COMPOSING RÉSUMÉS WITH YOUR STUDENTS

Transcription

1 COMPOSING RÉSUMÉS WITH YOUR STUDENTS DESCRIPTION While building a good résumé is difficult for even the most experienced workers, students have unique challenges because they generally do not have the experience and training valuable to employers. While you can t help students publicize backgrounds and skills they don t have, you can assist them putting together a résumé that will capture the eye of an employer and possibly even land them their first real job. Many people believe that the purpose of a résumé is to get that job, but this is simply not true. Landing the job actually happens during the interview process the résumé is a tool for getting the interview. A good cover letter and a strong résumé open the door to the opportunity to interview for the job. Rarely are hiring decisions made based on a résumé alone. On the other hand, however, a poor résumé can absolutely close the door and prevent an interview with an otherwise highly qualified candidate from happening. On average, a hiring authority will spend fewer than 15 seconds on its first review of a résumé and, if important information does not jump off the page, the résumé will be relegated to a stack of "maybes" to be reviewed later only if necessary.

2 Start at the Top It is important that students put their contact information at the very top of the résumé. Employers need to be able to reach them and your students should list their current address, telephone number, and address prominently at the top of the page. For college students who may live on campus or in housing near campus during the school year but stay with relatives or friends during school breaks, make sure they list both addresses since potential employers may need a second contact in case your student is unavailable at the other address. Following the basic contact information comes the most important part of the résumé and the place where students tend to make the biggest mistakes the Objective. Objectives are often considered optional on résumé and, while this may be true for experienced workers, for students with little work experience, this is the most important section. The objective tells the potential employer why your student has sent them a résumé. While it is true that they can explain their interest in the position with a cover letter, there is never a guarantee that the cover letter and résumé will stay together. The résumé should be able to stand on its own merits and the objective will keep it moving to the right decision makers. The fact that your students probably have limited work experience makes the objective extremely important. Your students should not, however, try to explain their lifelong career goals in the objective. They need to be brief and to the point. If

3 they are looking for a summer job that will provide valuable work experience related to their field of study in college, then they need to say so. If they are high school students hoping to launch a career in a particular field, your students need to tell hiring managers why those fields are important to them and what they hope to get out of the work experience. Brief, concise, and to the point information will have a greater impact than a lengthy treatise about a long-term future with the company. Experience and Education Now comes the fun part figuring how to spin limited experience and education into a package that will attract the attention of a hiring manager. Fortunately, your students are not going to be applying for jobs that demand advanced degrees or long records of prior experience. Entry-level or parttime jobs generally have lower requirements and applicants are expected to have relatively low experience and education levels. Which comes first between experience and education depends on where the students are in their education and careers. It is always safe to list education first, especially if your students have completed high school, college, or technical or specialized training programs. If education is not important in the jobs they are applying for, however, it might be better to simply list prior work experience.

4 What hiring authorities look for when reviewing résumés for entry-level positions will differ but one thing they demand from potential candidates is reliability and responsibility. Prior work experience, no matter how limited, illustrates responsibility and seriousness. In addition, if they have been working while attending school, this is an indication that your students are hardworking and reliable that they will get the job done. So what should your students do when they have no prior work experience? This is a little tougher because it means they need to be more creative and think out of the box. If they are trying to show they are responsible and hardworking, help them think about activities where they have been in positions of leadership. Did a student head up the homecoming dance committee and organize workers to create a successful event? Was she part of the school's student council or did he have a leadership position in a club where he was responsible for projects and activities? Stress with them that these things can show potential employers that they are willing to take on tough tasks and work hard to accomplish goals. References and Other Filler Having an interest in horses will probably not land your student a job with a major corporation. Unless the job requires it, listing they are a certified SCUBA diver or an avid stamp collector on their résumés will not help your students and is wasted space. However, using this information as filler is better than submitting a résumé with three inches of white space at the bottom. Encourage your students to pick only their most relevant or important activities or interests.

5 If they need to include personal interests, get them to focus on things that may be relevant to the job and can set them apart from other applicants. If the job requirements ask for computer skills and they are adept at several applications used in office jobs, make sure they list that information. On the other hand, discourage listing things like experience playing computer games unless they program their own games and the position is for a computer programmer. Including memberships in various organizations can sometimes help as well, particularly if your students hold leadership roles in those organizations. Odds are, the job will not demand membership in a college fraternity but if the hiring authority is also a member it might get your students résumés second looks. Encourage your students to participate in student chapters of professional organizations as this can definitely help with hiring. Discourage listing political, religious, or ethnic organizations unless your students have held significant leadership positions. Volunteer activities are good indicators of a strong work ethic as well and may attract the attention of a potential employer. Volunteering requires sacrifices of time to help others and can tell a hiring authority they are willing to go the extra mile when necessary. Organizing volunteer activities looks very good as well. While listing references on a résumé is acceptable, it is not generally recommended. Also, if they are pressed for space,

6 your students can leave off the phrase "References available upon request." Obviously, they will provide a reference if potential employers ask for them. Ultimately, you want your students to have relevant information in the résumé, so telling an employer that they are willing to provide them with references is unnecessary. Final Touches Your students first résumés should be one-page long. It is unlikely that have enough work or educational history to merit extended length so going beyond one page should be an indication that they have too much irrelevant information. If they finish their résumé and find that they have gone beyond a single page, review the information with them to see if there is something you can safely remove. Do not, under any circumstances, allow them to reduce the type size to make the résumé fit the page. Taking the type size below ten-point will make it difficult to read and, if it is hard to read, it is highly unlikely that your students' résumés will survive the first screening. Have them print their résumés and review for errors with you, parents, or friends. Then suggest that they set it aside for a few days and then review it again themselves. After working on it for a several hours, it is possible that your student will miss glaring errors. Third parties, however, will be seeing if for the first time and can pick up something they might have missed. Encourage them also to use spell check.

7 Once they are satisfied that they are error-free, have them print the résumés on good quality paper. Despite the fact it will attract the attention of a hiring authority, do not allow your students to print the résumé on strange colored or unusual paper. Remind them that the résumé is a professional document and it should look professional. The type of paper used will not have any significant impact on whether your student gets the job they want but it can have a factor in deciding if they get that interview.