English

Based on this week’s lecture, what do you think are some of the particularly key factors to keep in mind when designing an effective resume? What changes do you plan on making to your existing resume based on what you have learned? Do you have any interesting or informative experiences to share regarding the design or use of a resume in the workplace?

Effective ResumesEffective Resumes

Preparing a good resume (sometimes called a CV, which stands for

curriculum vitae) for potential employers to see is a crucial step in a successful job

search, and is something that can make the difference between getting the desired

interview or not. Your resume is a representation of all you have done or

accomplished in your professional and educational life, and it should be thought of

as a kind of marketing tool that will likely precede a personal meeting with a

potential employer.

General ConsiderationsGeneral Considerations

• Employer’s Use of Resumes

• Length- 1-2 pages

• Goals- You are trying to sell yourself

• Writing style should be as concise as
possible

• Layout and appearance is crucial!

Employers will use resumes as a way of deciding the people they will

call in for an interview- your resume, therefore, is literally the foot in the door of the

job you are trying to get. Without a strong and well-written resume, you are going to

have a very difficult time of distinguishing yourself from the dozens (or hundreds!) of

candidates that are competing for the same position. An employer is likely to skim a

stack of resumes very quickly, tossing aside the ones that don’t measure up. You

may not have much control over this process, but at least you can be sure you’ve

put together the best possible resume you can at that particular point in your career.

A good resume should be either one or two pages, and rarely ever

any more. It should also not be less than a page, as this doesn’t reflect well on your

skills or experience. If you do need to use two pages, the second page should be at

least more than half filled- if you are at a page and a quarter, for example, look for a

way to condense your writing or layout to make one full page. Be sure also to

include your name on the second page, just in case it gets separated from the first.

Your basic goal in writing in resume, and what you should always

keep in mind, is that you are trying to sell yourself to a potential employer. Why

should this company hire you? What do you have to offer in terms of your skills and

experience? This is your chance to put your best foot forward and convince

someone of why you are the person that is best for the job. You are not boasting-

you are simply advertising plainly and truthfully what you have to offer.

General ConsiderationsGeneral Considerations– ContCont’’dd

• Employer’s Use of Resumes
• Length- 1-2 pages
• Goals- You are trying to sell yourself
• Writing style should be as concise as
possible
• Layout and appearance is crucial!

The writing style of a resume should be very concise and spare. A

resume normally uses short phrases and fragments. Note that you are not using the

same writing style as you would for an essay. For example, instead of saying, “I

was in charge of teaching 20 students how to write an essay. I also taught these

students how to edit their work afterwards in order to achieve the best results” you

would instead say, “Responsible for teaching all steps of the writing process to a

class of 20.”

Whether or not you are artistically inclined or not, it’s very important to

have a resume that is very easy to read and has an appealing layout and design.

Employers may toss out resumes for many reasons- one of them may be that when

they are facing a stack of 100 to read, they don’t want to spend time reading

something that has dense, size 10 font written all over it. Appearance does matter

in this case!

Types of ResumesTypes of Resumes

• Two basic organizational
methods:

–Chronological Resume
• Preferred Format

–Skills Resume- Good if:
• Your education and experience are not relevant to
the job you are seeking

• You are changing professions

• You don’t have any full-time work experience

• You’ve spent a long time away from work

There are two basic methods for organizing your resume. By far the

most common and recommended method is the reverse-chronological resume.

This means that you begin with the most recent work experience you have (up to

the present) and work backward in time. You are emphasizing your particular job

titles and degrees with the corresponding dates. This is the traditional resume

format, and should be used unless you have a particular situation which would

make the skills resume a better choice for you. Paste this link into your browser

address to view an example of a reverse-chronological resume: http://www.resume-

resource.com/exrevchron.html

A skills resume (or functional resume) emphasizes the skills that you

possess, rather than specific dates or jobs that you used them in. The only times

you should really consider using this type of resume is when one of the following

situations applies to you: The education and experience you have aren’t related to

the job you are seeking, you are changing fields, you don’t really have any full-time

work experience to put on your resume, or you’ve spent a long time away from work

and are re-entering the labor market. Paste this link into your browser address to

view an example of a skills resume: http://www.resume-

resource.com/exfunctional.html

Things to Include in Your ResumeThings to Include in Your Resume

• Name and contact details

• Career Objectives (optional)

• Summary of Qualifications (optional)

• Education

• Work Experience

• Awards or Honors (optional)

• Activities (optional)

• Publications (optional)

• Additional Skills (optional)

• References (optional)

Your name and contact details include your full name (don’t use

nicknames or shortened versions), address, phone number, and email address.

Use a large and bold font for your name, and center your address below it. If you

have two addresses to include, you put them on either side of the page to give a

better balance. Be sure to include your email address and phone number as well.

Career Objectives is an optional heading to use. If you do decide to

use it, you’d want to write a brief 2 or 3 sentence description of the type of job and

the level you are seeking. Career Objectives are generally not used when your

experience naturally fits with the types of jobs you are applying for. The cover letter

will clearly discuss exactly which position you are applying for.

Things to Include in Your ResumeThings to Include in Your Resume– contcont’’dd

• Name and contact details
• Career Objectives (optional)
• Summary of Qualifications (optional)
• Education
• Work Experience
• Awards or Honors (optional)
• Activities (optional)
• Publications (optional)
• Additional Skills (optional)
• References (optional)

The Summary of Qualifications section is also optional, and is a

place where you can list out in summary form (often bulleted) the basic

qualifications and accomplishments you have for the job. You may list something

like: “Experience managing a team of 5 staff employees” or “Proficiency in using

Peachtree accounting software.” Some large employers will scan received resumes

into a computer, looking for certain keywords to be present in order to pass on for

human review. In these cases, the Summary of Qualifications is a good place to list

out the important skills and accomplishments you’ve acquired.

The Education heading is needed in all resumes. This will be the first

major heading if you are a recent graduate or if the education you have is very

specific or desirable for the type of job you are seeking. In all cases, list out all

university or college degrees in one of two ways:

B.A. in Psychology, May 2005, Northeastern University,

Boston, MA.

Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, May 2005, Northeastern University,

Boston, MA.

Only include your GPA if it was particularly good, and then be sure to include the

grade scale: “3.6/4.0” Note also that your educational achievements should be

listed with the most recent first and then working backward in time. If you are having

difficulty in filling the page and your coursework is especially relevant to the job you

are seeking, you can also list out some of the more useful courses that you took.

Things to Include in Your ResumeThings to Include in Your Resume– contcont’’dd
• Name and contact details
• Career Objectives (optional)
• Summary of Qualifications (optional)
• Education
• Work Experience
• Awards or Honors (optional)
• Activities (optional)
• Publications (optional)
• Additional Skills (optional)
• References (optional)

Your Work Experience section is obviously the meat and potatoes of the resume,

and is the place where you will describe your work history. In addition to Work Experience this

section is sometimes called Experience, Work History, Professional Experience or Employment

History. The information that is always included is the job title or position, the name of the company,

the city and state (or country), and the dates of employment (the year and month is sufficient). This

basic information should be set apart from the job description, and you can do this by using bold,

underlining, italics, or a hanging indent (the first line is set to the margin and all of the lines after are

indented).

You’ll want to describe in some detail exactly what your responsibilities were for

each job, as well as any particular achievements or accomplishments you had. Use action verbs to

describe your duties: Created, Directed, Analyzed, Supervised, Managed, Presented, Planned,

Improved, Hired, Trained, Researched, Developed, and Scheduled are just some of the most

common ones to use. Note that the verbs and sentences are written in the past tense for previous

jobs, and present tense for a current position. Generally, the word “I” is not used- for example, a

typical sentence would look like this: “Managed a staff of 25 and improved sales by 40%.”

Awards and Honors is an optional heading, and is an attractive section to include if

you have enough to list in this category. Some of the things to include here are: Scholarships,

Fellowships, Awards from professional groups, Academic honor societies, or Varsity Letters for

sports. If you only have one or two awards or honors to mention, you could possibly combine this into

the Activities section. The Activities section is especially useful for recent college graduates who

may not yet have any professional affiliations or activities. Here is where you would include any

membership in organized student activities, membership in any professional associations, volunteer

work that you’ve done, social clubs, religious organizations, etc. Again, this is an optional heading to

include.

A section for Publications is only used if you have been involved in

authoring or co-authoring any books or articles that have been published. If it has

not been published, it wouldn’t be included in your resume. Under Additional

Skills, you can list any other abilities that may or may not be directly related to the

job you are seeking, such as foreign language proficiency, computer skills, musical

proficiency, etc.

References can be included in the resume, and are a good way to fill

out the page if you are having difficulty finding things to include. They can also be

omitted, however, and in your cover letter you can state that references can be

provided as needed. If you do include references in your resume, you should have

between 3-5 of them, and you need to include the full name and contact details of

each. Use previous employers or professors that are familiar with your work and are

willing to speak positively about it. Don’t ever include a reference if you haven’t first

spoken with the person and gotten their permission to do so.

Sending Electronic ResumesSending Electronic Resumes

• E-mail Tips

–E-mail Source

–Professional E-mail Account

–Individual E-mails

–Subject Lines

–Common Fonts and Format

–Test E-mail

As you are all certainly aware, communication in business has largely turned
electronic. Most often these days you’ll need to send your resume electronically rather than by
traditional post. In this case, you should keep the following tips in mind:

First, don’t send your resume using a current work account- it won’t look very good
to a future employer if they see you using the company’s time or resources to do your job searching.
Instead, create an e-mail account using any one of the number of free services available, such as
Hotmail. In this case, choose a professional account name- maybe just yourname@hotmail.com.
Avoid using nicknames or funny or cute account names- again, it should be as professional as
possible.

Although at times a mass-mailing of your resume can be warranted, if you are
targeting a specific job or company, be sure to personalize the e-mail as much as possible and don’t
include them in a list of other companies you are sending it off to. Send each e-mail one at a time.

Use a professional but simple and descriptive subject line- something like “Resume-
Your Name” or “Resume for Your Name”.

If you know you are preparing a resume that is likely to be sent out electronically, be
sure to use only the most common fonts when preparing it, as the computer which is viewing it may
not have the more uncommon ones on their system. Times New Roman, Arial, and Courier are 3
very common ones which should cause no problems. If you use one that is not installed on the
system of the potential employer, all of the formatting will be lost and the resume will not look the
way it should.

For this same reason, be sure to save your formatted resume as either “text” (.txt) or
“rich-text format” (.rtf) unless otherwise specified by the employer (they may, for example request
your resume be sent as a Microsoft Word document ( )).

Finally, it’s a good idea to test how your resume is going to look by sending it to
various friends or family members to view on their computer screens. This is a good way to feel
confident that your resume will arrive to hiring person in the form you’ve intended.

Sannable ResumesSannable Resumes

•Often used by large
companies

•Keywords are important

•Use a specific formatting

A scannable resume is often requested by very large companies who

conduct much of their hiring process electronically and automatically. The idea is

that the collected resumes are scanned into a computer so that a job applicant

tracking program can automatically search through large numbers of resumes in

order to look for certain keywords.

The keywords that are especially important will vary from job to job

and employer to employer, but in general, you want to include common industry

jargon and “buzzwords”. You’ll also want to be sure to list out specific professional

organizations you may be a member of, or computer software that you are proficient

in. Also, use common headings such as Education, Experience, etc. Be sure to put

everything you can into the scannable resume- use as many pages as you need to,

as the number of pages isn’t important as it is for a resume that will be read by an

actual person.

Follow these guidelines for creating a scannable resume: Use a

standard 12 point type, no bold, no italics, no underlining. Don’t use any lines,

boxes or borders, and be sure to leave plenty of white space in the resume. Use a

traditional chronological resume, and be sure not to fold or staple the pages. For an

example of a scannable resume, paste the following link into your browser address:

http://www.careerperfect.com/content/resume-examples/executive-assistant-

sample-resume-scannable/

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