Your Resume A Necessary Life Document

What is a Resume?  The American Heritage Dictionary says that it is “a brief account of one’s professional or work experience and qualifications, often submitted with an employment application” or “a summary”  IT IS NOT YOUR ENTIRE LIFE’S STORY!  It also allows you to market yourself and may be your first impression to a professor or future employer.

A Summary of Your Work Experience  As difficult as it might be, a resume should NEVER be more than two pages long!  It will also include other pertinent information like: Contact Information Job Objective Education Volunteer Work

Contact Information  Should be at the top and contain your proper name, address, phone number or cell phone number, and .

What does your say about you?  Be careful with your !  If your is or this does NOT make a good first  You may want to set up a new with a more professional sound.  Check out Dr. Berg’s posting on this subject: htmlhttp://stevenlberg.info/blog/ html

Objective  Since it usually accompanies a job application or is sent in place of a job application, you place the job title of what you’re applying for in the Objective.  Keep it short! This does not need to be a sentence. Academic Librarian Arc Welder Middle School English Teacher

Work History  These should be listed as most recent first and should include: Name of Company Position Title How long you worked there What your job responsibilities were  Use ACTIVE verbs – not Passive Verbs  Keep this short, sweet and concise!

I don’t suggest…  Using a Template from Microsoft Word  Yes, all you have to do is fill in the blanks, but…  The trouble happens when you want to drastically modify, add or delete sections of your resume.  In my experience, the templates don’t adapt well to major modifications, and major changes mess up the formatting.

I suggest…  Making a document that you can continue to modify over the years by using Microsoft Word.  You can do all your own formatting after the fact.  I suggest: Using a standard, professional font like Times New Roman or Ariel. Use Bullet Points Use Bold OR Underline – probably not both

This is what the top of my resume looks like.

If you’d like help writing a resume…  You could go to Schoolcraft’s Career and Transfer Center (CTC)  McDowell Center - RM 205  (734)  Hours are: Monday & Thursday, 8am - 7:30pm; Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, 8am - 4:30pm

You could also go to the LIBRARY and find BOOKS to help you write a resume!

There are also plenty of websites to help you create a resume.  About.com – Career Planning: writing/Resume_Writing.htm writing/Resume_Writing.htm  How to write a resume:  OWL – Online Writing Lab from Purdue University: / /