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Resume- Writing
BSE Science
University of Caloocan City
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Lesson 2 Planning, Writing and Completing Your Resume
Introduction
Although you will create many messages during your career search, your resume will be the most important document in this process. You will be able to use it directly in many instances, adapt it to a variety of uses such as an e-portfolio, and reuse pieces of it in social networking profiles and online application forms.
Writing a resume is one of those projects that really benefits from multiple planning, writing and completing sessions spread out over several days or weeks. You are trying to summarize a complex subject (yourself!) and present a compelling story to complete strangers in a brief document.
Learning Purposes
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
- Explain the process of resume planning, including how to choose the best resume organization;
- Describe the problem of resume fraud;
- Describe the tasks involved in writing resume, and list the major sections of a traditional resume;
- Characterize the completing step for resumes, including the six most common formats to produce a resume.
Content Purposes
PLANNING YOUR RESUME
Analyzing Your Purpose and Audience
A resume is a structured summary of a person’s education, employment background and job qualifications. Before you begin writing a resume, make sure you understand its true function – as a brief, persuasive business message intended to stimulate an employer’s interest in meeting you and learning more about you. In other words, the purpose of a resume is not to get you a job but rather to get you an interview.
As you conduct your research on various professions, industries, companies and individual managers, you will have better perspective on your target readers and their information needs. Learn as much as you can about the individuals who may be reading your resume. Many professionals and managers are bloggers, Twitter users, and LinkedIn members,
for example, so you can learn more about them online even if you have never met them. Any bit of information can help you craft a more effective message.
By the way, if employers ask to see your “CV,” they are referring to your curriculum vitae, the term used instead of resume in academic professions. Resumes and CVs are essentially the same, although CVs can be much more detailed.
1 PLAN → 2 WRITE → 3 COMPLETE
Analyze the Situation Recognize that the purpose of your resume is to get an interview, not to get a job.
Gather Information Research target industries and companies so you know what they are looking for in new hires; learn about various jobs and what to expect; learn about the hiring manager if possible.
Select the Right Medium Start with a traditional paper resume and develop scannable, electronic plain- text, PDF and online versions, as needed. Consider using PowerPoint and video for your e- portfolio.
Organize the Information Choose an organizational model that highlights your strengths and downplays your shortcomings; use the chronological approach unless you have a strong reason not to.
Adapt to Your Audience Plan your wording carefully so that you can catch a recruiter’s eye within seconds; translate your education and experience into attributes that target employers find valuable.
Compose the Message Write clearly and succinctly, using active, powerful language that is appropriate to the industries and companies you are targeting; use a professional tone in all communications.
Revise the Message Evaluate content and review readability and then edit and rewrite for conciseness and clarity.
Produce the Message Use effective design elements and suitable layout for a clean, professional appearance; seamlessly combine text and graphical elements. When printing, use quality paper and a good printer.
Proofread the Message Review for errors in layout, spelling, and mechanics; mistake can cost you interview opportunities.
Distribute the Message Deliver your resume, carefully following the specific instructions of each employer or job board website.
carefully before using a service. Organizing Your Resume Around Your Strengths
Although there are a number of ways to organize a resume, most are some variation of chronological, functional, or a combination of the two. The right choice depends on your background and your goals, as the following resume formats explain.
- The Chronological Resume In a chronological resume, the work experience section dominates and is placed immediately after your contact information and introductory statement. The chronological approach is the most common way to organize a resume, and many employers prefer this format because it presents your professional history in a clear, easy-to-follow arrangement.
If you are just graduating from college and have limited professional experience, you can vary this chronological approach by putting your educational qualifications before your experience.
Develop your work experience section by listing your jobs in reverse chronological order, beginning with the most recent one and giving more space to the most recent positions. For each job, start by listing the employer’s name and location, your official job title, and the dates you held the position (write “to present” if you are still in your most recent job). Next, in a short block of text, highlight your accomplishments in a way that is relevant to your readers. Doing so may require “translating” the terminology you used in a particular industry or profession into terms that are most meaningful to your target readers. If the general responsibilities of the position are not obvious from the job title, provide a little background to help readers understand what you did.
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Source: creer/chronological-resume-samples/
- The Functional Resume A functional resume, sometimes called a “skills resume,” emphasize your skills and capabilities, identifying employers and academic experience in subordinate sections. This arrangement stresses individual areas of competence rather than job history. The functional approach also has three advantages: Without having to read through job descriptions, employers can see what you can do for them; You can emphasize earlier job experience; and You can deemphasize any lengthy unemployment or lack of career progress. However, you should be aware that because the functional resume can obscure your work history, many employment professionals are suspicious of it. If you do not believe the chronological format will work for you, consider the combination resume instead.
Frequent job changes. If you have a number of short-term jobs of a similar type, such as independent contracting and temporary assignments, try to group them under a single heading. Also, if past job positions were eliminated as a result of layoffs or mergers, find a subtle way to convey that information (if not in your resume, then in your cover letter). Reasonable employers understand that many professionals have been forced to job hop by circumstances beyond their control. Gaps in your work history. Mention relevant experience and education you gained during employment gaps, such as volunteer or community work. Inexperience. Mention related volunteer work and membership in professional groups. List relevant course work and internships. Overqualification. Tone down your resume, focusing exclusively on the experience and skills that relate to the position. Long-term employment with one company. Itemize each position held at the firm to show both professional growth and career growth within the organization and increasing responsibilities along the way. Job termination for cause. Be honest with interviewers and address their concerns with proof, such as recommendations and examples of completed projects. Criminal record. You do not necessarily need to disclose a criminal record or time spent incarcerated on your resume, but you may be asked about it on job application forms. Laws regarding what employers may ask (and whether you can conduct a criminal background check) vary by country and profession, but if you are asked and the question applies to you, you are legally bound to answer truthfully. Use the interview process to explain any mitigating circumstances and to emphasize your rehabilitation and commitment to being a law-abiding, trustworthy employee.
WRITING YOUR RESUME
As you follow the three-step process to develop your resume, keep four points in mind. First, treat your resume with the respect it deserves. A single mistake or oversight can cost you interview opportunities. Second, give yourself plenty of time. Do not put off preparing your resume until the last second and then try to write it in one sitting. Third, learn from good models. You can find sample resumes online at college websites and on job boards. Fourth, do not get frustrated by the conflicting advice you will read about resumes. Resumes are as much art as science, and there is more than one way to be successful with them. Consider the alternatives and choose the approach that makes the most sense to you, given everything you know about successful business communication.
If you feel uncomfortable writing about yourself, you are not alone. Many people, even accomplished writers, find it difficult to write their own resumes. If you get stuck, find a classmate or friend who is also writing a resume and swap projects for a while. By working on each other’s resumes, you may be able to speed up the process for the both of you.
Keeping Your Resume Honest
Estimates vary, but one comprehensive study uncovered lies about work history in more than 40 percent of the resumes tested. And dishonest applicants are getting bolder all the time – going so far to buy fake diplomas online, pay computer hackers to insert their names into prestigious universities’ graduation records, and sign up for services that offer phony employment verification.
Applicants with integrity know they do not need to stoop to lying. If you are tempted to stretch the truth, bear in mind that professional recruiters have seen every trick in the book, and frustrated employers are working aggressively to uncover the truth. Nearly all employers do some form of background checking, from contacting references and verifying employment to checking criminal records and sending resumes through verification services. Employers are also beginning to craft certain interview questions specifically to uncover dishonest resume entries.
More than 90 percent of companies that find lies on resumes refuse to hire the offending applicants, even if that means withdrawing formal job offers. And if you do sneak past these filters and get hired, you will probably be exposed on the job when you cannot live up to your own resume. Given that networked nature of today’s job market, lying on a resume could haunt you for years – and could force you to keep lying throughout your career to hide the original misinterpretations on your resume.
Adapting Your Resume to Your Audience
The importance of adapting your resume to your target readers’ needs and interests cannot be overstated. In a competitive job market, the more you look like a good fit, the better your chances of securing interviews. Address your readers’ business concerns by showing how your capabilities meet the demands and expectations of the position and of the organization as a whole. For example, if you are applying for work in public relations (PR), you would need to know that an internal corporate PR department and an independent PR agency perform many of the same tasks, but the outside agency must also sell its services to multiple clients. Consequently, it needs employees who are skilled at attracting and keeping paying customers, in addition to being skilled at PR.
Adapting to your readers can mean customizing your resume, sometimes for each job opening. However, the effort can pay off in more interviewing opportunities.
all ordering problems resolved all product order discrepancies I won a trip to Europe for opening the most new customer accounts in my department
Generated the highest number of new customer accounts in my department Member of special campus task force to resolve student problems with existing cafeteria assignments
Assisted in implementing new campus dining program that balances student wishes with cafeteria capacity
Include relevant keywords in your introductory statement, work history and education sections. You can find these keywords from job postings. You should also avoid clichés that are used on so many resumes and social media profiles that they have probably lost most of their impact. Some examples of these overused buzzwords are:
Extensive experience Innovative Motivated Results-oriented Dynamic Proven track record Team player Fast-paced Problem solver Entrepreneurial
Sections of Your Resume
- Name and Contact Information Your name and contact information constitute the heading of your resume; including the following: Name Physical address (both permanent and temporary, if you are likely to move during the job search process; however, if you are posting a resume in an unsecured location online, leave off your physical address for security purposes) Phone number(s) Email address The URL of your personal webpage, e-portfolio, or social media resume (if you have one) Be sure that everything in your resume heading is well-organized and clearly laid out on the page. If the only email address you have is through your current employer, get a free personal email address from one of the many services that offer them. It is not fair to your current employer to use company resources for a job search, and it sends a bad signal to potential employers. Also, if your personal email address is anything like BhosxMaphagmahal@something or LhatikerangPotchi_Batista@something,
get a new professional-sounding email address for your business correspondence (such as firstname@something).
Introductory Statement Of all parts of a resume, the brief introductory statement that follows your name and contact information probably generates the most disagreement. You can put one of three things here: Career objective. A career objective identifies either a specific job you want to land or a general career track you would like to pursue. Some experts advise against including a career objective because it can categorize you so narrowly that you miss out on interesting opportunities, and it is essentially about fulfilling your desires, not about meeting the employer’s needs. In the past, most resumes included a career objective, but in recent years more jobseekers are using qualification summary or a career summary. However, if you have little or no work experience in your target profession, a career objective might be your best option. If you do opt for an objective, word it in a way that relates your qualifications to employer needs. Avoid such self-absorbed statements as a “A fulfilling position that provides ample opportunity for career growth and personal satisfaction.” Qualifications summary. A qualification summary offers a brief view of your key qualifications. The goal is to let a reader know within a few seconds what you can deliver. You can title this section generically as “Qualifications Summary” or “Summary of Qualifications,” or if you have one dominant qualification, you can use that as a title. Consider using a qualifications summary if you have one or more important qualifications but don’t yet have a long career history. Also, if you haven’t been working long but your college education has given you a dominant professional “theme,” such as multimedia design or statistical analysis, you can craft a qualifications summary that highlights your educational preparedness. Career summary. A career summary offers a brief recap of your career, with the goal of presenting increasing levels of responsibility and performance. A career summary can be particularly useful for executives who have demonstrated the ability to manage increasingly larger and more complicated business operations – a key consideration when companies look to hire upper-level managers.
Education If you are still in college or have recently graduated, education is probably your strongest selling point. Present your educational background in depth, choosing facts that support
skills and accomplishments are the most important information you can give a prospective employer, so quantify them whenever possible. One helpful exercise is to write a 30-second “commercial” for each major skill you want to highlight. The commercial should offer proof that you really do possess the skill. For your resume, distill the commercials down to brief phrases; you can use the more detailed proof statements in cover letters and as answers to interview questions. If you have had a number of part-time, temporary or entry-level jobs that don’t relate to your career objective, you have to use your best judgment when it comes to including or excluding them. Too many minor and irrelevant work details can clutter your resume, particularly if you’ve been in the professional workforce for a few years. However, if you don’t have a long employment history, including these jobs shows your ability and willingness to keep working.
Activities and Achievements Include activities and achievements outside of a work context only if they make you a more attractive job candidate. For example, traveling, studying, or working abroad and fluency in multiple languages could weigh heavily in your favor with employers who do business internationally. Because many employers are involved in their local communities, they tend to look positively on applicants who are active and concerned members of their communities as well. Consider including community service activities that suggest leadership, teamwork, communications skills, technical aptitude, or other valuable attributes. You should generally avoid indicating membership or significant activity in religious or political organizations (unless, of course, you’re applying to such an organization) because doing so might raise concern for people with differing beliefs or affiliations. However, if you want to highlight skills you developed while involved with such a group, you can refer to it generically as a “non-profit organization.” Finally, if you have little or no job experience and not much to discuss outside of your education, indicating involvement in athletics or other organized student activities lets employers know that you don’t spend all your free time hanging around your apartment playing video games. Also consider mentioning publications, projects, and other accomplishments that required relevant business skills.
Personal Data and References In nearly all instances, your resume should not include any personal data beyond the information described in the previous sections. When applying, never include any of the following: physical characteristic, age, gender, marital status, sexual orientation, religious
or political affiliations, race, national origin, salary history, reasons for leaving jobs, names of previous supervisors, names of references, Social Security number, or student ID number. Note that standards can vary in other countries. For example, you might be expected to include your citizenship, nationality, or marital status. However, verify such requirements before including any personal data. The availability of references is usually assumed, so you don’t need to put “References available upon request” at the end of your resume. However, be sure to have a list of several references ready when you begin applying for jobs. Prepare your reference sheet with your name and contact information at the top. For a finished look, use the same design and layout you use for your resume. Then list three or four people who have agreed to serve as references. Include each person’s name, job title, organization, address, telephone number, email address (if the reference prefers to be contacted by email), and the nature of your relationship.
COMPLETING YOUR RESUME
Completing your resume involves revising it for optimum quality, producing it in the various forms and media you’ll need, and proofreading it for any errors before distributing it or publishing it online. Producing and distributing a resume used to be fairly straightforward; you printed it on quality paper and mailed or fax it to employers. However, the advent of Applicant Tracking System (database that let managers sort through incoming applications to find the most promising candidates), social media, and other innovations has dramatically changed the nature of resume production and distribution. Be prepared to produce several versions of your resume, in multiple formats and multiple media.
Even if most or all of your application efforts take place online, starting with a traditional paper resume is still useful, for several reasons. First, a traditional printed resume is a great opportunity to organize your background information and identify your unique strengths. Second, the planning and writing tasks involved in creating a conventional resume will help you generate blocks of text that you can reuse in multiple ways throughout the job search process. Third, you’ll never know when someone might ask for your resume during a networking event or other in-person encounter, and you don’t want to let that interest fade in the time it might take for the person to get to your information online.
Revising Your Resume
render as sharply on screen. Make subheadings easy to find and easy to read, placing them either above each section or in the left margin. Use lists to itemize your most important qualifications. Color is not necessary by any means, but if you add color, make it subtle and sophisticated, such as a thin horizontal line under your name and address.
Depending on the companies you apply to, you might want to produce your resume in as many as six formats:
Printed traditional resume Printed scannable resume Electronic plain-text file Microsoft Word file Online resume, also called a multimedia resume or social media resume PDF file As you produce your resume in various formats, you will encounter the question of whether to include a photograph of yourself on or with your resume. For print or electronic documents that you will be submitting to employers or job websites, the safest advice is to avoid photos. The reason is that seeing visual cues of the age, ethnicity and gender of candidates early in the selection process exposes employers to complaints of discriminatory hiring practices. In fact, some employers won’t even look at resumes that include photos, and some applicant tracking systems automatically discard resumes with any kind of extra files. However, photographs are acceptable for social media resumes and other online formats where you are not actually submitting a resume to an employer.
Proofreading Your Resume
Employers view your resume as a concrete example of your attention to quality and detail. Your resume doesn’t need to be good or pretty good – in needs to be perfect. Although it may not seem fair, just one or two errors in a job application package are enough to doom a candidate’s chances.
Your resume is one of the most important documents you’ll ever write, so don’t rush or cut corners when it comes to proofreading. Check all headings and lists for clarity and parallelism and be sure that your grammar, spelling and punctuation are correct. Double-check all dates, phone numbers, email addresses, and other essential data. Ask at least three other people to read it, too. As the creator of the material, you could stare at a mistake for weeks and not see it.
Distributing Your Resume
How you distribute your resume depends on the number of employers you target and their preferences for receiving resumes. Employers usually list their requirements on the career pages of their websites, so verify this information and follow it carefully. Beyond that, here are some general distribution tips:
Mailing printed resumes. Take some care with the packaging. Spend a few extra cents to mail these documents in a flat 9 x 12 envelope, or better yet, use a Priority Mail flat-rate envelope, which gives you a sturdy cardboard mailer and faster delivery for just a few more pesos. Emailing your resume. Some employers want applicants to include the text of their resumes in the body of an email message; other prefer an attached Microsoft Word file. If you have a reference number or a job ad number, include it in the subject line of your email. Submitting your resume to an employer’s website. Many employers, including most large companies, now prefer to require applicants to submit their resumes online. In some instances, you will be asked to upload a complete file. In others, you will need to copy and paste sections of your resume into individual boxes in an online application form. Posting your resume on job websites. You can post your resume (or create one online, on some sites) on general purpose job websites such as JobStreet. Roughly 100,000 job boards are now online, so you’ll need to spend some time looking for sites that specialize in your target industries, regions or professions. Before you upload your resume to any site, however, learn about its confidentiality protection. Some sites allow you to specify levels of confidentiality, such as letting employers search your qualifications without seeing your personal contact information or preventing your current employer from seeing your resume. Don’t post your resume to any website that doesn’t give you the option of restricting the display of your contact information. Only employers that are registered clients of the service should be able to see your contact information.
Social Learning Purposes
things yourself? Are you better with words or numbers? Better at speaking or writing? Do you like to work under fixed deadlines? How important is job security to you? Do you want your supervisor to state clearly what is expected of you, or do you like having the freedom to make many of your own decisions?
Your task: After answering these questions, gather information about possible jobs that suit your current qualifications by consulting reference materials from your college library or placement center and by searching online. Next, choose a location, a company and a job that interests you. Write a resume that matches your qualifications and the job description; use whatever format your instructor specifies.
The Dream Job in the Future: What Will It Take to Get There?
Chances are you won’t be able to land your dream job right out of college, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start planning right now to make that dream come true.
Your task: Using online job search tools, find a job that sounds just about perfect for you, even if you’re not yet qualified for it. It might even be something that would take 10 or 20 years to reach. Don’t settle for something that’s not quite right; find a job that is so “you” and so exciting that you would jump out of bed every morning, eager to go to work. Start with the job description you found online and then supplement it with additional research so that you get a good picture of what this job and career path are all about. Compile a list of all qualifications you would need to have a reasonable chance of landing such a job. Now compare this list with your current resume. Write a brief email to your instructor that identifies all the areas in which you would need to improve your skills, work experience, education, and other qualifications in order to land your dream job.
Message Strategies: Completing a Resume
Creating presentations and other multimedia supplements can be a great way to expand on the brief overview that a resume provides.
Your task: Starting with any version of a resume that you’ve created for yourself, create a PowerPoint presentation that expands on your resume information to give potential employers a more complete picture of what you can contribute. Include samples of your work, testimonials for current and past employers and colleagues, videos of speeches you’ve made, and anything else that tells the story of the professional you. If you have a specific job or type of job in mind, focus your presentation on that. Otherwise, present a more general picture that shows why you would be a great employee for any company to consider.
Assignment
- What is a resume, and why is it important to adopt a “you” attitude when preparing one?
- Why do most employers prefer chronological resumes over functional resumes?
- What are some of the most common problems with resume?
- Why you should not include a photograph of yourself on your resume?
- How should you present a past job that is unrelated to your current career plans?
- Can you use a qualification summary if you don’t have extensive professional experience in your desired career? Why or why not?
- Some people don’t have a clear career path when they enter the job market. If you’re in this situation, how would your uncertainty affect the way you write your resume?
Purposeful Stride
Each approach to organizing a resume emphasizes different strengths. A chronological resume helps employers easily locate necessary information, highlights your professional growth and career progress, and emphasizes continuity and stability. If you can use the chronological format, you should because it is the approach employers tend to prefer. A functional resume helps employers easily see what you can do for them, allows you to emphasize earlier job experience, and lets you downplay any lengthy periods of unemployment or lack of career progress. However, many employers are suspicious of functional resume for this very reason. The combination approach uses the best features of the other two, but it tends to be longer, and it can be repetitious.
Perhaps half of all resumes now contain inaccurate information, and some desperate job seekers even go so far as inventing college degrees they never earned or job experiences they never had. However, employers are fighting back with increasingly detailed background checks, so the chances of getting caught could be increasing as well.
Your resume must include three sections: (1) your contact information (including name, address, telephone number and email address), (2) your education background (with related skills and achievements), and (3) your work experience (with related skills and accomplishments). Options include listing your career objective, qualifications summary, or career summary and describing activities and achievements that are professionally relevant.
The six common resume formats are traditional printed resume, scannable electronic plain text, Word file, HTML and PDF. A scannable resume requires two significant changes to the traditional printed format: removing all formatting and adding a list of keywords that identify your skills, experience and education.
Resume- Writing
Course: BSE Science
University: University of Caloocan City
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