Thursday, September 10, 2009

Build A Resume

Building a great resume may not seem to be an easy task. The hardest part can be trying to gather you background experience and translate that into a marketable resume. You may think that you have not done enough, especially if you are straight out of college. But the important thing is to build a resume that shows your strengths.

The first think you should do is think like a hiring manager. Think about what qualities you would want in someone that you were hiring. Make a list of these words such as organized, dependable, team worker, etc. Make a list of skills that would appeal to you if you were hiring someone – computer literate, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Switchboard, Adobe Photoshop, etc. Next, make a list of all the jobs you have held in order of date. Nothing is too trivial – even playing on your sports team in college shows that you are a team player. Now that you’ve got all this information gathered, you can build a resume.

On your official resume your name, address, telephone number and email address should appear at the top in a clear font such as Arial or Time New Roman. Next list your objective, a one liner that states your goal such as “obtaining a position to utilize my skills in design”. Your education should come next by listing your school, city and state where it resides, your degree and your major/minor concentration. Next comes your experience. You want to list from most recent and back with job title, company name, city and state and your dates of employment. Under that list your responsibilities and accomplishments. Do not worry if there are not a lot of jobs, concentrate more on what you did at your job and how it highlights your skillset. Save a place for Activities and Special Skills where you can elaborate more on what you can bring to the table. An employer wants someone who is well rounded, so having some great hobbies and activities shows that you are full of energy and like to participate.

When you build a resume it should be one page if possible, error free, on white or off white paper and with correct grammar. Your resume speaks for you. If it is filled with errors, then how can you expect an employer to think you can produce error free work. Until they meet you, your resume is all an employer can go by. Make it clear and concise and play up all that is you! For more info on Build a resume, go to Build A Resume Online