Hi Friends.
Please
review this information thoroughly and prepare your resume draft before
bringing your resume to be reviewed by a career counselor.
Start
with a blank Word document – NEVER use a template!
The
resume should be a brief but informative summary of your education,
employment or volunteer experience, and any specialized skills. The layout
should be attractive and easy to read or scan. It should generate the kinds of
questions you want to answer during an interview.
RESUME FORMATS
Chronological: The most
accepted format, it lists education history and work experience in reverse
chronological order, i.e., with the most recent
items first. This format is best for most candidates, especially
those entering the job market or changing jobs within a career field.
Career Services recommends the chronological format, since it is more
straightforward.
Functional: This format
organizes your experience into skill areas, regardless of the specific
job in which the skill was demonstrated. Employment history is then
briefly summarized in reverse chronological order. Functional resumes are
occasionally helpful for candidates with complex work histories or for those
who are changing careers or re-entering the job market. Most employers regard
functional resumes as hard to decipher, and they suspect the writer is hiding
or exaggerating things.
How long your
resume should be.
Most recent graduates should confine
their resumes to one page. If your resume goes to a second page, make
sure your margins are not too wide (no more than 1” left and right and as
little as ½” top and bottom). If the headings are on the left, stack the words.
If your resume runs over a little bit, don’t worry – a counselor will be able
to help you reduce it to one page without losing anything important.
1.
Name:
Start with your
NAME (we suggest upper case bold for name only), and complete contact
information (address, phone and email address).
Never write “RESUME” or “CV” as heading
2.
Certifications: List
professional certifications or licenses with dates received.
3.
Education:
Summarize your
education in reverse order, starting with your last degree or the one you are
working on now. Include school name, city, state, degree, major, date
degree was - or will be - conferred and honors. Include GPA only if 3.0 or
higher.
4.
Courses:
To tailor your
resume to a specific job, you may include a list of “relevant courses.” This also
fills space if you have little experience.
5.
Honors/Awards/Activities:
Use one or more
categories as appropriate, highlighting achievements such as scholarships,
Dean’s List, leadership roles in clubs, campus/community organizations, sports
or other accomplishments.
6.
Research:
If applicable,
you may include special projects or research, highlighting significant relevant
classroom learning experiences such as research projects, independent
study, special presentations, major papers.
7.
Experience:
Your experience,
regardless of how you acquired it (full time or part time jobs, internships,
community or college service) is usually of chief interest to the reader.
For each position, include: Job Title (followed by dates of employment),
Employer, City, State. Emphasize (put first) either employers or job titles,
but be consistent! Describe responsibilities, duties and accomplishments,
preferably using list format with bullets.
8. Skills: Of great interest to employers!
Indicate computer hardware and software knowledge, fluency in foreign
languages, or other technical skills. If you have several of each, use separate
categories.
9.
Interests: List
interests only if you are really knowledgeable about something or very good at
it.
10.
Affiliations: List
professional or volunteer affiliations/memberships (if applicable). Include any offices held.
How to name the sections.
The
headings on your resume function like headlines in the newspaper. They can show
the reader where certain information is located, give a summary of content, and
catch the reader’s interest. If you glance at a resume with a section heading Honors
and Awards, you will reasonably assume this candidate has received honors
and awards and that may motivate you to read this resume. Since almost every
employer wants people with computer skills, some may scan a pile of resumes for
those with Computer Skills in bold headline type.
The
exact heading you choose is important and allows you to tailor your resume and
place the most important experiences first. If you have worked in your field,
name the field in your heading (e.g., Social Work Experience, or Marketing
Experience). Work in related fields can be headed Related Experience.
If the work is not related to your objective but you want to include it, call
it Other Experience or use the name of the field. Fieldwork, Volunteer
Activities, Summer Employment, or Internships are other possible
headings. If you include only some of your jobs, you can call it Selected
Experience. Select and order the major categories so that the most relevant
information is placed early on the resume (top 2/3 of the first page).
How to make your resume look
professional.
Include
no personal information: age, health, marital status, height,
weight, religion.
Never
use the first person "I.” Do not use full sentences. Eliminate all
unnecessary words (a, the). Never lie or exaggerate.
Add to the eye appeal of your
resume by varying the typeface for emphasis: bold, underline, italic,
UPPER CASE, etc. (Use italics for emphasis only - perhaps your job title -
never for the entire resume.) Use an attractive legible typeface such as Times
or Arial, not an old-fashioned font such as Courier.
Use
"bullets" (•, ♦, *, −) for listing items under a heading description,
such as experience.
Proofread
carefully. Grammatical, content and typographical errors may eliminate you
immediately from consideration for an interview. Ask others to proofread the
resume as well.
The
successful resume is one that results in interviews. Does yours present you
as an accomplished person? Is it easy to read, pleasing to the eye,
devoid of all errors, current, honest?
Need of an
objective.
Most
recent graduates don’t need one. Include an objective only if it
is very specific, unique, or necessary to clarify your job target. The
objective is already clear with certifications (e.g., teachers) or
majors (e.g., nursing). Some candidates may want to tailor the job
objective for a specific job application. Be sure your objective addresses
what you can do for the employer, not what the employer can do for you. Most
employers do not care that you want a “challenging” position or
one that “provides career growth.” They do care about additional skills or
experience beyond the basic qualifications. Remember that your job target will
be addressed very specifically in your cover letter. Candidates with several
years of professional experience and skills related to the job may prefer to
use a Summary or Profile in place of an objective.
The most important feature of a
successful resume.
Most
applicants for a particular job often have similar degrees and work histories.
People who get interviews are perhaps those who convey on their resumes that
they have personally done many of the things that need to be done, and have
demonstrated the needed skills. Claiming that you have a skill is not as
convincing as demonstrating how you have used the skill. Here are some
pointers:
⇒
Use
action verbs to describe your duties and accomplishments, depicting
yourself as someone who gets the job done: one who "created . . .
published . . . solved" – not one who merely "participated in"
or was
"responsible
for." Avoid using “assisted” – say what you did.
Vary the vocabulary. (See list of action verbs on page 6 of this guide.)
For present jobs, use present tense verbs and for past jobs, use past tense.
⇒
Emphasize
skills and experience related to the job you want and to the employer’s
needs.
⇒
When
describing your experience, use detailed descriptions that give the
reader a picture of you as an individual (“Adapted lesson on dinosaurs to
learning styles of autistic children”) rather than vague descriptions that make
you sound like everyone else (“Followed the curriculum of cooperating
teacher”).
⇒ Avoid self-serving and subjective
descriptions. Do include occupation-specific words related to the job,
especially if resume will be scanned for an electronic resume bank.
⇒
Quantify
accomplishments
by citing numbers, dollars, percentages, etc., where appropriate.
⇒
Put
the most related and impressive accomplishments first within each job
description.
What if a resume is scanned by a
computer.
An
increasing number of employers now scan resumes into their databases so they
can search for candidates with the right skills and experience. For
resumes that may be scanned by computers, do not use hollow bullets, columns,
italics, borders, shading or underlining. Use standard fonts, plain
white paper and laser printers. Be sure to use key words related
to the field. To maximize “hits” (i.e., matches of your resume to job
vacancies) in cases where the employer scans all resumes, we suggest that you describe
your experience in very concrete, rather than vague, terms; be
concise; use more than one page if needed; use terms and acronyms specific to
your field (but spell out acronyms too); be specific with software and
programs.
Got a minute to
look over my resume?
After you complete your resume
according to guidelines in this Resume Guide, you
may make an appointment with a counselor for a review.
What’s the
difference between a resume and a curriculum vitae?
A
curriculum vitae (often called a ‘CV’) is a special type of resume
traditionally used within the academic community, and sometimes in the medical
and legal communities. It is useful not only for a job search, but also for
tenure review, grant applications, fellowships or consulting. Academic hiring
is frequently a long process done by a committee. Thus, the CV may be reviewed
by many individuals.
The
CV need not be confined to one page, like the typical business resume, nor does
it have to be any longer than necessary to highlight your strengths and
achievements. It generally includes degrees, teaching and research experience,
publications, presentations and related activities. When applying for positions
outside of academia, a resume will represent you better than a CV. The details
of your teaching and research will probably be of less interest to the reader.
Converting your CV to a resume will usually require major revisions.
Like
your resume, your CV is a work in progress. Instead of merely keeping your CV
current, you should delete items that no longer relate to your objective,
create new categories to show your achievements, and reorganize sections to
emphasize strengths related to the job you seek.
References
It is no longer
necessary to state on the bottom of one’s resume that “References are available
upon request” since it is understood that employers will ask for references if
they are interested in you, whether or not you state this. Use the limited space
on your resume to provide essential information. Job seekers should,
however, prepare a typed list of references like the one below:
PHONE
/ EMAIL REFERENCES:
Many employers want to be able to check your references by phone and, increasingly
these days, by email. Ask three or four people who know your work – professors,
supervisors, officials, coaches, advisors, etc. Include their full name, their
title, organization, address, phone numbers and email addresses.
Always
get permission from these individuals before putting them on the list and prepare them for potential
calls from employers. (Send them a thank-you letter for being a
reference, update them on how your job search is progressing and enclose a
resume.)
WRITTEN
REFERENCES: In
addition to asking for permission to list someone as a professional reference,
you may ask for a written recommendation letter from the individual.
When
you are asked for references, you can use the list and/or any letters you
believe are relevant. Offer them at an interview or - IF references are
requested in the job posting - you may include them with your resume. This is
what we mean by References furnished upon request. As mentioned,
including this phrase on your resume is not necessary and, since
space is at a premium, you can use that space for something much more
informative.
A
cover letter is really a form of business letter. Each resume you mail,
email or fax must be accompanied by a well-written cover letter. When
responding to posted vacancies, each cover letter should show how your
background meets the employer's needs (as stated in their job description), as
well as why you want to work for that organization, in that
position or with that situation. When sending a resume to an
organization for which you have not seen posted vacancies, write a letter
of inquiry, in which you ask about current or potential vacancies, state why
you are interested and what makes you a good candidate.