Your Resume

Your Resume

Your resume is your calling card. The purpose of your resume is to create enough interest in you and your skills that a Company will want to interview you. A resume is not designed to try to tell everything about you. A good resume will open the doors for you and a poorly written resume will keep the door shut.

Your resume should be a synopsis of your skills, experience, accomplishments, and education.

It may be necessary to have several different versions of your resume that focus on different facets of your skills and experience. Example: You may be a very Sr. JAVA Developer and you also have Project Management experience. It would make sense to have 2 resumes, one that emphasizes your JAVA skill and another for your Project Management skills.

There are common elements for all Resumes:

Identify Yourself

Here is the recommended format:

Full Name
Address - it is acceptable to just put City and State.
Phone Numbers - Be sure to specify if they are home, cell or work.
Email Address – This should not be too crazy. I received a resume a number of years ago and the email address was something like – joethepotsmoker@excite.com. I received another one that was – ChicagoStud@msn.com. While you friends make think these are cool, employers will probably not feel the same way. There are enough companies that offer free email addresses, that you can get one that looks professional.

Career Objective
This area should briefly tell the type of position you are looking for and what would be the benefit to a company if they hired you. Example: Strong JAVA Developer looking for a Direct Hire position in the Financial Industry. Looking to add my Object Oriented experience to a company’s development team.

DO NOT make this area a list of your wants.

Your Employment History
This area should start with you’re my recent positions and work backwards.

For each position you should list, Company Name, Location, Dates of Employment, Your Final Title

You can write on sentence about what the company does. Then write the work that you preformed emphasizing the most important responsibilities and achievements first. You can do this in a bullet format which makes it quick and easy for the Employer to read. You can say you were part of a specific team but do not write about what the team did. Companies want to know what YOU did.

If it is a technical position, your technical knowledge and skills are important to include. Be specific with hardware, software, operating systems, and protocols you can use professionally.

It is usually sufficient to go back 10 years in your employment history. If there are large gaps in your employment, you may be asked to explain why. If the gap was for education, you can include that in your employment history.

Education
List educational achievements, including degree, major, institution name. If your grade point average was 3.2 or higher you can include that. Include any Certifications that you have.

Military Experience
If you have military experience that is older than 10 years, list the branch and your position.

References
I usually advise to just put “Available Upon Request”. You do not want people calling your references without you knowing about it. Also, listing reference information can also lead to Staffing companies cold calling them to get job leads.

DO NOT list personal information such as your marital status, number of children or your age.

If you are not comfortable writing your own resume, there are companies and individuals who will professionally write one for you. It can be a worthwhile investment!