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I. What is a Resume?

II. Writing Your Resume

III. Types of Resumes

IV. Your Resume Should

V. Examples

Back to Resumes and Cover Letters

I. EXACTLY WHAT IS A RESUME, AND WHAT IS ITS PURPOSE?

Your resume is a unique advertisement of you - and an opportunity to convey to prospective employers the skills, qualifications and desire you would like to contribute to their organizations. Your resume is the principal marketing tool in the initial stages of your job search. Therefore, to differentiate you from the hundreds of other candidates, your resume (and cover letter) must be a concise, persuasive presentation of your qualifications for the job. In short, it must sell you.

The primary purpose of your resume is to generate enough interest on the reader's part to grant you an interview. Although your resume can help get your foot in the door, it won't get you the job; you must accomplish that by impressing upon the interviewer how your skills can meet his or her needs.

Your resume is one of the most important elements in a successful job search. A poorly written one may eliminate you from consideration for a job that actually fits quite well with your background and interests. Therefore, take the time necessary to research, write, edit and re-write.

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HOW DO I BEGIN WRITING MY RESUME?

Your resume will appeal to prospective employers if it conveys information relevant to their needs. To write an effective resume, you must understand the needs of your targeted audience (employers) and determine what you have to contribute to these employers. Before you can even think about writing your resume, you must complete the following steps:

1. Identify your skills, strengths and qualifications.

2. Conduct research on your prospective employers: What kinds of skills, education, personal qualities and other qualifications are necessary for this type of work or employer? What selection criteria do your prospective employers use?

3. Determine how your skills, strengths and qualifications relate to the type of work you seek. Rank them according to their ability to support your interest in and suitability for the type of work or employer you are seeking.

** ONLY WHEN YOU HAVE COMPLETED THESE STEPS WILL YOU HAVE THE RAW MATERIAL NEEDED TO BEGIN ORGANIZING AND WRITING YOUR RESUME.

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WHAT IF I DON'T WANT TO SELL MYSELF?

If you are not comfortable with the idea of "selling" yourself, here's an analogy that may be helpful. Consider your resume a means of communication. Use it (and your cover letter) to convey to a potential employer the skills that could be utilized in his or her organization. There is no way for an employer to know your skills and qualifications until you communicate them; the resume is the accepted mechanism to do just that.

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II. WRITING YOUR RESUME

Focus: Remember who your reader is! Too often resumes are merely a list of jobs held and duties performed rather than a description of accomplishments and achievements. As a result, many students fail to secure interviews. Take the time to consider who will read your resumes and cover letters, and what information will impress them.

Length: As an undergraduate, your resume should be one page.

Content:

Identifying Information (placed at top of resume):

• your full name;
  
• your present and permanent address (if applicable), and phone numbers (including area codes).

The Objective (appears directly below the Identifying Information Section):

• A brief, concise and specific statement of your career or internship goals. Indicates the context in which you would like your qualifications read. Gives employers an opportunity to verify the compatibility of your aspirations and the organizations' needs.
  
• If you are interested in several different types of work, refrain from combining your objectives on one resume. Instead, consider having several resumes, each with a different objective. Make sure each resume supports its objective.
  
• Many employers view the objective as an essential part of an effective resume; they want to see that you have made some decision, have acquired a sense of yourself and the world of work. If you have no idea what type of job you want, return to the stage of self-assessment; you are not yet ready to write a resume. Beware! A vague, catch-all objective usually reflects a feeling of uncertainty and may weaken an otherwise strong resume.

Education (beginning with your most recent educational experience and working backwards, include):

• Name of university, city, state. Also include semesters off-campus. Unless you are an underclassman seeking an internship, refrain from listing high school attended.
  
• Degree;
  
• Date of graduation;
  
• Major (and minor, if applicable);
  
• GPA (cumulative and/or in major);
  
• Significant Coursework (optional) - include if your work experience is limited and you want to emphasize specific courses, special assignments and/or research projects which directly support your objective. The general guideline is to list 4-8 courses. Refrain from listing courses that can easily be inferred from your major, minor or degree.

Employment/Work Experience/Experience (placement of this category is determined by relevance to your career objective):

• You may want to use the heading "Employment" if you are listing only paid positions. If listing both paid and non-paid experiences (such as internships), consider using "Work Experience" or "Experience."
  
• Consider including summer jobs, campus jobs, volunteer work, internships, field experience, and elected or appointed positions.
  
• In the order that best supports your objective, list the following: name of employer, position, location, dates of employment, description of responsibilities and accomplishments. Your entries should be listed consistently throughout the entire section.
  
• Use strong, effective action verbs to describe your job responsibilities, accomplishments and skills (see page 7 for examples).
  
• Use numbers to quantify results or responsibility (i.e. state number of people you supervised, size of budget you oversaw, percentage of sales you increased).
  
• Work experience is important at this stage of the game; don't omit jobs like waiting tables, lifeguarding, babysitting, working in construction, painting houses, etc.
  
• If you have worked to pay your college expenses, be sure to indicate the percent of school expenses you earned. Appropriate action verbs include "financed," "earned" and "paid for."
  

Activities and Honors
(placement of this category is determined by relevance to your career objective)

• This section is very important to most employers! Being involved in extracurricular activities shows that you have had to successfully budget your time; that you possess a wide variety of interests; that you have leadership potential; and that you have earned recognition (awards, honors, titles, etc.) for your efforts.
  
• Rank your activities and honors according to which best support your job objective or demonstrate your ability to take positions of leadership and responsibility. If you have participated in many extracurricular activities, you may want to include only those that are most relevant to the type of work you seek.
  
• If you have held an elected or appointed position, make sure you include your title. You may also want to include a brief description of responsibilities and accomplishments.
  
• Include dates where appropriate. Be consistent throughout the section.

Miscellaneous and Optional Categories (placement is determined by relevance to your employment objective):

• Special Skills: examples include computer literacy, fluency and ability to read and write foreign languages. Location is determined by relevance to the career objective;
  
• Volunteer Work;
  
• Internships;
  
• Travel Abroad;
  
• Publications;
  
• Professional Associations;
  
• Interests: include only if space permits.

References: Space permitting, it is appropriate to end your resume with a statement indicating that your references are available upon request.

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III. TYPES OF RESUMES

There are four standard approaches to organizing the content of your resume. The approach you choose will dictate the framework within which your qualifications are presented. Although there is no one best way of writing your resume, each style will highlight your experiences and qualifications in a different way. Therefore, you should choose the style which best "advertises" and suits you:

1. Chronological:

• Work experience is organized in reverse chronological order, beginning with your most recent experience. Dates are displayed in a separate column or included after the names and locations of employers.
  
• Emphasizes your recent or current job(s) and experience(s). This approach is most appropriate if you have limited pertinent experience or if your most recent work experience is closely related to the type of job you are seeking.
  

2. Functional:

• Work experience is arranged in order of importance, regardless of chronological sequence. Names of employers are usually subordinated to job title or function, unless employer has an impressive reputation. Dates are inconspicuous.
  
• Each experience is categorized by function (i.e. Program Designer, Research Consultant, Fraternity President). Each function is then briefly addressed by detailing responsibilities held, actions taken, and achievements or accomplishments attained.
  
• This approach is useful if you have work experience or job titles which pertain to the position being sought, but are not necessarily your most recent experiences.

3. Skills:

• Focuses on your skills and abilities as opposed to when, where or how you acquired them.
  
• De-emphasizes dates, job titles and names of employers. Ignores whether your skills were developed in employment or extracurricular activities.
  
• This approach may be appropriate when the actual skills you've developed are more impressive than your job titles, employers or length of experience. However, make sure you do have these skills and that you have good evidence of them.
  
• Examples of skill headings or categories include: Communication; Leadership; Organizational; Quantitative; Computers/Information Systems; Training and Development; etc.

4. Creative:

• Includes the same information as the other three types of resumes, but presents your qualifications while showing your artistic skills; i.e. person seeking a creative advertising position might plan a resume as though it were an advertisement, thus demonstrating his or her creativity.
  
• Most suited and appropriate for people seeking creative or artistic positions.

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IV. YOUR RESUME SHOULD:

- Convey accomplishments, achievements and job-related abilities
- Indicate specific occupational aspirations and goals
- Be tailored to the type of work you are seeking
- Reflect your capabilities as positively and truthfully as possible
- Be clear and concise - confined to one page if possible (length should
be commensurate with experience)
- Quantify experiences where possible (example: It is better to write,
"Increased sales volume by twenty-five percent" than to say "Sizably
increased sales volume.")
- Use action verbs to describe experiences
- Keep verb endings similar and in the correct tense
- Avoid excessive use of first person and modifiers (I, a, an, the)
- Be visually appealing and easy to read (crisp and clean), with 3/4" to
1" margins on all sides
- Make use of boldface type, underlining, capitals, bullets, indentations,
and different type styles and sizes to emphasize headings, titles,
categories and phrases
- Be flawless - absolutely free of typos, punctuation, spelling or
grammatical errors
- Be professionally printed or printed using a letter quality printer on
quality bond paper (white, ivory, or light gray)
- always be accompanied by a cover letter, if mailed

YOUR RESUME SHOULD NOT:

- Merely list jobs held and duties performed
- Have an unclear, vague objective
- Contain extraneous or irrelevant information
- Be boastful or dishonest, or offer negative information
- Contain lengthy phrases, complete sentences, or wordiness
- Contain high school information, unless your college experience has
been particularly limited (e.g. You're a freshman or sophomore
applying for an internship)
- Give personal information that is unrelated to job performance
- Present your information in an organized manner; (e.g. height, weight,
sex, age, marital status, date of birth)
- Mix verb tenses or contain abbreviations
- Be cramped or crowded with copy
- Include a picture of yourself
- Be printed (as a final copy) using dot matrix printer
- Be printed without being proof-read by at least 3-4 different people
- Be photocopied on poor quality university copy machines
- Be mailed "cold" (without a cover letter) in an envelope

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V. EXAMPLES OF FUNCTIONAL SKILLS

SOME ACTION VERBS TO HELP YOU WRITE YOUR RESUME

acquired, activated, adhered, adjudicated, administered, allocated, analyzed, anticipated, appraised, approved, arranged, assembled, assessed, assigned, assisted, assumed, authorized, changed, compared, compiled, concluded, considered, contacted, contributed, controlled, cooperated, coordinated, counseled, created, critiqued, decided, declared, defined, delegated, demonstrated, designed, determined, developed, directed, discharged, displayed, employed, encouraged, engaged, established, evaluated, executed, exercised, extended, forecasted, formulated, fostered, furnished, gave, guided, handled, identified, informed, initiated, insured, interpreted, interviewed, investigated, issued, justified, made, maintained, managed, measured, met, modified, monitored, negotiated, organized, participated, planned, prepared, processed, procured, progressed, promoted, publicized, purchased, purposed, received, reclaimed, recommended, recruited, rejected, rendered, reported, represented, requested, required, requisitioned, researched, reviewed, scheduled, screened, secured, sought, selected, served, shipped, solved. 

RESUME EXAMPLES

Resume 1
Resume 2
Resume 3

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