The purpose of having a strong resume is to arouse enough interest, curiosity or astonishment to generate a telephone call or face-to-face meeting with someone you want to meet. The resume will not get you a job. However, it will get you in front of someone who might be persuaded to make you an offer or introduce you to someone else who might need you. Once completed, the finished resume should not be more than 3 pages in length. You should assemble all the raw data you will need in three separate lists.

List 1

Write down all the positions you have held so far in your career. For each position, note the exact title, precise dates of incumbency, proper name of the employing organization, its location, mailing address and telephone number.

List 2

Write down, as they occur to you, as many of your accomplishments as you can. What is an accomplishment: Something you either recommended or did, avoided, or caused to have done or not done, or an opportunity or threat that you identified and flagged that made a positive difference for your employing organization. Your resume must represent you as someone who has a history of, and who takes pride in, making a positive difference. Your list of accomplishments is this history. It is the most important part of your resume. Your long list of accomplishments should be a journalistic format consisting of what you did, why you did, how you did it and with what results.

List 3

What credits, degrees, honours can you claim and from what institutions and on what dates. What non-degree or non-credit training have you had? Who sponsored it? What important things have you trained yourself to do?

Note: There is considerable variation available in structure. Nonetheless, all contain the same three elements (positions, accomplishments and education).

Personal Information

• Name
• Full address including postal code
• Home and Office Telephone Number
• Fax Number
• Internet address

Education
(Usually means post-secondary, often comes first, especially if it is a strong asset.)

• Special Seminar
• Summer Schools
• Night School
• College and University
• List degrees and month/year obtained or expected to obtain
• Names and locations of schools
• Major and Minor
• Summary of important/relevant courses

Experience

Functional
To emphasize skills and talents, cluster experience under headings that highlight these skills i.e., leadership, research, and computers. This format can be helpful if you have little relevant job experience.

Chronological
To emphasize work experience, list positions beginning with the most recent.
Hint: Write responsibilities using action verbs: List most important responsibilities first, list similar tasks together. Click here for a list of action verbs.

To support work experience, your accomplishments could be highlighted in this section.

References

Prepare a separate list of references include: complete name, title, company name, address, and telephone numbers - offer list to prospective employer after your interview.

Skills

List computer languages and software, research, laboratory, teaching or tutoring, communication and leadership skills. For specific technical skills it is often helpful if you include some kind of assessment of your level of skill and an indication of the number of years of experience with that tool. If a skill is academic, say so.

Do Not...

• Use a cover page, a folder, an acetate cover or any other embellishment.
• Consider putting your picture on it.
• Use odd-sized or odd coloured paper or coloured inks.
• Do something "cutesy" like printing it sideways.
• Put a border around the text or heavy lines between sections.
• Use desktop publishing to create the final product - it inspires far too much non-standard format creativity.
• Hand-amend a resume. Fix it on disk and print a new one

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