Employment: RESUME

The resume is very important in job searching. It is a calling card which is purposed to attract the interest of the prospective employer. The resume should describe an applicant's personality and demonstrate his energy, ambition, and ability to work in teams. It should give the employer a sense that this candidate would be a good investment for the company.       

An effective resume must make a good first impression. Of course, appearance is important but content is even more crucial. The information in a resume needs to be well-organized, easy to read, and result-oriented. It usually includes personal in¬formation, professional and volunteer experience, special skills, education, accomplishments, and references.          

An effective resume should address the employer's needs. Its aim is to show the prospective employers how an applicant's skills, accomplishments and abilities match their needs and organization goals. The best way to achieve this is to include only the work experience that is relevant to the job you are applying for.   

Every day employers sort through piles of resumes and typically devote 30 seconds or less to each one. Employers won't read any more than two pages, anyway. If you can fit your resume onto one page, that's fine! Employers are looking for, among other qualities, strong organizational and communication skills. There are 4 main formats of a resume: chronological, functional, combination and targeted. The most popular is a chronological resume. In the chronological resume a list of education and work experience is presented in a reverse chronological order. This is followed by a statement explaining job responsibilities. While the chronological resume focuses on past employment, the functional resume focuses on skills. The combination resume style draws on the best features of the chronological and functional resumes. It emphasizes a candidate’s capabilities while also including a complete job history. The targeted resume highlights experience and education that are particularly relevant to specific job being applied for. It can be used only for this one occasion.Your resume also serves as a self-assessment tool, an opportunity to complete a self-inventory and see where you've been and where you'd like to go. The matter of fact is that even an excellent resume will not get you a job all on its own. But it does show that you take your career seriously and help you to market your skills and experience.

Knowing what to exclude from a resume is as important as knowing what to include. Here is a list of details to exclude from your resume:

People who read thousands of resumes name the following common resume problems:

Components of a Chronological Resume

Name header includes your full name (first and last names and middle initials), your post/ e-mail address and fax/phone number.

Job objective. If you decide to use an objective, put it right under the name header and use a heading, such as "Objective", "Job Objective" or "Career Objective". State exactly the type of position you want in 12 words or less, e.g.: "A Personal Assistant to a General Manager".

Summary of qualifications/skills. The skills summary, although optional, provides an excellent opportunity to summarize your qualifications and convince the employer to read the rest of your resume. The summary should be targeted to your job goal and highlight specific experience, skills and training related to the position you are seeking. You may also call it "Skills Summary", "Summary of Qualifications" or "'Experience Summary". It can be in a paragraph or "bullet" form . If you decide to use a paragraph, keep it two or three short sentences, e.g.: "Award-winning graphic artist with five years experience with state-of-the-art technologies on Microsoft and Macintosh systems. Also skilled in video production and computer-generated images. Software knowledge' includes Adobe Photoshop, Aldus Freehand, Adobe Premier, and Aldus Page Maker."

If you decide on a "bullet" format, list four or five points. Remember to put your most important and most relevant qualifications first, e. g.:

Professional experience section can be headed as 'Work Experience" or "Employment History" and is likely to take the biggest part of your resume. It is the section most employers are interested in. Starting with your present or most recent job, list the jobs you have held. Give the description of your duties, accomplishments, a sample of something significant that you did. Use phrases instead of complete sentences (for current job responsibilities in the present tense, for past job responsibilities in the past tense), spell out acronyms and abbreviations, write different action verbs. Avoid phrases "responsible for", "duties included", headings "position", "job title" which are obvious and redundant. 

Education generally follows the experience section. However, your educational background can come before your experience if: you're a recent college/university graduate with little job experience.
Start with the most recent degrees, e.g.:
2006 – present - Master Degree in International Management
2002-2006- Bachelor Degree in Business Administration, majoring in finance/marketing
If you didn't graduate mention the years you attended the college or school and the courses you completed. If you graduated with honors mention it in your degree listing, e.g.: Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication, with honors, 1999, Boston University.
Experience as a foreign exchange student is also worth noting. Although it may not be related to your career goal, the fact that you studied abroad shows you enjoy a challenge and are willing to try new experience,
e. g.:  One year foreign study at Athens University, 2003, Greece 

In Special skills section include the name of the course and the date you completed the training,
 e.g.: CAD software: 2-month training program, NASA Computer Training Center, Hampton, Va., September 2005.
If you possess any other special skill such as knowing a sign language, you may also mention it here. But it would be better if it is related to your prospected job. 

Membership and activities: your activities do not necessarily have to be career-related, but if most of them are, you may use the heading "Professional Affiliations". If you have several professional or social memberships, do not try to include all of them. Just focus on the ones that are related to your career. Otherwise, list any community or civic activities you think to be important. Employers are looking for "doers" - productive people. Your activities will show that you are a well-rounded person with interests outside of work. In addition, a list of your activities reflects your ability to manage a busy schedule. One final note: your listing in this section should be current and brief. 

References can be supplied by a candidate's former employer, supervisor, teacher, university professor or colleagues.