Purpose of the Resume
Create a Resume in 5 Steps
Helpful Hints for Resumes
Sample Resumes

Purpose of the Resume

Your resume is a summary of your qualifications for a specific type of work and is a tool that allows you to market your skill-sets and accomplishments to employers.. 

Important uses for your resume:

• To generate interviews with employers.
• To enclose with applications, cover letters and inquiries to employers.
• To network with professional and personal contacts, friends, relatives, classmates, alumni, and former employers who might be able to assist you.
• To provide as an aid to those persons who will act as your references.

Remember you can get your resume critiqued during walk-in hours at UCS.

Create a Resume in 5 Steps

Step 1: Conduct a Self-Assessment

Personal Experience Review

Brainstorm any and all information about yourself in the following areas:

• Career or Job/Internship Objective
• Education- including GPA and/or coursework
• Thesis/Independent Projects/Research/Publications
• Study Abroad
• Work Experience (include paid and non-paid experiences)
• Community/Civic Involvement
• Professional Affiliations and/or Status
• Special Skills (Foreign languages, computer competencies, statistics, research, etc.)
• Activities/Leadership
• Honors/Awards
• Interests

Achievement Inventory and Skill Identification

Identifying and understanding your achievements and skills will help you to:

• define or reaffirm your objective
• develop a more positive, action-oriented resume
• select a resume format that will suit you best
• interview more effectively because you have a wealth of positive information about yourself
• evaluate the appropriateness of job openings and achieve a good job fit
• expand your employment opportunities by recognizing that many skills are transferable from one environment to another
  
  

Step 2: Select the Most Appropriate Resume Format

The format you choose should reflect your own personal situation. Consider your qualifications, objective, work history and the kind of employer you are seeking before you select a style. (For more detailed resume writing and format information, please see our Career Guide and other books in our Career Information Center.

The most common resume formats are:
CHRONOLOGICAL: Jobs and education are listed in reverse chronological order, i.e., most recent first.
FUNCTIONAL: Highlights the qualifications, skills and related achievements with little emphasis on employment dates.
COMBINATION: Similar to the functional resume, but employment history is included in a separate section.

Step 3: Write a First Draft of Your Resume

Use Action Verbs

• Use action verbs to strengthen descriptions of your experiences.
• Describe your experience in terms of what you accomplished.

Make It Clear

• Eliminate the pronoun “I” and do not use full sentences.
• Avoid introductory and wind-up phrases such as “My duties included...”
• List achievements whenever possible, rather than describing duties.
• Use some jargon of the chosen field, e.g., can program in C++ and Java Script.

Objective Statement

• Specify the type of work you desire and/or what skills you have to offer.
• State qualifications that best meet an employer's needs.
• Should be work or skills centered, not self or tasks centered, and should not contain trite terms that emphasize what you want (e.g., opportunity for advancement; position working with people; a challenging position).

Your Resume Should be Specific to Industry

Focus on the skills that fit the industry you are seeking.  For instance, if you were applying to finance positions you may want to emphasis your ability to work in a high pressure environment, strong analytical and problem solving skills, and your experience working with spreadsheets.

Include Accomplishments

Duties tell the employer you can do the job.  Accomplishments indicate that you will go above and beyond to get the job done.

• Duties can seem bland- “researched topics, wrote press releases, filed”
• Adding your accomplishments makes your resume stand out
  • “Researched policy issues and drafted statements for the Senator”
  • “Wrote press releases that were distributed within the entire company worldwide”
  • “Organized paperwork efficiently saving time for the entire office”

Step 4: Critique Your First and Second Drafts

The following items should be addressed:

Overall Appearance

• Easy to read?
• Professional looking
• Can you read your important information in 30 seconds?

Contact Information

• Clearly presented on the top of the page?
• Permanent and temporary addresses, including day and evening telephone numbers and your e-mail address?

Objective

• Clear and reasonably short?
• Stated in terms of strongest qualifications to match employers' needs?
• Conveys career purpose and direction?

Organization

• Strongest qualifications (i.e., Education, Skills, or Experience) immediately under objective?
• Consistent layout?

Content

• Supports and substantiates objective?
• Stresses skills, achievements and results, rather than duties?
• Extraneous material eliminated?

Length

• Brief (one page, unless you are a graduate student)?
• If two pages, name and page number at top of page 2?

Grammar

• No misspellings, punctuation, or grammatical errors?
• Technical jargon kept to a minimum?.

Step 5: Write a Final Draft

Reproducing Your Resume:

• Your master copy must be error-free.
• Print your resume onto high quality paper, preferably in white, ivory or pale gray.
• Print only on one side of paper.
• Purchase matching stationery and evelopes for your job search correspondence.
  
  
  Helpful Hints for Resumes
  • Your text should support your objective with specific documentation.
  • Place the most important information first.
  • Lengthy, detailed descriptions can be a liability rather than an asset. Get to the point.
  • Emphasize areas of expertise beneficial to the employer.
  • Keep it neat and organized.
  • Format should remain consistent, i.e., tense of verbs, order of information, layout, etc.
  • Height, weight, color of hair, state of health and other personal characteristics are irrelevant. Omit them unless you are writing a theatre/performance resume.
  • Do not state religion, physical characteristics, health or physical problems, race, ethnicity, national origin, etc.
  • Do not use abbreviations and/or acronyms.
  • Names of references should not be included on your resume.
  • Use formatting to emphasize the important aspects of your resume (e.g., spacing, centering, underlining, lettering in all capitals).

• Internship Seeker
• Full Time Job Seeker
• Theater/Performance Resume
• Technical Resume
• Experienced Resume