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 e-mail.

What does your e-mail say about you? Be careful with your e-mail! If your e-mail is surfer_dude@yahoo.com

or hot_mamma@hotmail.com, this does NOT make a good first impression!

You may want to set up a new e-mail with a more professional sound.

Check out Dr. Berg’s posting on this subject: http://stevenlberg.info/blog/01-22-2007.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) 462-4421 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:

http://careerplanning.about.com/od/resumewriting/Resume_Writing.htm

How to write a resume: http://www.howtowritearesume.net/

OWL – Online Writing Lab from Purdue University: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/pw/