This posting is a guest entry from the Career Doctor, Randall S. Hansen, PhD:
James writes:
I’m searching for a guide on how to write my resume, but I can’t seem to find anything. If you could give me some tips, or a site that I could go to, that would be greatly appreciated.
Can’t find anything on resumes? Wow. There’s tons of stuff available on resumes — in magazines, books, and on the Web… but I’ll give you a quick primer.
Your resume is a critical marketing tool. Your resume has to entice a prospective employer enough — through its focus, content, and style — to first consider your qualifications for the job at hand and then to invite you for a job interview. A resume is a statement of your unique mix of experiences, education, and skills. You must not lie on your resume, but you must always remember its goal.
I think the most important thing any job-seeker should do before attempting to write a resume is to first sit down and make a list of your skills and accomplishments from all your previous experiences (work, volunteer, school, etc.) because you will take from this list those critical skills and accomplishments — not your duties and responsibilities — that highlight your fit for the next job you are seeking.
The next step is researching and identifying the job — and all the requirements of that job — that you are seeking because it is critical that your resume is focused on specifics. You should also research the potential employers that may have jobs that you seek so that you can incorporate some of their keywords into your resume.
Wait! Does this advice suggest that job-seekers need to have a specifically tailored resume for every single job they apply for? Yes! There is absolutely no reason for you not to develop a different resume for each job and employer. For most job-seekers, this task will simply mean tweaking small parts of your resume for similar jobs.
Once you have the content down, you should focus on the style and look of your resume. Do not use a template; design your own. Follow a consistent style. Use normal fonts and sizes. Use bullets rather than paragraphs. Do not use personal pronouns. Consider using a career/job objective or profile section. Always list education and experience in reverse chronological order (starting with the most recent stuff). Do not list any personal information (such as age, marital status, weight). Do not include controversial information. And ALWAYS, ALWAYS, spell-check and carefully proofread your resume for any and all errors.
Read our articles published on Quintessential Careers: The Scoop on Resume Length: How Many Pages Should Your Resume Be? and 10 Resume Mistakes to Avoid.
You can gets lots more advice, including resume samples, resume-writing tutorial, and more, in this section of Quintessential Careers: Resume and CV Resources.
Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.
This posting is a guest entry from the Career Doctor, Randall S. Hansen, PhD:
SEH writes:
How do you build a ‘“good resume” if you have LOTS of gaps in your job history?
I know that in order to get in to explain to someone face to face, you need a way to get your foot in the door, and trust me, with my resume, I’m not going anywhere!
Employment gaps are always a challenge when developing a resume. Small gaps are not that unusual anymore as the employment landscape has changed over the last decade or so. If you have a large gap — or multiple gaps — however, you will need to be a bit creative in dealing with the issue.
The ideal situation is when you can show you were doing something productive during your employment gap — getting additional training, education, certifications or working part-time, freelancing, consulting, or volunteering.
If you were ill or dealing with a family emergency, or simply out of the workforce by choice, your best bet may be to develop a functional resume. A functional resume is organized around three or four skills areas (such as communications, leadership, customer service, project management, etc.). You then list key accomplishments from all your experiences within each skills cluster (such as, directed marketing campaign that doubled annual sales over a three-year period while industry growth remained stagnant).
Be forewarned that employers and recruiters look suspiciously at chrono-functional resumes. However, for some job-seekers, a chrono-functional resume is really the only choice; thus, the key is then developing a superior resume that wins over even the most diehard skeptic (and keeping your chronological resume handy in case the chrono-functional version isn’t effective).
For more tips and advice, read this article from Quintessential Careers: How to Handle a Gap in Your Job History.
Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.
This posting is a guest entry from the Career Doctor, Randall S. Hansen, PhD:
Laura writes: Since moving to Daytona Beach 5 years ago, I have worked for 10 employers and also tried self-employment. (Four of the jobs were temporary.) Only one of those employers was a good match for me, but unfortunately, they went out of business nine months after I started working for them. I am a highly qualified accountant/bookkeeper, but it seems this town is unwilling to pay a decent salary to someone with my skills and more than 25 years of experience. My age (over 50) may also have something to do with my inability to get a good job offer. I have been on several interviews, but I seem to come in second or third choice.
I think now is the time to reinforce the whole concept of a job search as a marketing campaign. Your cover letter and resume are the key marketing promotion documents and the job interview is the critical sales call. If you then look at yourself as a product, it puts job-hunting in a much different light.
You have a number of issues/problems/concerns that need to be addressed. First, I let me preface the rest of this answer with the depressing news that the Central Florida job market is one of the weakest and low-paying that I have ever researched. So, as you’ve discovered, job-seekers need to keep their expectations tempered.
Your resume. There are a number of issues you need to deal with here. First, you need to remove older job experience and take older dates off your experience and education so that employers can’t easily guess your age. Next, you need to do something with all the jobs; 10 jobs in five years is a huge red flag. I would consider lumping all your temporary work into one grouping in a traditional resume — or consider experimenting with some sort of chrono-functional resume, in which skills are emphasized and employment history is secondary. Next, are you current with your training/technology skills — and if so, does it come across on your resume? So much of accounting and bookkeeping practices have changed, even in the last 10 years, that employers may assume older job-seekers still do it the “old” way and may be resistant to change. Your task is to not let them assume that!
In the interview. Your resume can only do so much for you — which is basically get you to the interview. Now you need to sell yourself to the employer. Don’t go into interviews, as some older workers do, with anything but a positive attitude — focused on how you can make an immediate contribution to the company (rather than relying on all your years of solid experience). Attitude, especially with older workers, is critical.
I strongly recommend that you read some of the articles and other resources in this section of Quintessential Careers: Job Resources for Mature and Older Jobseekers.
Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.
This posting is a guest entry from the Career Doctor, Randall S. Hansen, PhD:
Anonymous writes: Quick question: How do you handle and resume that is now 2 pages… no way around the second page…have to turn in Friday and I am stumped!!
There is nothing wrong with established job-seekers having a two-page resume. Even some exceptional recent college grads may need two pages to showcase all their accomplishments, skills, education/training, and talents and abilities.
In fact, it’s much better to have a two-page resume with normal margins and font size than to try and condense all your information onto one page using narrow margins and tiny type, virtually guaranteeing that no employer is going to even bother trying to read it.
Here are some rules about writing a two-page resume. First, if you need to go to a second page, do so. Just be sure that the second page is at least half full; anything less, and you should find a way to cut/condense to make the information fit on one page. Second, be careful not to divide elements from page one to page two; in other words, do not start a section on page one that carries over to page two. Third, be sure to include a header at the top of the second page identifying it as page two of your resume. Fourth, do not even consider going to a third page.
Some other general rules of resume-writing: focus (and quantify whenever possible) on accomplishments rather than job duties or responsibilities; showcase transferable skills when your work experience has been outside the traditional path; consider a functional style over a (traditional) chronological format when changing careers; consider leaving dates off college degrees to avoid age discrimination.
Find lots more information, articles, tutorials, and resources in the Resume and CV Resources section of Quintessential Careers.
Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.
This posting is a guest entry from the Career Doctor, Randall S. Hansen, PhD:
Lorraine writes: I have a query. My husband was retrenched almost 8 months ago now, and I want to send his CV to as many printing companies that I can find in South Africa. I also want to send a covering letter attached with his CV explaining that he was retrenched 8 months ago and would like to know if any of these companies have any vacancies. Please help me with the wording of this letter as I am at a loss?
Your help would be greatly appreciated.
The Career Doctor responds: Certainly one of the key components of a job search should still be cold contact, where the job-seeker sends his or her cover letter and resume (or CV) to companies that might have job openings. The critical factor with this strategy is getting the name and title of the hiring manager for your area of expertise and then writing a powerful cover letter. Why does cold contact work? It works because of the large hidden job market; the vast majority of job openings never get advertised or posted, so cold contact is a way of applying for positions that may in fact be open.
I assume that while you are writing the letters, that they will actually be signed by your husband. The cover letter is critical — its function is to spark enough interest so that the employer then looks at your resume (or CV). Think of the cover letter as a sales pitch letter, where the item you are selling is yourself — your mix of skills, accomplishments, and education. You NEVER want to put anything negative in your cover letter. And while many folks are being retrenched or rightsized or re-engineered out of jobs, it’s still a negative. Employers want to see job-seekers who are (or appear) gainfully employed. So, please, say nothing about the retrenchment in your cover letter; saying anything will only harm your husband’s chances. Read more about writing cover letters in the Quintessential Careers Cover Letter Tutorial.
Finally, please remember that your efforts are not complete once you mail the cover letters and CVs to the printing companies. The last paragraph of your cover letter should request action — an interview — and after a reasonable amount of time (1-2 weeks), you MUST follow-up and contact each company — each hiring manager — and ask for the interview. If you don’t follow-up, you are wasting your time even sending the cover letters and CVs.
A note to all job-seekers: Please don’t wait eight months after being downsized to start job-hunting. Take some time to reflect and consider whether it’s time to change careers — but even if you get a big severance package, you should get right back out there on the job market. The longer you wait to start job-searching, the harder it will be for you.
Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.
This posting is a guest entry from the Career Doctor, Randall S. Hansen, PhD:
Shawn writes:
I have worked for Wal-Mart for the past three years. Last year I was promoted to
department manager. Around that time I also started college studying software programming.
About nine months after I started the department-manager position, I voluntarily stepped down
to concentrate more on my school work. The thing is, I have a job interview coming up in my
desired field that I have been going to school for. What I was wondering was, if they ask
why I stepped down, what should I say? I don’t want it to seem as if I am not willing to “go
up the corporate ladder” within the company. I am willing to do so, it just wasn’t in my
career path to be a manager in a retail company.
The Career Doctor responds:
It’s funny, because I don’t see it as much of a problem for the interview as I do on your resume. If you already have at least one interview lined up, then I assume you’ve handled it properly on your resume.
In normal situations, a step backward could easily be perceived by prospective employers as being a major red flag. Many might see your situation and assume you are either lacking the skills or the drive to be successful.
However, you can totally spin your situation into a win-win. Here’s what you have going for you: First, you highlight your time-management skills by showcasing how you managed to work full-time and attend college. Second, you can showcase your loyalty to the company by voluntarily stepping down from the manager position for their best interest — since you knew you could not do the job justice and attend college. Third, you can discuss how retail was simply a tool to help pay for college (while also gaining valuable experience) and that what you are studying in college is preparing you for your future career.
Just don’t go negative. Don’t trash retail or the company. Instead, talk about some of your key accomplishments, as well as the transferable skills you have developed while working there. Show how the combination of your experience and education make you the ideal candidate for the position.
Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.
This posting is a guest entry from the Career Doctor, Randall S. Hansen, PhD:
Heidi writes:
What are some tricks to making resumes more effective? I am not having much success in finding a new job and at least one person has suggested my resume could be stronger. But how?
The Career Doctor responds:
I don’t know about tricks, but I can certainly give you some strategic pointers. I am constantly amazed at how many bad resumes I see on a regular basis — and with all the articles, books, and Web-based resources, I simply do not understand how it is possible.
Let’s start with the purpose of a resume. A resume is a marketing document designed to arouse enough interest in a prospective employer to call you for a job interview. It’s a statement of facts — education, skills, and accomplishments — designed to show how you would make the ideal candidate for the open position.
A resume should focus on the positive. It should not include any negative information. It should also not include duties and responsibilities, salary information, names of supervisors, or references.
And a resume should be tailored to each specific job, each specific employer. Once you have your resume written, you’ll want to modify it each time you send it off. From the job description and from the company’s literature or Website, pull some of their words and jargon and incorporate them into your resume.
Finally, consider adding some kind of summary at the top of your resume. You could use a keywords section, a job title, or a qualifications summary… something that a hiring manager will see from a quick scan of your resume.
And please do not forget that looks and writing matter. Make the resume attractive and avoid all grammatical errors. Do not use a template, but instead create your own format or borrow one from a resume you find attractive. And whenever possible, have someone proofread your resume before you send it out.
For more help with resumes — from articles to tutorials, samples, and more — go to this section of Quintessential Careers: Resume and CV Resources for Job-Seekers.
Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.
This posting is a guest entry from the Career Doctor, Randall S. Hansen, PhD:
Tasha writes:
I have a question. I was fired last summer, but I don’t use my last employer on my resume so there’s a huge gap of employment and I don’t know what to put on applications for “reason for leaving” when really I was fired for a misunderstanding without opening a can of worms with an interviewer.
Example of gap: 11-2006 thru 12-07 is my last employment history on my resume. I worked 12-07 thru 06-08, but I was fired and don’t use this employer on my resume.
Can you give me a suggestion — please?
Yours is an interesting situation. Before I even get to the issue of the job you were fired from, let’s start with what you’ve been doing in the year-plus since you were fired. Have you worked at all during this time? Have you volunteered your services? Have you received additional education or training? You must find something to fill this gap — other than job-hunting or sitting home feeling sorry for yourself over being fired for some sort of misunderstanding. If you have not done anything — start doing something NOW.
While a resume is a statement of facts, it is also a sales document — it needs to convince the prospective employer that you are worthy of an interview. And in my opinion, a short stint is much better than having a much longer gap on your resume. Regardless of the month, hiring managers will see 2007 and think that you have been out of work for two years and there must be something wrong with you. It’s just too long of a gap. You could consider using a chrono-functional or hybrid resume centered around skills clusters, but many employers favor the traditional chronological resume because it’s easier to find the information they need.
As for job applications, simply put “left company” as the reason. You certainly do not need to go into any detail on the application. Again, the application is designed to weed out applicants, so it too is a sales document for you. Once in the interview, you may need to address the issue — so be prepared with a short statement about how you were fired over a misunderstanding, being very certain to address the lesson you learned from the experience so that you show a positive attitude and growth. Do not blame your previous employer or manager; accept your responsibility in the issue, but do not dwell on it.
And don’t worry too much what this past employer will say about you. The one benefit of living in such a litigious society is that most employers are very unwilling to say anything too negative about current or former employers for fear of being sued.
Finally, it sounds as though you are having a hard time rebounding from being fired. If so, consider getting some sort of career counseling to deal with these feelings. You might also benefit from my article, Getting Fired: An Opportunity for Change and Growth, published on Quintessential Careers.
Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.
This posting is a guest entry from the Career Doctor, Randall S. Hansen, PhD:
James writes:
I’m searching for a guide on how to write my resume, but I can’t seem to find anything. If you could give me some tips, or a site that I could go to, that would be greatly appreciated.
Can’t find anything on resumes? Wow. There’s tons of stuff available on resumes — in magazines, books, and on the Web… but I’ll give you a quick primer.
Your resume is a critical marketing tool. Your resume has to entice a prospective employer enough — through its focus, content, and style — to first consider your qualifications for the job at hand and then to invite you for a job interview. A resume is a statement of your unique mix of experiences, education, and skills. You must not lie on your resume, but you must always remember its goal.
I think the most important thing any job-seeker should do before attempting to write a resume is to first sit down and make a list of your skills and accomplishments from all your previous experiences (work, volunteer, school, etc.) because you will take from this list those critical skills and accomplishments — not your duties and responsibilities — that highlight your fit for the next job you are seeking.
The next step is researching and identifying the job — and all the requirements of that job — that you are seeking because it is critical that your resume is focused on specifics. You should also research the potential employers that may have jobs that you seek so that you can incorporate some of their keywords into your resume.
Wait! Does this advice suggest that job-seekers need to have a specifically tailored resume for every single job they apply for? Yes! There is absolutely no reason for you not to develop a different resume for each job and employer. For most job-seekers, this task will simply mean tweaking small parts of your resume for similar jobs.
Once you have the content down, you should focus on the style and look of your resume. Do not use a template; design your own. Follow a consistent style. Use normal fonts and sizes. Use bullets rather than paragraphs. Do not use personal pronouns. Consider using a career/job objective or profile section. Always list education and experience in reverse chronological order (starting with the most recent stuff). Do not list any personal information (such as age, marital status, weight). Do not include controversial information. And ALWAYS, ALWAYS, spell-check and carefully proofread your resume for any and all errors.
Read our articles published on Quintessential Careers: The Scoop on Resume Length: How Many Pages Should Your Resume Be? and 10 Resume Mistakes to Avoid.
You can gets lots more advice, including resume samples, resume-writing tutorial, and more, in this section of Quintessential Careers: Resume and CV Resources.
Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.
This posting is a guest entry from the Career Doctor, Randall S. Hansen, PhD:
SEH writes:
How do you build a ‘“good resume” if you have LOTS of gaps in your job history?
I know that in order to get in to explain to someone face to face, you need a way to get your foot in the door, and trust me, with my resume, I’m not going anywhere!
Employment gaps are always a challenge when developing a resume. Small gaps are not that unusual anymore as the employment landscape has changed over the last decade or so. If you have a large gap — or multiple gaps — however, you will need to be a bit creative in dealing with the issue.
The ideal situation is when you can show you were doing something productive during your employment gap — getting additional training, education, certifications or working part-time, freelancing, consulting, or volunteering.
If you were ill or dealing with a family emergency, or simply out of the workforce by choice, your best bet may be to develop a functional resume. A functional resume is organized around three or four skills areas (such as communications, leadership, customer service, project management, etc.). You then list key accomplishments from all your experiences within each skills cluster (such as, directed marketing campaign that doubled annual sales over a three-year period while industry growth remained stagnant).
Be forewarned that employers and recruiters look suspiciously at chrono-functional resumes. However, for some job-seekers, a chrono-functional resume is really the only choice; thus, the key is then developing a superior resume that wins over even the most diehard skeptic (and keeping your chronological resume handy in case the chrono-functional version isn’t effective).
For more tips and advice, read this article from Quintessential Careers: How to Handle a Gap in Your Job History.
Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.
This posting is a guest entry from the Career Doctor, Randall S. Hansen, PhD:
Laura writes: Since moving to Daytona Beach 5 years ago, I have worked for 10 employers and also tried self-employment. (Four of the jobs were temporary.) Only one of those employers was a good match for me, but unfortunately, they went out of business nine months after I started working for them. I am a highly qualified accountant/bookkeeper, but it seems this town is unwilling to pay a decent salary to someone with my skills and more than 25 years of experience. My age (over 50) may also have something to do with my inability to get a good job offer. I have been on several interviews, but I seem to come in second or third choice.
I think now is the time to reinforce the whole concept of a job search as a marketing campaign. Your cover letter and resume are the key marketing promotion documents and the job interview is the critical sales call. If you then look at yourself as a product, it puts job-hunting in a much different light.
You have a number of issues/problems/concerns that need to be addressed. First, I let me preface the rest of this answer with the depressing news that the Central Florida job market is one of the weakest and low-paying that I have ever researched. So, as you’ve discovered, job-seekers need to keep their expectations tempered.
Your resume. There are a number of issues you need to deal with here. First, you need to remove older job experience and take older dates off your experience and education so that employers can’t easily guess your age. Next, you need to do something with all the jobs; 10 jobs in five years is a huge red flag. I would consider lumping all your temporary work into one grouping in a traditional resume — or consider experimenting with some sort of chrono-functional resume, in which skills are emphasized and employment history is secondary. Next, are you current with your training/technology skills — and if so, does it come across on your resume? So much of accounting and bookkeeping practices have changed, even in the last 10 years, that employers may assume older job-seekers still do it the “old” way and may be resistant to change. Your task is to not let them assume that!
In the interview. Your resume can only do so much for you — which is basically get you to the interview. Now you need to sell yourself to the employer. Don’t go into interviews, as some older workers do, with anything but a positive attitude — focused on how you can make an immediate contribution to the company (rather than relying on all your years of solid experience). Attitude, especially with older workers, is critical.
I strongly recommend that you read some of the articles and other resources in this section of Quintessential Careers: Job Resources for Mature and Older Jobseekers.
Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.
This posting is a guest entry from the Career Doctor, Randall S. Hansen, PhD:
Anonymous writes: Quick question: How do you handle and resume that is now 2 pages… no way around the second page…have to turn in Friday and I am stumped!!
There is nothing wrong with established job-seekers having a two-page resume. Even some exceptional recent college grads may need two pages to showcase all their accomplishments, skills, education/training, and talents and abilities.
In fact, it’s much better to have a two-page resume with normal margins and font size than to try and condense all your information onto one page using narrow margins and tiny type, virtually guaranteeing that no employer is going to even bother trying to read it.
Here are some rules about writing a two-page resume. First, if you need to go to a second page, do so. Just be sure that the second page is at least half full; anything less, and you should find a way to cut/condense to make the information fit on one page. Second, be careful not to divide elements from page one to page two; in other words, do not start a section on page one that carries over to page two. Third, be sure to include a header at the top of the second page identifying it as page two of your resume. Fourth, do not even consider going to a third page.
Some other general rules of resume-writing: focus (and quantify whenever possible) on accomplishments rather than job duties or responsibilities; showcase transferable skills when your work experience has been outside the traditional path; consider a functional style over a (traditional) chronological format when changing careers; consider leaving dates off college degrees to avoid age discrimination.
Find lots more information, articles, tutorials, and resources in the Resume and CV Resources section of Quintessential Careers.
Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.
This posting is a guest entry from the Career Doctor, Randall S. Hansen, PhD:
Lorraine writes: I have a query. My husband was retrenched almost 8 months ago now, and I want to send his CV to as many printing companies that I can find in South Africa. I also want to send a covering letter attached with his CV explaining that he was retrenched 8 months ago and would like to know if any of these companies have any vacancies. Please help me with the wording of this letter as I am at a loss?
Your help would be greatly appreciated.
The Career Doctor responds: Certainly one of the key components of a job search should still be cold contact, where the job-seeker sends his or her cover letter and resume (or CV) to companies that might have job openings. The critical factor with this strategy is getting the name and title of the hiring manager for your area of expertise and then writing a powerful cover letter. Why does cold contact work? It works because of the large hidden job market; the vast majority of job openings never get advertised or posted, so cold contact is a way of applying for positions that may in fact be open.
I assume that while you are writing the letters, that they will actually be signed by your husband. The cover letter is critical — its function is to spark enough interest so that the employer then looks at your resume (or CV). Think of the cover letter as a sales pitch letter, where the item you are selling is yourself — your mix of skills, accomplishments, and education. You NEVER want to put anything negative in your cover letter. And while many folks are being retrenched or rightsized or re-engineered out of jobs, it’s still a negative. Employers want to see job-seekers who are (or appear) gainfully employed. So, please, say nothing about the retrenchment in your cover letter; saying anything will only harm your husband’s chances. Read more about writing cover letters in the Quintessential Careers Cover Letter Tutorial.
Finally, please remember that your efforts are not complete once you mail the cover letters and CVs to the printing companies. The last paragraph of your cover letter should request action — an interview — and after a reasonable amount of time (1-2 weeks), you MUST follow-up and contact each company — each hiring manager — and ask for the interview. If you don’t follow-up, you are wasting your time even sending the cover letters and CVs.
A note to all job-seekers: Please don’t wait eight months after being downsized to start job-hunting. Take some time to reflect and consider whether it’s time to change careers — but even if you get a big severance package, you should get right back out there on the job market. The longer you wait to start job-searching, the harder it will be for you.
Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.
Many job-seekers ask, “What goes first on my resume
— education or experience? The answer:
- It depends on whether your degree or your experience is your best selling point. Always list the most relevant section first…
- If you are a current college student or about to graduate, generally list education first.
- If you are currently working, generally list experience first. A good cutoff point for moving your Experience section to the forefront of your resume is a year to 18 months after graduation.
Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.
What is a resume? It’s a document that tells prospective employers all about you — and why you would make a great employee — so you want to focus it on your strengths and accomplishments, as well as your education and work experiences. It is designed to help get your foot in the door, to help you get the job interview. Teen job-seekers do not need to have a resume when job-hunting, but if you want to stand out from the crowd, then developing your resume will do so. Think you know how to write a great resume? Take our quiz and find out!
Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.
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