Writing a Resume

1
Writing a Resume

• Writing is easy. All you do is sit staring at a
  blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood
  form on your forehead.
• -Gene Fowler

2
Finding a Job

• Research (you your industry)
• Job lead
• Research (company)
• Resume cover letter
• Interview
• Thank you letter
• Dream job

3
Marketing Tools

• Resume
• Cover letter
• Thank you letter
• Calling card

4
Resume Writing Angst

• TIP
• Think of yourself as a professional and ask
  yourself, How do I want to portray this
  professional self?

5
The Resume

• Most important tool
• Needs to be designed
• Simple and readable
• Vital information displayed in an organized and
  structured fashion
• Who you are
• Where youve been
• What youve done

6
The Rule of Three

• Research
• Yourself
• The company/organization
• Develop content
• Format

7
Advertising Strategies to Get an Interview

• Catch Attention
• Ensure visual appeal
• Create a lead/headline in synch with employers
  needs

8
Question for Discussion

• What are employer needs (in the Office Assistant
  world)?

9
Advertising Strategies to Get an Interview

• Capture Interest
• Position selling points at visual centre of the
  page
• Position supporting material in the middle to
  lower end of the page
• Position skimmable list material at the bottom of
  the page

10
Advertising Strategies to Get an Interview

• Create Desire
• Show or address some need
• Satisfy the need
• Prove your superiority in fulfilling the need

11
Advertising Strategies to Get an Interview

• Call for Action
• Offer some enticement
• Ask for the interview
• Make it easy for your reader to contact you

12
Choose a Format

• Whatever works, is right
• Types of resumes
• Chronological
• Functional
• Combination
• Creative
• Recent graduates
• Remember your audience

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Satisfying Skimmers Skeptics

• Skimmers
• You have 15-30 seconds to make it to the
  yes/maybe pile
• Skeptics
• You must prove that you have the
  skills/experience/attributes that the recruiter
  is looking for
• Check out these resumes

14
Sample Resumes

• Student Resume

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Resume Blueprint

• Contact info (accurate professional)
• Objective/focus statement
• Education
• Professional/work experience
• Skills/abilities/accomplishments
• Awards
• Extracurricular activities and interests
• Pick your headings and start filling in the
  information

16
Resume Blueprint

• Dont include
• Photograph
• Letters of recommendation
• Date
• References (discuss)

17
Writing Great Copy

• Target your resume to the position you are
  applying for
• Dissect the job ad/position description

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Writing Great Copy

• Keywords (employer/industry language)
• Objective
• If omitted in resume, can be in cover letter
• Position your want your key skills the
  benefit/value to an employer
• To support management in a secretarial role
  where my technical skills, initiative and
  understanding of client-driven organizations will
  be of value.
• Skills Summary
• Three to five
• Demonstrated

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Writing Great Copy

• Education
• Go heavy
• Prime shelf space
• Address the needs of your audience

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Accomplishments

• When I was born and where and how I have lived
  is unimportant. It is what I have done with where
  I have been that should be of interest.
• Georgia OKeeffe

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Accomplishments

• Verifiable accomplishments should always be
  included
• Start putting together your Career File
• Completed diploma while working two part-time
  jobs
• Designed invitations for Office Assistant grad
  committee

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Accomplishments

• Use questions
• Did you work while completing your diploma?
• Were you involved in career-related
• co-curricular activities?
• What did you do best in this job?
• What transferable skills did you demonstrate?
• Target your accomplishments to show you are the
  right fit

23
What Recruiters Want in a Resume

• Typed well formatted
• No spelling mistakes
• Brief but explicit enough
• Clear and concise
• Relate your qualifications and experience to the
  job requirements (target)

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Editing

• Accuracy
• Brevity
• Clarity
• Consistency
• Focus on transferable skills
• Start sentences with
• Action Verbs OR
• Noun Phrases

25
Editing

• Avoid Baseless Personality Attributes
• Demonstrated skills
• Grammar, punctuation, proper word usagei.e. good
  writing
• Style guide/reference book

26
Owed to a Spell Chequer

• Eye halve a spelling chequer
• It came with my pea sea.
• It plainly marques, four my revue
• Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
• Its letter perfect awl the weigh,
• My chequer told me sew.

27
Top 10 Visual Appeal Tips

• Be consistent in design treatments
• Use the same tab spacing or amount of vertical
  space between every category heading and between
  every bullet.
• If you apply bold and underline to one position
  title, use the same treatment consistently on all
  other position titles. The same idea holds for
  treatment of other headings/sub-headings.
• Avoid starting too many consecutive lines with
  bullets fewer groupings of bullets will help
  guide the readers eye to key information.
• Add white space.
• Minimize the space between the bullet position
  and the text position.
• Reserve bullets for accomplishments rather than
  responsibilities.
• Limit the number of tab stops on the page.
• Break up lengthy paragraphs - use sub-headings.
• Balance the resume top-to-bottom and
  left-to-right.
• Use one font style, possibly two.
• Design within a logical hierarchy of font-work
  (bold, underline, point size of fonts) and case
  (all caps, small caps, upper and lower case) to
  provide a sense of order and to control the
  readers eye toward important information.
• Remember to place your most important information
  on the visual centre of the page.

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Visual Centre

• Fold a piece of paper into three sections like
  folding a letter for an envelope mark a
  one-inch line from the top fold (top and bottom.
  This is the Visual Centre where the eye
  naturally goes first

Visual Centre
fold
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Electronic/Scannable Resumes

• Applicant tracking systems
• Common/clean-looking fonts
• 11 to 14 point
• No underlining, italics, boxes, shading,
  scrunching text together
• Put only your name on the first line of your
  resume
• Use keywords
• In resume body
• Keyword summary/field of work
• State your qualifications in as many ways as you
  can

30
Cover Letters Other Items

• Sell dont tell
• Make it personal
• One page
• Structure
• Intro (carrot)
• Body (corroboration)
• Final (close)
• Some Samples

31
Cover Letters Other Items

• To Whom It May Concern
• Thank you letters
• References

32
Resume/Cover Letter Tools

• Dictionary
• Style guide
• Thesaurus
• Government booklets
• College material
• Internet
• You career file/portfolio

33
Resume/Cover Letter Tools

• Your industry (language)
• Job ads, job descriptions
• SRC resume critiques
• Resume books Resume Magic by Susan
  Britton-Whitcomb

34
Useful Internet Resources

• http//www.alis.gov.ab.ca/
• http//www.alis.gov.ab.ca/tips/main.asp
• www.macewan.ca/jobs

35
May Your Dreams Come True

• Rita J Kolpak, Student Advisor
• Student Resource Centre
• Room 7-112, City Centre Campus
• 497-4531
• kolpakr_at_macewan.ca

36
Works Cited

• Enelow, Wendy S. and Louise M. Kursmark. Cover
  Letter Magic Trade Secrets of Professional
  Resume Writers. 2nd Edition. Indianapolis, IN
  JIST Publishing, Inc., 2004.
• Government of Alberta, Human Resources and
  Employment. Advanced Techniques for Work Search.
  Edmonton Government of Alberta, 2002.
• Kaplan, Stephen J. Dont Wait til You Graduate.
  Toronto Canadian Association of Educators and
  Employers, 1995.
• Whitcomb, Susan Britton. Interview Magic Job
  Interview Secrets from Americas Career and Life
  Coach. Indianapolis, IN JIST Publishing, Inc.,
  2005.
• ---. Job Search Magic Insider Secrets from
  Americas Career and Life Coach. Indianapolis,
  IN JIST Publishing, Inc. 2006.
• ---. Resume Magic Trade Secrets of a
  Professional Resume Writer. 2nd Edition.
  Indianapolis, IN JIST Publishing, Inc., 2007.