Writing R

1
Writing Résumésand Cover Letters

• Part I Writing Résumé Content
• Adapted from The Resume Handbook, 3rd ed.
• by Rosenberg and Hizer

2
3 Common Résumé Formats

• Chronological
• Focus is on employment history in first main
  section
• Safe for people with unbroken records of
  employment
• Functional
• Advisable for those with employment gaps or other
  activities they might prefer not to reveal
• Emphasis on certain aspects of your career or on
  your skills (rather than work experience)
• Combined

3
Basic Principles of Résumé Writing

• Brief is better
• Single page if possible, not more than two
• If 2 pages, put most important info on first
• Format
• Use conventional patterns/sections, but dont get
  locked into them
• Model your résumé after others that closely meet
  your needs

4
Basic Principles of Résumé Writing

• Optional categories
• Career objectives
• A long-range plan that may or may not relate
  directly to the job at hand
• General or vague objectives are best omitted
• Summary of Qualifications
• Use with an extremely diversified background or
  if your résumé extends beyond a single page
• Personal data (including age, marital status,
  health)
• More likely to hurt than help you you cannot
  anticipate peoples prejudices

5
Basic Principles of Résumé Writing

• Also leave out
• Reasons for having left a job
• Former (or desired) salary
• Hobbies and memberships in social, fraternal, or
  religious organizations
• Reasons for not having served in the military
• Any potentially negative information about you
  (prison terms, lost lawsuits, handicaps that
  affect your job performance)
• The label Résumé or Vitae (if they cant tell
  what it is at a glance, the label wont help)
• The phrase References available on request

6
Basic Principles of Résumé Writing

• Visual Impact
• Use principles of good page design
• Always print your résumé on quality paper of
  neutral tones
• Make sure you résumé is letter perfect
• No errors, typos, stains
• No abbreviations, technical jargon, buzz words
• Have someone reliable proofread and critique your
  final draft

7
Basic Principles of Résumé Writing

• Ensure internal integrity
• Be consistent with content throughout
• Your résumé should provide separate, but
  interrelated, facts
• Employment history
• Balance between job content and accomplishments
  emphasize the latter
• List current position first, working back
  chronologically
• De-emphasize jobs you held further back in time
• Use action verbs and phrases to your advantage

8
Basic Principles of Résumé Writing

• Organizations of which you are a member
• List the ones that show achievement or
  professional standing
• Indicate leadership abilities as an officer or
  official in a strictly non-controversial
  association
• Avoid listing political, religious, and
  potentially controversial groups
• Awards
• List those that relate to the job youre seeking
• Avoid those that dont

9
Stating Your Accomplishments

• Use active, energetic phrases to attract your
  readers attention
• Balance job content and accomplishments

10
Stating Your Accomplishments

• Dull
• Raised level of sales above previous year.
• Put on training sessions for supervisors in
  corporation.
• Contributed to making group much more efficient.
• Handled bookings for elderly pop group.
• Hired and trained six new lion tamers. Only one
  serious casualty.

• With Impact
• Reversed negative sales trend sales up 41 over
  prior year.
• Conducted leadership training for forty-eight
  supervisory and management level staff.
• Increased group efficiency as measured by time
  and quantity parameters by 35.
• Managed bookings, travel, and accommodations for
  sexagenarian sextet.
• Recruited, trained, and motivated six new lion
  tamers five continue to excel.

11
Stating Your Accomplishments

• Consider writing about your membership and
  leadership involvement in campus clubs and
  organizations. Avoid mentioning controversial or
  unsanctioned groups.
• Captained intermural coed softball team that won
  campus championship, 2003. Recruited, coached,
  and motivated fourteen players.

12
Stating Your Accomplishments

• Look for an accomplishment statement in a term
  project or paper that you wrote, especially if it
  relates to your job objective or career interest
• Researched and wrote twenty-one-page term paper,
  entitled Which Niche Now, that listed the latest
  approaches in identifying and appealing to your
  products market. (Received an A.)

13
Stating Your Accomplishments

• Form an accomplishment statement around a
  noteworthy comment made by a professor,
  instructor, or teacher that shows you creativity,
  insight, or hard work
• Recognized verbally by organic chemistry
  professor who stated that I had natural research
  instincts and I was bound for greater heights.

14
Stating Your Accomplishments

• Include accomplishment statements that show
  initiative and responsibility
• Initiated, organized, and led almost entire
  dormitory population in preparing for Parents
  Day--June 2002. Parents were overwhelmingly
  united in their praise of the days events.

15
Stating Your Accomplishments

• Think in terms of specialized training and
  learning experiences that exhibit uniqueness or
  an interest in learning new things
• Volunteered to stay after hours and without pay
  to learn and work with employers bookkeeper in
  closing out the financial books subsequently
  closed out next months books on own?without pay.

16
Stating Your Accomplishments

• Include volunteer workschool, civil, or
  community
• Selected by Lincoln Parish School Board as
  Volunteer of the Year, 2002.
• Explore how managing family issues can serve as
  work-relevant accomplishments
• Conducted exhaustive research that led to
  identifying a rare learning disorder that doctors
  and clinicians had been unable to diagnose.
  Identification led to successful treatment and
  article in Parents magazine entitled How Parents
  Can Make a Difference.

17
Describing Your Education

• If you have extensive work experience, list bare
  details
• 2002 B.S., Biology, Howard University,
  Washington, D.C.
• Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. M.B.A.,
  Business Administration
• 2002 San Diego State University, San Diego,
  California B.A., History (summa cum laude).
• If your work experience is limited, elaborate on
  educational achievements
• 2001?Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration,
  University of Florida. Achieved 3.6 grade average
  (4.0 scale) specialized in management
  information systems. Senior project consisted of
  223-page report on the compatibility of selected
  information retrieval systems.
• Boston University, College of Communication,
  2001. Maintained 3.5/4.0 GPA emphasized
  newspaper journalism sequence. While in school,
  served as editor of The Daily Free Press
  (1998-2000) awarded John Scali Achievement Prize
  for best student investigative news story.

18
Describing Your Work Experience

• Include name and location of organization
  (city/state only), specific job title, job
  description, skills applied, skills acquired,
  significant accomplishments, dates of employment
  (unless using functional format)
• Dont go back more than ten or twelve years,
  unless youve spent all that time with the same
  company (then briefly list an earlier job or two)
• Gaps in employment dates of more than a month or
  two should be hidden (or briefly explained) by
  employing a functional format