How to start & write a Resume.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Introduction
- Part 1 - Contact Details
- Part 2 - Birth Date & Marital Status
- Part 3 - Layout
- Part 4a - Making a summary of your Key Strengths
- Part 4b - Career Overview? Or Career Objective?
- Part 5 - Professional History
- Part 6 - Other
Introduction:
To many, the idea of having to put a resume together can be a daunting experience. However, most of us must/need to do it. All you require is a plan that will cover both how you lay all your information out and the content of that information. Although individual resumes’ may differ in content, the layout should generally remain the same for everyone. I plan to simplify the process to make it a ‘walk in the park’.
Things to Note: No one gets a job based on the resume alone. The purpose of the resume is to get the interview.
Part 1 - Contact Details:
The first part of your resume has to be your contact details because without it, how will your prospective employer be able to contact you? A nice layout for this would be to centre all these details at the top of the page, highlighting your full name in a bigger size and the selected text made bold, like this:
It must include:
- Your full name
- Your address
- Your mobile/cell phone number
- Your email address
Things to Note: Your email address should be professional sounding and nothing like x_devil_babe@[email.com] as it can put off an employer by indicating unprofessionalism and immaturity. Your resume is used as a document to sell/market yourself so it is important to use something that involves your name – preferably full name. i.e. johnsmith@[email.com]
Part 2 - Birth Date & Marital Status:
It is quite unusual to provide your marital status in a resume unless you plan on being a stripper? For the most part, both of these details can be excluded from your resume as they are quite unnecessary and a lot of companies these days have some form of age prejudice when it comes to recruitment.
Part 3 – Layout:
This can be tricky without a little thought. You need to assume that the employer you are sending your resume to have hundreds of resumes to look at. Put yourself in their shoes and think about what you’d do in such a situation. The fact is, employers tend to spend less than 30 seconds glancing at a resume before deciding to read on or throw out. If you want to be one of those ‘keepers’ then -
KEEP IT SIMPLE.
Things to Note: There is no need for decorations, different colours (black and white only unless you’re applying for an artistic position?), and too much detail as employers don’t have time to sit and read stories. The font style should be easy to read such as Times New Roman, Calibri or Arial with size 10-12. Do not use a table format as it wastes space, it’s ugly and is hard to follow!
Using bold format for headings and a larger text size rather than underlining makes sections stand out more clearly. If you plan to use bullets (i.e. dot points) then make sure you use one type throughout your resume.
Remember: Content is key – quality, not quantity!
Part 4a – Making a summary of your Key Strengths:
There are two most common ways for doing this. The first method is to make a clear heading called - Key Strengths, where you summarise in bullet points your KEY STRENGTHS. The aim of this is to give the reader a quick idea of what you have to offer in the hope of being placed in the ‘keepers’ pile.
A typical example of this:
- High level computer skills including Excel, Word and PowerPoint.
- Two years experience in customer service in both face to face and phone based
Things to Note: Be specific! Don’t say you have good programming knowledge.
For it to be useful, expand on it by saying something like:
- 3 years programming experience in C# and Java language
This promotes you more than just stating generic facts that provide no in depth detail about your experience.
Part 4b – Career Overview? Or Career Objective?
The second most common way is for people to start with a Career Objective, however most recruiting consultants consider this OKAY if you are a recent school leaver or university graduate. For those far beyond this, a Career Overview would be a better option. Recruiters like to have an idea of what you can do for them. It should provide a quick preview of the content of your resume. One paragraph should suffice. Include some of your professional, industry and academic training. You could include a career goal at the end such as – “while currently a product manager, my future goal is to move into general management”.
A good example of a Career Overview is this:
“A sales management professional with seven years' experience in the media industry, I have worked on newspaper, web and television products. I have a proven track record of developing new business and motivating a team to consistently exceed targets. I've recently completed a Masters of Business Administration and am now seeking a new professional challenge.”
Things to Note: If it isn’t factual, don’t use it! Recruiters tend to use information you provide in the interview process to further suss you out especially when claiming you’ve done so and so. Also avoid vague statements such as “to utilise my skills in a professional environment for the mutual benefit of myself and employer” because it states something obvious which is considered pointless information that employers look at as a waste of their time for lack of detail.
Part 5 - Professional History
Outline your career history in reverse chronological order. This means, display your latest employment history first and then so on.
A good template to follow would be:
- Job title
- Employer,
- Dates employed
- Your responsibilities
Employer description
This would be useful for when a company might be largely unknown. Organisations like IBM, Intel, Google or the big banks, to name a few, would require no explanation.
Responsibilities
A common mistake is for people to list far too many responsibilities. This becomes overwhelming and pointless. It is far better to include only things you were responsible for. No one wants to know in detail every little thing you did.
Don’t use something like "Attended a weekly team meeting". So what? "Chairing" the weekly team meeting is a responsibility. See the difference?
Achievements
This is where you list the things that you did that you were not paid to do i.e. staff awards, special commendations, suggestions you put forward or helped to implement that led to cost savings or an increase in revenue, access to new clients, higher levels of customer service, time efficiencies and so on.
Things to Note: ‘Meeting’ a target is NOT an achievement - it's doing what you are paid to do. Exceeding a monthly target by an average of 20 per cent with a top result of 43 percent is an achievement.
Achievements show potential hirers what you are made of - and what they can expect you will do for them.
Example of a Professional History:
Things to Note: Follow this format for at least your last two to three jobs.
Part 6 - Other
Education & Training
Start with your highest qualification first, unless you are fresh out of school, leave your secondary school history out. This section can cover university, other government funded training, industry courses, in-house courses, and any other professional training.
Professional Memberships
Associations that you are a member of that is relevant to your career as well as an indication of how active you are in the organisation.
Referees
References/Referees come at the end. Names and phone numbers are the most acceptable presentation. Do NOT add a sentence: "Written references available upon request". It is best to notify your referees in some instances that you are looking for other work. It would depend on circumstances though. Normally a recruiter would ask you whether it would be okay to contact your referees so there is no need to worry about not including them on your resume.
Hobbies & Interests
You can add it, but it isn’t necessary. Some career experts warn that the section could work against you if the employer dislikes or is threatened by the activities you list.
A Final Note
I Hope this helps you guys. When I was fresh out of university, I spent days researching and developing my resume to perfection. It has landed me many interviews and finally a graduate position at a top firm, so I do know what I'm talking about.
This could be you with your prospective employer/s!
If you have any questions or feedback, don't hesitate as I'm always happy to help.
~Rob
How to start & write a Resume.
How to start & write a Resume.
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