Your resume is one of your most important initial job search tools. The main goal of the resume is to get you to the interview stage. The interview is where you will sell yourself and your unique experiences. Your resume promotes you by highlighting your skills, accomplishments, attributes, and key capabilities in a clear, concise, and compelling way.

One thing to keep in mind is that there is no one right way to write a resume. There are a few absolutes: a resume should be absolutely error-free and absolutely truthful. One of the keys of writing an effective resume is choosing the format that fits you best.

Chronological resume

• Emphasizes employment history
• Lists positions, employers in reverse chronological order
• Describes activities and accomplishments in each job
• Used by people changing jobs, advancing within a career field
• Preferred by defense contractors

Chronological resume example1

Chronological resume example2

Functional resume

• Emphasizes skills, de-emphasizes job history
• Presents skills, experiences grouped by specific functions
• Used by career-changes and those wanting to summarize, not reiterate the same experiences

Functional resume example

Resume Content

The Heading. Include important contact information. Use common sense when choosing phone numbers to put on a resume. Think about the answering machine attached to that phone number. Is that the first impression you want an employer to have of you? Career Services recommends not putting a cell phone number on your resume, because generally we tend to be more casual on a cell phone. In addition, be careful about personalized e-mail addresses. It might be best to use your UWF issued student account or create a new e-mail account just for job searching. Try using something that makes sense with your name; it will be easier for an employer to remember it. If your current address and permanent address are different you may include both on the resume. If you have a website that can help you make your case as a strong candidate, include the URL on your resume. Be careful to direct employers to the site only if it includes professional images and information.

The Objective. Your objective is a short and realistic statement of your interest. Often the problem with objectives is that they are either too broad or too narrow. To avoid this, develop a targeted and balanced objective, “Pursuing a research and development position in electrical engineering.” Include the job title and the name of the organization if you know them, such as “Seeking a position as a Management trainee at Target Corporation.” You should have a variety of objectives that you can use to tailor your resume.

The Body of your resume. After the objective, the listing of the other headings should start with the most relevant and end with the least relevant for the job you are applying for. For example, if you are applying for a job requiring an Accounting degree and proficiency using Quickbooks, make sure to include your Education and Computer Skills on top. Here are some other examples of resume headings:

• Education
• Related Course Work
• Honors and Achievements
• Work Experience
• Volunteer Experience
• Activities
• Related Experience
• Military Experience
• Community Involvement
• Internship Experience
• Leadership Activities
• Accomplishments
• Affiliations
• Publications
• Presentations

References. It is appropriate to write “available upon request” on a resume. You do not want to list references on the resume so that you can give your references a heads up in terms of the time the employer asks for them. If you are in a space crunch, you do not need to include any information at all on the actual resume.  Create a reference sheet that can be handed to an employer when asked for.

Other considerations:

• Use a bulleted list to describe activities and accomplishments. Start these using action verbs.
• Use present tense action verbs to describe current or in-progress experiences, and past-tense action verbs to describe completed tasks. Power verbs for your resume
• Include key words and descriptive words. These may include job titles, technical or non-technical skills, academic degrees, occupational functions, etc. If specific words and skills are emphasized in the job description, include them in your resume.
• Quantify results whenever possible. For example, if you increased profit by 15%, state that.
• Use a font and font size that is easy to read, i.e. Times New Roman, 12 pt.
• Use bolding to make things stand out. Stay away from italics and underlining that may damage your formatting.
• Write your resume yourself, so not hire someone to write it for you, you know yourself and your qualifications best.
• Use quality, conservative paper and a laser printer if you will be hand delivering or sending your resume through the mail.
• Remember that your resume is a summary, not an autobiography. Try to keep it as consice as possible, most employers prefer one page resumes.
• Be consistent across sections, i.e. dates in same style, position on page and months written out or numerical.

Resume Do's and Don'ts