Federal Resume Writing Workshop

1. Federal Resume Writing Workshop

2. Workshop Objectives After completing this course, participants will be able to: • Identify the three basic types of resumes and the benefits • Write clear, brief, and complete descriptions of work experience incorporating the PAR approach--Problem, Action, Result Model • Recognize and use high impact words • Write accomplishment statements in resume highlighting skills and abilities to perform the job • Review vacancy announcement questionnaires and discuss response strategies • Hands-on resume practice

3. What is a Federal Resume • A document for starting or advancing your government career • Marketing piece, career summary, and personal presentation • Focused, well-written, and clearly organized • Professionally presented career package

4. Basic Types of Resumes • Chronological Resume • Functional Resume (Skills) • Combination Resume (Functional and chronological) • Targeted • USAJobs

5. Chronological Resume • Most recent experience is listed first, followed by each previous job • Advantages • Simplest and quickest resume style to write • Good style to use if you have a good work history in jobs similar to those you want now • Disadvantages • May display your weakness • Quickly show an employer things like gaps in employment, frequent job changes, lack of work experience related to your job objective, recent graduation, etc.

6. Functional Resume • Emphasizes skills that your job requires than a chronological resume • Advantages: • Allows you to present accomplishments from all of your life experiences • Presents your strengths and avoids showing your weaknesses • Disadvantages: • Hides details that can be used to screen people out • Some employers may not like this type • Can be much harder to write

7. Combination Resume • Includes elements of both the chronological and the functional formats • Good type of resume to use if you have a reasonably good work history, but want the advantages that are contained in using a functional resume • Emphasize your most important responsibilities

8. Targeted Resume • Any of the 3 styles –Chronological, Functional, Combination • Resume is tailored for a specific agency/company or position

9. Automatic Format USAJobs Resume builder • Name • Address • Cell Phone, Home Phone, Email • Country of Citizenship • Veterans’ Preference • Contact Current Employer • Availability • Job Type • Work Schedule • Desired Locations • Work Status • Work Experience • Education • Job Related Training • Languages • Affiliations • References • Additional Information

10. Resume Format • Job Information • Announcement number, title and grade(s) of job • Personal Information • Name, mailing address, and telephone number • Social Security Number (XXX-XX-1234) • Reinstatement eligibility (Attach SF-50 to show proof of your career or career conditional status) • Education • College or university include name, city, state, major, and year of degree(s) • Report attendance or degrees from accredited institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education • Other Qualifications • Job related training courses (list with title and year) • Job related skills (languages, computer software/hardware) • Job related certificates and licenses (list current relevant information) • Job related honors, awards, and special accomplishments

11. Resume Format • List Dates But Do Not Send Documents for: • Performance Awards, Publications, or Memberships in Professional Associations • Work Experience – include paid and non-paid work experience related to the position during the past 10 years • Job Title (include job series and grade/level for Federal positions) • Employer’s name and address • Supervisor’s name and phone number • Salary • Capture how your experience/background matches the competencies and/or knowledge, skills, and abilities required for the job. • Identify your accomplishments/outcome

12. How to Write a Resume • Customize your resume to each job • Focus on areas where your experience or education overlap with the experience or education described in the Job Opportunity Announcement • Provide sufficient detail, but use concise language • Avoid information that does not add substance • Clearly focus on a specific job title and address the employer’s stated requirements for the position • Use headings to guide the reader • Must have information to write a good resume • Information about jobs held in the past • Information to select the most relevant accomplishments, skills and experience for this position • Note: The more you know about the position, the more you can tailor your resume to fit the job • Resume has to sell you in short order

13. How to Write a Resume (Continued) • Read the vacancy announcement and note the required qualifications and the occupational questionnaire • Remember the resume is evaluated on what is written so describe your duties and accomplishments thoroughly • Use clear, concise statements written in first person that highlight the qualifications you possess relating to the position • Positions held in the past should be described in the past tense • Include special assignments (e.g., details, tasks forces, and committees) • If relevant, include voluntary assignments • If possible, quantify your accomplishments (e.g., decreased overtime usage by 20%, manage budget of $20M)

14. How to Write a Resume (Continued) • Don’t use words from your position description when writing resume and supporting statements • Don’t describe work of others or that of the organization • Don’t exaggerate • Don’t be humble • Don’t cross-reference items in your resume or application • Don’t just state the kind of award and when it was received, provide a brief description • Don’t make it challenging for the reviewer – you will not get full credit if it cannot be read • Don’t attach unsolicited material such as letters of recommendation, training certificates, copies of awards, or examples of work (unless requested)

15. How to Write a Resume (Continued) • Include recent education and training that enhance your qualifications • Absolutely no typos or grammatical errors • Use “strong action verbs” sometime referred to as “buzz words” to effectively describe your experience in plain language • Avoid the use of agency or industry specific acronyms (when used make sure you explain at least once) • Think in terms of transferable skills, examples include • Research and Investigation • Oral and Written • Communication • Human Relations and Interpersonal Skills • Management and Administrative Skills

16. Identify Transferable Skills

17. Transferable Skills Examples (Cont’d) • Occupation: Web designer • With exceptional organizational skills. These skills would be important for organizing and retrieving web files. You can use these skills not only in web design jobs but other jobs as well. • Occupation: Project Manager • Want to become a project manager. In that case, your great organizational skills would be a major selling point.

18. Benefits of a Federal Resume • Target the announcement with your relevant experience, education, and skills • Provides a flexible format (word processing program) to create a resume instead of a form • Looks attractive and is easy to read • Highlights your background • Emphasizes accomplishments and results of your actions • Highlights critical job-related information

19. Top Resume Strategies • Sell Yourself and Your Brand • Identify Transferable Skills • Highlight Your Accomplishments • Use Keywords Effectively

20. High Impact Words

21. Sentence Impact Words Action Verbs Pivotal Words • Pivotal words expand ideas by including the: • Method • Result • Scope • Association • Clarification or purpose/intent

22. Pivotal Words Example • establishing key contacts throughout the Washington market • improved the store’s ranking from #56 to #3 in the nation. • three consecutive years. • the #1 marketing manager among 75 others company-wide by which for as Increased sales 45%

23. Problem-Action-Results PAR MODEL

24. Using the PAR Approach • Accomplishments and outcome statements should be written using the PAR Approach • Problem-Action-Result • Problem—State the problem that existed in your workplace • Action—Describe what you did about it, and finally • Result—Point out the beneficial results.

25. Par Model Example 1 Dissect the sentence • Transformed a disorganized, inefficient warehouse into a smooth-running operation by totally redesigning the layout. This saved the company thousands of dollars in recovered stock. • Problem -- Transformed a disorganized, inefficient warehouse into a smooth-running operation • Action -- by totally redesigning the layout. • Result -- This saved the company thousands of dollars in recovered stock.

26. Par Model Example 2 Dissect the sentence • Improved an engineering company’s obsolete filing system by developing a simple but sophisticated functional-coding system. This saved time and money by recovering valuable, previously lost, project records. • Problem -- Improved an engineering company’s obsolete filing system • Action-- by developing a simple but sophisticated functional-coding system. • Result -- This saved time and money by recovering valuable, previously lost, project records.

27. Par Model Example 3 Dissect the sentence • Identified significant time lags in the issuance of employee evaluations which led to employee dissatisfaction and managerial frustration. Under my direction, the staff developed an automated electronic system to remind managers of deadlines. As a result of initiating this tracking system, 100% management compliance was achieved in providing timely performance feedback to employees. • Problem -- Identified significant time lags in the issuance of employee evaluations which led to employee dissatisfaction and managerial frustration. • Action-- Under my direction, the staff developed an automated electronic system to remind managers of deadlines. • Result -- As a result of initiating this tracking system, 100% management compliance was achieved in providing timely performance feedback to employees.

28. Exercise –PAR Model & Impact Words • Prepare a statement to support your level of proficiency for this competency

29. Accomplishments

30. What are Accomplishments? • Your accomplishments • Are what set you apart from all other candidates • Show the hiring authorities that you are the most qualified applicant for the job • Form the foundation of your “skill sets”

31. What are Accomplishments? (Continued) • “Headlines” of your career experience and the measure of how well your current skills and abilities fit the requirements • They are anything you have done or are doing: • work, projects you have completed, • classes you have finished, or • volunteer programs you are involved • Note: In short, accomplishments are descriptions of anything you have done and the results of those actions.

32. What are Accomplishments? (Continued) • An activity is an accomplishment if you • Improved operations by making things easier or better. • Resolved a problem/situation with little or no increase in time, energy, dollars, people, etc. • Effectively acted as a liaison between departments which helped to make things run more efficiently. • Produced reports/data that enabled management to make more informed decisions. • Note: First identify the results of your work efforts in terms of contributions, impact and skills, rather than position, titles or job descriptions.

33. Highlighting AccomplishmentsExample

34. Highlighting Accomplishments • “Led a project to streamline and reorganize the company’s SharePoint project file system, making it easier and faster for consultants to find information and serve customers.”

35. Guidelines for Writing Accomplishments 1. Be Specific. • My proactive and inclusive leadership in this position resulted in an engaged, peak-performing team that worked together to achieve multiple organizational successes. Under my leadership, the teams completed audits within 150 days (115 days less than and far exceeding the department-wide average of 265 days). We also reduced the time required to complete investigations by 50%, and issued high-quality investigation reports within 90 days. These improvements in efficiency and productivity led to a monetary savings of approximately $5.5M, in man-hour dollars, across the future years Agency budget.

36. Guidelines for Writing Accomplishments 2. Describe your accomplishments in measurable and quantifiable terms whenever possible. • SMS UPGRADE: Led the project team tasked to upgrade from SMS 2.0 to SMS 2003 with minimal interruption to the production environment. Developed and executed a detailed project plan and led a 15-person technical team through the configuration, integration, pilot, and rapid deployment stages to upgrade 80 SMS servers providing enterprise management for over 250 servers and 5,000 client workstations (2005). 3. Target the vacancy you are applying.

37. Accomplishment Statements Using PAR Model • Problem • Action • Result • Orchestrated a change to a longstanding operational practice that changed the facilities multiple runway operation to a single runway configuration. • Prioritized and encouraged two research groups to explore different options of moving the tower forward. Held weekly information sessions to monitor progress and maintain currency with each group’s ideas. • Ideas were accepted and approved by all officials including receiving headquarterapproval to implement ideas. Controller workforce was more respective of the change they help to create and all safety concerns were sufficiently addressed.

38. Accomplishment statements using par model • Problem • Action • Result • At the Tower, overtime and unscheduled leave usage were high with $0 for overtime budget. • As the Front Line Manager, I developed a schedule with a combination of 10 hour and 8 hour days rotating days off. After successfully negotiating with the union, they agreed to the schedule. As the Acting Air Traffic Manager, I managed the schedule implementation. • Controller unscheduled leave reduced by 40 percent and the schedule saved the Agency $7,550 in overtime from FY09—FY10 and $1,922 in first quarter of FY11.

39. Accomplishment Statements Original Accomplishments Improved Accomplishment • Was outstanding manager. • Coordinated with all department to ensure customer satisfaction. • Received three promotions and ten pay raises in ten years. As supervisor, rate in top 25% for last three years. • Coordinated with all departments nationwide to ensure customer satisfaction. Result was an average of six customer commendations per month.

40. Accomplishment Statements Original Accomplishments Improved Accomplishment • As part of team, successfully completed project ahead of schedule and under budget. • Administered labor contract effectively with minimum grievances • As part of management development team, successfully completed performance appraisal ahead of schedule and $10M under budget. • Administered complex union contracts involving travel, transfer, seniority, wages and benefits. Negotiated settlement of 70% of labor grievances at my level.

41. Accomplishment Statements Original Accomplishments Improved Accomplishment • Successfully implemented recognition and tracking procedures for 50 employees. • Proven track record for system sales bringing in high revenue. • Successfully computerized recognition and tracking system for 50 employees. Project involved extensive data changes and resulted in saving $15,000 a year in clerical time. • Sold telephone systems and brought in $50,000 revenue each month.

42. Exercise • Work individually to write a narrative about a task you performed on the job using the P-A-R behavioral model • You will have 10 minutes to do this!

43. Occupational Questionnaire

44. Occupational Questionnaire • Automated on-line assessment of determining the best qualified applicants for the position • Occupational questionnaires contain statements related to the specific competencies that are required for the position • Competency is a measureable pattern of knowledge, skills, abilities, and/or other characteristics needed to perform the work in the occupational functions successfully.

45. Occupational Questionnaire • Usually applicants are requested to rate themselves on a proficiency scale of 1-5 for each individual question. • Example: • I have no education, training, or experience in performing this task. • I have some experience performing this task, either in training or on the job under close supervision. • I have performed this task as a regular part of a job, independently and usually without review by a supervisor, manager, or senior employee. • I have extensive experience and demonstrated expertise in performing this task, or I have trained or provided technical guidance to others in performing this task. • I have extensive experience regularly performing this task as part of my job and I am considered as an expert by others in performing this task.

46. Occupational Questionnaire • You may be requested to provide a “supporting statement” to demonstrate the level of proficiency you have claimed to help the agency determine your qualifications for the position. • Do not state “see resume”. • Do not provide a resume or job description like response or state “please refer to above” from previous statements which does not provide adequate support or address the self-rated question. • Each statement response should be tailored to the specific task statement. • Responses should include sufficient detail to clearly describe all relevant aspects of education and/or work experience that support the self rating.

47. Occupational Questionnaire • FAA Form 3330-42 – Request for Transfer Consideration and Acknowledgement • FAA Form 3330-43-1 - Rating of Air Traffic Experience for AT Movement • Note: These forms are used for applications for Certified Professional Controllers (CPC) positions only • Must be submitted to your rating official on or before the vacancy closing date (if applicable) • Must be submitted in a stamped envelope, addressed appropriately per the vacancy announcement

48. Conducting a Job Search • FAA WEBSITE: http://jobs.faa.gov/Allfaajobs.htm • USAJOBS WEBSITE: http://www.usajobs.opm.gov • Use USAJOBS site to search by series, location, and agency. Create and store your resume at the site to streamline your application process. • If you’re a first timer visiting USAJOBS, then visit this site that has tutorials and step by step instructions for using USAJOBS. • https://my.usajobs.gov/SpotlightsAll/SpotlightDetails?contentID=66