résumés A résumé is a way to show potential employers both what you have accomplished in previous positions and what you will be able to do in your new position. This handout will help you craft a concise, powerful résumé. Consider Your Audience Before You Write Before you write, think about the context in which résumés are read. More than likely, your résumé will be one among a stack of many and will be read within the space of seconds, not minutes. Think about the questions your potential employers will ask as they glance at your résumé. They will be asking, Is this person qualified? and What can this person do for me? As with any piece of writing, be sure keep your audience in mind. You are writing to potential employers, not yourself. Remembering to view yourself through your audience s eyes is key to producing engaging content. Keep a Master Résumé Remember that a résumé is intended to be a brief, tailored overview of your abilities and accomplishments. It is not a complete listing of every job that you have ever held. Keep a master résumé containing all of your experience, and then draw from this to create a customized résumé for each job application. Identify Transferable Skills You should always emphasize transferable skills. These are skills that you gained in an unrelated field but are important in the field that you are applying to. For example, communicating with suppliers while working in retail may not seem to carry into the field of social work, but in reality, those communication skills can be used to get information and action from government agencies to benefit your clients. Emphasize Achievements, Not Just Responsibilities When thinking about your past experience, consider your achievements, not simply your assigned responsibilities. Choose which achievements to list for each position based on the skills relevant to the job for which you are applying, using numbers and concrete examples as illustrations. Examples include client population/caseload size and demographic, programs or policies created, and specific skills used or developed. Version 3.0 1
Responsibility: Created treatment plans for adolescent clients Achievement: Designed and implemented CBT treatment plans for 50 adolescent clients Responsibility: Ensured patient safety by educating staff Achievement: Reduced monthly patient falls by 60% through nurse training program Note: For more information on and practice identifying transferrable skills and quantifying accomplishments, please see our The Professional You handout. The Golden Triangle Résumé Format The order of elements in the body of your résumé will change depending on their relevance to the job. When ordering the sections of your résumé, place the most important information in the so-called golden triangle the top-left half of your résumé. Since résumés are read quickly, information in this area is the most likely to be seen. Length In most cases, limit your résumé to one page. Hiring professionals will have dozens if not hundreds of résumés to read; by editing yours to only relevant experience, you are more likely to keep the attention of your readers. Margins Use 1 inch margins on all sides of the document. Anything smaller than this can make your résumé seem cluttered. Alignment and Indentation Left align the text of your résumé. Use indentation and alignment to create relationships between information. For example, keeping all of your dates aligned helps your readers navigate the chronology of your employment history. If you use bullet points, be sure that all bullet points within the document are aligned. Font Do not use more than two typefaces in your document (i.e., one for headings and one for body text). The font of your résumé body should be an easy-to-read 11 or 12-pt. typeface. In addition, the fonts of your résumé and cover letter should match. Name Résumé Elements Your name should feature prominently on your résumé so that your readers can quickly identify your document. Be consistent with your name (i.e., initials, middle names, etc.) in your résumé and cover letter. 2
Contact Information Include your e-mail address, permanent address, and phone number. Double-check the accuracy of this information since it is the way a potential employer will contact you to schedule an interview. Be sure to use an appropriate, professional name in your e-mail. Inappropriate: sexyboots420@perverts.com Appropriate: jane.doe@gmail.com Only include social media contact information if it is relevant to the position for which you are applying. Objective Résumés once contained a short statement about your career objective, but this section has fallen out of fashion in recent years. Now, objectives are only helpful when submitting your résumé to a database and not a specific job. If you must include an objective, it should directly follow your contact information. Example: To obtain a position in pediatric medicine Professional Summary or Profile More and more, professionals include a brief summary or profile instead of an objective. These summaries include a few sentences that explain the benefit you will bring to your potential employers by highlighting your core abilities and unique skills, experience, and knowledge. Education Example: An imaginative and engaging leader and educator with an eclectic set of academic credentials, a diverse array of executive experience in healthcare management and strategic planning, and a full appreciation and understanding of issues confronting higher education in urban settings. Make sure to include any college, university, or trade school you have attended or are currently attending. Beginning with the most recent degree, include the name and location of the institution, the type of degree earned, major, minors, certificate programs, and the date of graduation. If you are in the process of earning a degree include expected before the graduation date. You should also include a thesis title and advisor if you completed one. Example: DDS University of Maryland, Baltimore School of Dentistry Baltimore, MD 2016 BS Physiology University of Maryland, College Park Baltimore, MD 2012 You may choose not to include your major if it is not relevant to the job. You may wish to include your GPA if you feel it is important and noteworthy. If your work experience is more important and applicable to the position you are applying for, you may want to include your Education section later or at the end of your résumé. Experience Your experience section has three main functions: to prove that you have relevant skills, to highlight your accomplishments, and to demonstrate a continuity of employment. There are several ways to handle this section. Regardless of which approach you choose, be sure to emphasize relevant accomplishments. Do not simply write a job description of the position you held. 3
In a chronological résumé, experience is listed in reverse chronological order (i.e., the most recent comes first). This order highlights career growth. Each entry includes the name and location of the company, the title of your position, the dates of your involvement, and a brief list of relevant accomplishments and responsibilities. A functional résumé highlights skills, competencies, and achievements by grouping items by function or category, not by time. For example, you might want to break up experience by specialty, type, or position held. This format is also helpful if you have gaps in your employment history. Specialty: Health Social Work Experience; Children & Families Experience; Aging Population Experience Type: Teaching Experience; Clinical Experience; Administrative Experience Position: Management Experience; Consultant Experience; Executive Experience A hybrid résumé is exactly what it sounds like: a combination of chronological and functional formats. For example, in a hybrid résumé, you might have sections like Relevant Experience and Other Experience. The entries within these sections would then be listed in chronological order. Honors and Activities The purpose of this optional section is to list any awards, academic honors, or scholarships that you have earned. It also is a place to add any related extracurricular activities. Like other sections of the résumé, include only relevant information and list the most recent item first. Example: 2014 USGA Parliamentarian Certifications 2013 National Health Service Corps Scholarship If certifications or licenses are needed for the job, list them in a separate section. If these certifications are prerequisites for the position, place this section within the golden triangle. However, if you have a certification that is not applicable to the job, then you can include it in your Honors and Activities section. Example: CPR and AED Certification American Red Cross 2010 2012 Example: Active Medical License, Maryland Skills Including a Skills section can be useful when your employment or education sections do not reflect all of the relevant skills that you have acquired. To organize this section, list relevant skills under subheadings (e.g., Computer Skills, Leadership Skills, etc.). Languages Example: Proficient with Epic Electronic Medical Records program Example: Trained in neuropsychological testing administration Note the languages you speak along with your level or proficiency (e.g., native, fluent, proficient, working knowledge, etc.). You could also include this information in your Skills section. Example: Spanish, Native 4
Other Sections Depending on the job you re applying to, you may want to include other relevant sections. Some examples are Post-Graduate Education, Publications and Presentations, and Professional Societies. Tense Résumé Writing Style Use the present tense when writing about any job or position you currently have. Present: Supervise 25 nurses in the ICU Use the past tense for any experience that happened in the past. Past: Distributed informational brochures to potential patients in the community Strong, Active Verbs Weak verbs can obscure your active role in previous experiences and accomplishments. Use strong verbs that emphasize your own action and initiative. Weak Verb: Began a weekly meeting for dental students Strong Verb: Launched a weekly meeting for dental students Be Specific Paint a vivid picture for you audience, including the population you served, issues you addressed, and skills you used to complete the duties and responsibilities that you had. Parallelism Bland: Managed social services for clients Illustrative: Identified language and immigration support services for Hispanic immigrant clients Parallel structure lets your reader know that information is related and of equal importance. The easiest way to achieve parallelism is by matching parts of speech (e.g., matching nouns with nouns, verbs with verbs, etc.) or, if using entire phrases, by matching larger grammatical structures (e.g., matching a verb and a direct object with a verb and a direct object). Weak Parallelism: Trained staff to receive applications, to interview candidates, and orienting new hires Strong Parallelism: Trained staff to receive applications, to interview candidates, and to orient new hires Proofreading After You Finish As with any written work, proofreading is a necessary way to make sure that your résumé is error-free. This is especially important for your résumé since many employers will disqualify applicants for a single error. Note: For more information on proofreading, please see our handout on this topic. 5
20 Second Test Give your résumé to a friend or colleague to review for 20 seconds. After that time is over, ask what he or she learned about you from your résumé. If what is said matches what you want your potential employer to know, then you have an effective résumé. If the feedback does not match, revise your résumé until it can quickly convey what you want it to. References Content and sections of your résumé. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.career.vt.edu/résuméguide/contentsections.html Résumé workshop. (2013). Retrieved from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/719/2/ Yate, M. (2012). Knock em dead: Résumés. Avon, MA: Adams Media 6