Resume Mini Series – Post 2

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Alright, so after the long wait, here is the second installment of the mini series on Resumes. I will post the final portion later in the week.
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To continue on the mini series about resumes, today I wanted to lightly touch on the acutal format of a resume and the diferent sections to consider. Remember that yesterday I talked about keeping the length of your resume to one page and staying away from tempaltes when putting your resume together.

3. Formatting – Sections of a Resume
A lot of people can be confused on what sections to break your resume down into. The obvious ones include: objective, work experience, and education. However, some othes you could consider could be : professional summay/skills and honors/awards. The very first thing that someone reads when they pick up yoru resume is your objective statement. This is the area where you can describe the opportunity that you are looking for. The objective statement can be broad or concise, as long as you have one! If you use a professional summay or skills section, you should list just that. You can mention how long you have worked in a particaul industry and the skills you exhibited in that area. Or if you are listing some of your traits, you can mention phrases like “motivated individual” or “effective communicator”. If you are more of a technologically oriented person apply for computer/technology positions, take this area to run through your skill set or knowledge listing things like what computer programs you are efficient with, what programming languages you know, and things of the sort. Your professional summary and skills section is also a place where you can include certain “buzz words” to draw attention to you as a candidate. Some of the hot buzz words for resumes include: interpersonal skills, effective communiator, conflict resolution, diverse, and teamwork.

Obviously, you are going to want to include your education and work experience in your resume. With your education, be sure to list your school, years enrolled, your major and minors of study if any, and any certifications you may have either graduated high school with or that your college or specific department may have. Also, be sure to list the most recent first, for example the school where you earned your masters degree, followed by your undergraduate degree, and then by your high school if you choose to include it.

Work experience will be a big part of what your potential employer looks at so you will want to make sure that you have something there. If you don’t happen to have any work experience, you will want to highlight the different areas of your college career that have shaped you to be the person that you are and the different activities that you were involved in or awards you received.

I am going to be expanding more on resumes in the next and last post for this series but I do not want to give away any hints as to what the final post may include! Be sure to be on the look out for it.

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