What is a Resume?

A resume is a personal marketing tool designed to get you an interview. It is a brief summary of your education, skills, experience, and interests which is relevant to the position you are pursuing.

Write a Resume that gets Interviews

Everybody can write a resume, but not everybody can do it right. In today’s competitive market, 40% of hiring managers spend less than a minute reviewing a resume, so having a strong and eye-catching resume that perfectly captures your relevant skills and work experience makes the difference between getting called for an interview or not. Remember, your resume should be tailored to the job you’re applying for —it’s not a one-size-fits-all document.

Key Sections of a Resume

1. Contact Information

Hiring managers need to know who you are and how to get in touch with you.

2. Objective

The first thing a potential employer reads about you is what you can do for them. A resume objective focuses on your professional goals and career path, and how they align with the company’s goals. For this reason, a resume objective is ideal for candidates who:

Here’s the formula for putting together an effective resume objective:

3. Work Experience

Many jobseekers make the mistake of simply listing past responsibilities in their experience section. However, to make a resume better than those jobseekers, you should instead focus on your achievements. This is where your STAR stories come in handy.

 Here is the format for the Experience Section of your resume:

Followed by Accomplishments / Achievements / Successes in that postion:

  • Relevant Experience (anything related to the position applying for). Can include:
    • – Placement/Clinical
    • – Work
    • – Internship / Co-op
    • – Volunteer
    • – Related Academic Project Experience
    • – Projects which are related to the position/prove technical skills
  • Other Experience:
    • – Part-time work, etc. not directly related to position)
    • – Volunteer Experience (not directly related) – (Current & Ongoing)

4. Education 

Your education section should normally come after all of your work experience, but you can place it first if you’ve never held a full-time job. 

Here is how you format your education section:

5. Additional Relevant Sections

Depending on your experience and background, consider adding optional resume sections. For example, certifications and awards are great if they’re relevant to your chosen career, whereas hobbies and volunteer work are useful if you’re writing a resume with no experience.

Proofread, Proofread, Proofread

Finished writing your resume? Don’t just fire it off straight away. Spend some time reading through it at least a couple of times. You’d be surprised how easy it is to make a typo and how hard it is to spot them in your own writing. You should also give your resume to a friend or relative to read through.

Save your resume as a PDF

When you’re sure your resume is finished, and you’ve checked for errors, you can save it. The best option is to save your resume as a PDF. PDFs save your formatting even if you use fonts that aren’t installed on the hiring manager’s computer, so they’ll appear exactly as you intend them to appear.

However, if the job ad specifically asks for your resume in Microsoft Word (.docx) format or some other format, follow those instructions.

Action Task:

Start updating your Resume. You will need it for the next lesson!