can include training, certifications, or licensure. List all degrees earned (or date to be earned), majors, concentrations, institutions. Degree should be listed before the University. You may also want to include your GPA (especially if cumulative or major GPA is 3.0 or higher), relevant coursework, academic honors, study abroad, or percent of college expenses you have earned. Dean’s list, honor societies, academic awards may all be listed, but if you have many activities and awards you may want to include them in their own Honors section.
What have you done? - The Work Experience section highlights your work-related (paid or unpaid) accomplishments. Employers want to know what you have done and what you bring that is worthy of consideration. Experience includes full-time jobs, academic research projects, internships or co-op positions, part-time jobs, or volunteer work. When describing each experience, give the position, title of organization, city, state, and dates employed. Use action verbs to start the statements describing your accomplishments and duties in the job. Quantify people, products, or profits if possible.
STEP 3 – IDENTIFY YOUR SKILLS
Skills and competencies can be included in the Summary of Qualifications. These should be supported by the Education and Experience sections. There are three different types of skills you can include in your Summary of Qualifications.
1. Technical/Professional Skills - Skills performed in a job, task, or class, acquired by reading, training, or education. For example: “Proficient in Unix, Oracle, Oas LAN.”
2. Functional Skills - Skills related to people, information, or things transferable from one field or occupation to another. Be able to identify several strengths in the categories of data (organizing, problem-solving, creating), people (communicating, supervising, teaching), and things (maintaining, operating, coordinating).
3. Personal/Adaptive Skills - Skills that represent your style of working coordinated with your personal traits. For example: “Described by supervisor as patient, creative, persistent, and energetic.”
STEP 4 - MATCH Y0UR EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS WITH AN EMPLOYER’S NEEDS
The content of your resume may change between applications to different jobs. You will want to mention skills that you possess if they are skills required for the job. Additionally, the wording of experiences and skills can be changed to acclimate to the type of position you are looking for.
STEP 5 - ORGANIZE YOUR RESUME EFFECTIVELY
You want to organize your resume the way that you want yourself to be reflected. Name and objective should always be first, however you should organize what is the most important to you (and to your targeted employer) from the top of the page down. Keep in mind that additional categories can be created to represent your various strengths. Some additional sections are: Honors/Awards, Leadership Activities, Relevant Skills and Experience, Special Interests, or Accomplishments. If one area outweighs another as an asset, then it should come before other sections.
References should always on a separate page. Prepare the reference page with name, title, name of organization where employed, address, telephone number and e-mail address of each reference. Make sure that your refer-ences are aware that you have included them on your list of references. On your resume, you can indicate “References Available Upon Request” at the bottom of the page.
STEP 6 - CREATING YOUR DRAFT
Length of resume - You want your resume to be pleasing to the employer who will be looking it over. If the resume is too lengthy or jumbled, your potential employer may disregard it. Most undergraduates should keep their resume to one page, but two pages are an option for those with more experience. If you are leaving out vital information because you want to keep it to one page, then add a second page. Be sure to include your name on the second page.
Phrases - Use brief, yet descriptive phrases, rather than sentences.
Format - Balance the layout by making all four margins about equal. The resume should be pleasing at first glance. Use some white space—important information should stand out for the reader.
Production - Use good quality 100% bond paper, in a conservative in color such as white, gray, or beige.
Verbs - Choose active verbs describing your skills, abilities, and accomplishments. Use present tense for current duties, past tense for prior tasks. Do not include first person pronouns, such as “I” or “my.”
STEP 7 - ASK FOR COMMENTS ON YOUR RESUME
Get a second opinion on your resume. You know your intentions, but your wording might not be clear.
A second opinion can help you correct mistakes before a potential employer does. Second opinions can come from: Visit Career Services for a 24-hour critique or a personal appointment with a Career Counselor. A friend, advisor, employer, or professor is another good option.
STEP 8 - EVALUATE YOUR RESUME
How does it look?
Here is a checklist to help you evaluate:
CONTENT
__Content is directly related to your job objective
__Name is at the top of the page and highlighted by large font
__Descriptions are action verbs with a consistent verb tense; current job is in present tense while past jobs are in past tense
__Repetition of words or phrases is kept to a minimum
__Capitalization, punctuation, and date formats are consistent
__There are no typos or spelling errors and grammar is correct
__There is a rationale for each piece of information included
ORGANIZATION
__The best assets, whether education, experience, or skills, are listed first
__The document is easily reviewed; categories are clear and text is indented when needed
__The dates of employment are easy to find and are in a consistent format
__Listings in different sections run from most recent to least recent
FORMAT/DESIGN
__Bold text and capitalization are used minimally and consistently
__Margins and line spacing keep the page from looking too jumbled or crowded
__Spacing and font size are consistent
__Font is easy to read and no smaller than 10 point size, preferably 11 point.
Information provided by Texas State University Career Services
LBJ Student Center 5-7.1 512.245.2645 (phone) 512.245.3993 (fax)
Visit us at www.careerservices.txstate.edu
No comments:
Post a Comment