Resume Development

1. Resume Development Your Resume: An Advertisement for Yourself

2. Must You Have a Resume? T or F. The best way to find a job is to network and talk your way into a job. True IF you are: • Extroverted • Charismatic • Fluent in speaking • Visually attractive • Can carry the weight of your employment marketing presentation without supporting materials.

3. Must You Have a Resume? • Resume' is a specially prepared sales presentation to persuade a potential employer you are the BEST one to do the job you seek. • Your resume' helps prove what you say about your achievements, accomplishments, and abilities.

4. Must You Have a Resume? Absolutely! • Most employers say you need one. • No time to take oral histories. • People who make hiring decisions insist on seeing a piece of paper or computer screen that spells out your qualifications. • Resumes get you an interview, interviews get you a job.

5. Resume': Self Advertisement • Sales presentation about you as a product • Intrigue potential employer • Entice them to invite you for interview • First impression – lasting impression

6. As a Sales Presentation • What skills do you bring to the organization? • Why are you worth the money you hope to earn? • How are you better than other candidates for the job? • Can you solve company or agency problems?

7. Step 1: Gather Your Information • Contact information • Objective or summary statement • Education and training • Experience • Skills • Activities • Organizations • Honors and awards

8. Step 1: Gather Your Information Heading: Contact information • Name: First line. Often slightly larger & boldface. • Mailing Address: Street name, city, state, zip code. Permanent & temporary. • Valid telephone number. Personal number. • Other contact media. E-mail address.

9. Step 1: Gather Your Information Objective or Summary? Hook to grab reader attention. • Job Objective: Wellness Coordinator • Skills Summary: Over 5 years of progressively responsible wellness program experience, including program planning, implementation, and evaluation for 500+ employees.

10. Step 1: Gather Your Information Education • List highest degree 1st – type of degree, major, college name, and date awarded. • New graduates give more detail on course work • Omit high school if you have a college degree • Note continuing education including seminars related to work.

11. Step 1: Gather Your Information Experience. • Describe present and previous positions in reverse chronological order. • Include dates of employment, company names and locations, and specific job titles • Show progression and promotions within an organization • Consider using more than one Experience heading.

12. Step 1: Gather Your Information Skills • The heart and soul of job-finding. • Any identifiable ability or fact that employers value and will pay for. • Encompass a wide variety of experiences. • General & industry specific abilities • Personal characteristics, special knowledge

14. Step 1: Gather Your Information Skills. • Administering aerobics programs, analyzing participation rates, advising aerobics instructors, allocating equipment resources, desktop publishing, coordinating department events, designing fitness promotion ads, wilderness expedition problem-solving, writing injury reports.

15. Step 1: Gather Your Information Skills. • Avoid self-ascribed attributes. Give examples of attributes & substantiate. • Dependable, sense of humor, commitment, leadership, persistence, adaptable, crisis-resistant, creative, accept criticism – meaningless. • Brochures, 100% quota, telemarketing, spreadsheet, web site designing. Where do skills belong on resume? Everywhere.

16. Step 1: Gather Your Information Activities. • Can include hobbies, sports, campus extracurricular participation. • How relevant is activity to target job? • Avoid potentially controversial activities.

17. Step 1: Gather Your Information Organizations or Affiliations • Professional and civic affiliations • Mention important offices held • Relate affiliations in terms of marketable skills. • Never list membership in religious or political organizations unless applying for position requires membership.

18. Step 1: Gather Your Information Awards and honors • List most achievements for which you were recognized. • Scholastic awards, athletics recognition, work achievement. • Omit if honor had nothing to do with work or does not show in professional light.

19. Step 2: Design a Format • Reverse chronological format • Functional • Hybrid Other Formats: • Accomplishments, Curriculum vitae, KeyWord, Linear, Professional

20. Step 2: Design a Format • Reverse Chronological Format Lists all employment and education, beginning with most recent work backward • Functional Format Emphasizes what you can do instead of relaying what you’ve done & where you did it. • Hybrid Format: both

21. Step 2: Design a Format Which format should new graduates use? • Reverse chronological is not as persuasive because irrelevant jobs. • Functional directs reader’s eyes to what you can do instead of listing stray student job or two. • Functional uses unpaid and non-work experience to your best advantage.

24. Step 2: Design a Format • Hybrid format shows timeline and showcases marketable skills and impressive accomplishments. • Essentially a functional tops a reverse chronological presentation of dates, employers, and capsules of each position’s duties. • Wise choice for rookies and job history gaps.

26. Step 3: Finishing Up • Review and refine so everything is clear. • Use resume language, avoid first person. • Start statements with action verbs. • 100% correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling. • Have 2 or 3 people proofread it. • Type on word processor. • Print on laser or inkjet printer

27. Step 3: Finishing Up Checking for typos cannot be completed using spell check alone. Consider these real-life resume blunders. • “Consistently tanked as a top sales producer for new accounts.” • “Dramatically increased exiting account base, achieving new company records. • “Experienced supervisor, defective with both rookies and seasoned professionals. • “Seeking party-time position with potential for advancement.”

28. Step 3: Finishing Up • Paper restrict to white or off-white. • Print on one side only. • Quality of paper immaterial when scanned. • Use white space. Do not right justify. • Times Roman & Helvetica good fonts. • Use at least 10 point font (11+ better). • Omit underlining. Italics difficult to read.