SMARTHINKING Writer's Handbook

Chapter 1, Lesson 13

Resume Writing

Objective

In this lesson, you'll learn how to develop a one-to-two page resume that will attract an employer's attention and help you get a job interview.

What is a resume?

A resume is a one-to-two page document that summarizes your skills, qualifications, job experience, and education. Just as salespeople use brochures to advertise a product, you'll use your resume to advertise yourself to potential employers. Often, your resume is your best and only chance to introduce yourself to an employer and land a job interview.

Your education, work experiences, and the type of job that you seek determine what you should include in your resume. However, employers expect to see the following things in any good resume:

• Contact Information
• Objective
• Skills and Abilities
• Education
• Work Experience
• Interests and Activities (Optional)

Steps Before Writing

Take some time to assess your skills, qualifications, and experiences before you start to write your resume. Getting the right job means applying for the right job. How do you know what kind of job is the right one for you? There are a variety of tools available to help you understand yourself and your working preferences better. For example, you can buy a book such as the well-known What Color Is Your Parachute? written by Dick Bolles and published by Ten Speed Press. Books like this one offer you a series of questions, charts, and prompts to get you thinking about your ideal job situation. Another tool is the Myer's Briggs Type Indicator test, available on the Internet and in bookstores. When you know what kind of work is best for you and how your experiences and skills factor into your decision, you can develop an eye-catching and powerful resume.

Tools such as the ones mentioned above will ask you to sort out your experiences and skills. Making lists is helpful. On a sheet of paper or using the computer, list all of the schools you've attended, the jobs you've held, and your volunteer experiences. For each, record the dates you were there, any degrees or certificates that you earned, and the skills that you've gained. Your pre-writing will save you effort and energy later in the writing process. The following items will help you to flesh out your list:

• Objective: What do you want to do? What kind of job do you want?
• Skills and Abilities:
  • Computer skills and programs in which you are literate
  • Technical or mechanical skills
  • Courses you have attended beyond general college course
  • Writing or other communication abilities
  • Languages that you speak or can read
  • Supervisory skills
  • Personal attributes that make you a unique or particularly good worker
• Schools attended, courses taken, and grades
• Work experiences, paid or unpaid, and full- or part-time

Exercise

1. In the text box, list at least ten skills that you've developed that are applicable to the type of job you want.

2. Note which of these skills you may use in that job. Can you think of anything else to add to the list now? If so, add them to the list, and then rank all the skills according to importance on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = most important; 5 = least important).

3. At the bottom of your list, write the five most important personal attributes that you possess. What will each attribute contribute to the job?

Writing and Targeting Your Resume

Good resumes are targeted to one employer and one type of job. General resumes may reveal that you have had lots of experiences, but they don't give a sense of focus to a particular employer's need for filling a particular job. Therefore, it is helpful to write a lengthy base resume that records everything about you and your work experiences. From that base, you can pull the most important information to target a particular job. Add your new skills and abilities to the base resume monthly, if necessary, and then you'll have all the information necessary when you need to target a new resume to a new potential employer.

To target your resume, consider the employer who'll be reading it. Include only those skills and qualifications that s/he will consider important for the job that you're applying for. Remember that an employer will be reading your resume quickly and will not read resumes longer than one-to-two pages total.

A word about formatting: You'll want to make your resume easy for that person to read. Most employers will write on the resume for future reference, so it's important to leave some white space on the document. Write short, fragmented sentences, using bullets freely. Use your computer's ability to change fonts and size, and to bold, italicize, or underline in limited and consistent ways that will make your resume both attractive and easy to read.

Build your resume:

• Contact Information
  Give your full name, mailing address, telephone number, and e-mail address at the top of the resume. Use your cover letter to indicate how and where you can be reached and when is the best time. [see "Writing a Cover and Thank-You Letter"]
  • Avoid using nicknames
  • In addition to your college address, include a permanent address (a post office box or your parent's address will be fine)
  • Include the area code of your phone number
  • Make sure your e-mail address is written correctly
    
    
• Objective
  Your objective should appear directly below your contact information. It's the most important part of the resume because it lets the employer know your goals for your professional life. If you're applying for several different types of jobs, you should target resumes and write appropriate objectives to match each job. Your objective:
  • Should be consistent with the job skills and qualifications that you include on your resume and
  • If a response to an advertised position, should be consistent with the job title and general qualifications listed in that ad.

  Example:

  • To work for a software development company that requires strong programming skills and the ability to learn quickly.
  • To teach elementary education for a public school system.

Exercise

Think about a job that you'd like to have. Write an objective statement that corresponds to that job in the text box below. Compare it to the examples and rewrite it if necessary. If you don't have a job in mind yet, you could practice this step using the job advertisements in your local newspaper.

• Education
  This category should follow the objective statement. Include your degree, date of graduation, major, minor, academic institution (include city and state), GPA (if it is noteworthy), honors, and related course work. However, if you have a lot of pertinent work experience, such specific information as GPA and related coursework becomes less important and can be eliminated.

  Example:

  1996 - 2000 BA, U.S. History, minor in English, Morefield State University, Columbus, Ohio

• GPA: 4.0
• President's List 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000
• Related Course Work: Writing for the Professional Audience, Technical Writing I and II, Business Communication
  
  
• Skills and Abilities

Use brief bulleted statements to highlight special skills that make you a strong candidate for the position. If the advertisement calls for someone with teaching experience and you have been teaching swimming and sailing at a summer camp for the past two summers, you have some minimal teaching skills that should be mentioned specifically. If the job requires computer skills, briefly list all of the programs that you are able to use. Note that if your work experience is more pertinent to the job than your special skills and abilities, you should reverse the position of these two categories.

• Work Experience
  Since you may not have a lot of paid work experience, it's fine to include volunteer and internship experiences under this category. The important thing is to identify those positions that helped you develop and use skills that a potential employer might find useful.

• List work experience in reverse chronological order; begin with the most recent position you have held and work back to the earliest position.
• Include the job title, the dates that you held the position (month and year), and the organization's name and location
• Provide a summary of your duties in that position using active language. Begin your statements with active verbs (present tense for current positions and past tense for previous positions) and avoid using "I" in these statements. For example, say something like: Wrote computer code for a biology software program.
  
  
• Interests and Activities (Optional)
  If you don't have a lot of job experience, this section helps employers know more about you. You might include (1) social or civic activities, (2) interests or hobbies that relate to the position that you're applying for, and (3) activities that provide information about your dedication to a task, ability to work hard, or other positive personal characteristics. Provide brief explanations of each activity if you have room. Note that your age, sex, marital status, pets, and hobbies generally don't have a place in your resume.

  Examples:

• 1996 - 1999 Football Team: First team member of the college's Division I football team. Practiced an average of 20 hours per week and participated in all games throughout the season.
• 1992 - present Junior President of Rotary Club: Organized and developed activities for the Rotary Club in Creekwater, NM.
  
  
• References
  It is acceptable to write "References Available Upon Request" at the bottom of your resume. If you do, it is important to have a separate reference list available for your interviewer. This list should include the full name of each reference, his/her title, telephone number/s, and a brief statement describing how you know the person. References can be current and past professors, employers, or colleagues. They cannot be family members. Don't offer someone as a reference until you have checked with him/her to make sure it is okay to do so.

Reviewing your resume

Before sending it out to an employer, look over your resume. Consider the following items:

• Use active language to describe your experiences:
  Example: Manager, Burger King, Greenville, North Carolina. Managed staff of 30 employees in fast-paced retail environment, hired and trained new employees, responsible for inventory and payroll. [Italics are our emphasis—don't use italics to stress active language in your own resume.]
  
  
• Be consistent:
  Choose a layout that you like and stick to it. Not only does it make your resume easier to read and follow, but also it's more professional.
  
  
• Proofread:
  Resumes with spelling and punctuation errors usually are discarded because such errors show that you don't pay attention to detail.
  
  
• Make sure the resume is neat and attractive: Your resume should be printed on high-quality, cotton fiber resume paper. It shouldn't be wrinkled or torn, and you should never make visible corrections of any kind to it.
  
  
• If you are emailing the resume, be sure that it is in an easily readable computer format. .doc and .pdf do not strip out the formatting. However, a .txt version, which does eliminate formatting such as bolds and underlines, often is acceptable to Internet-based employers.

Sample Resume

Summary

You've learned how to write an effective resume and general tips to consider while composing it.