Quick Resume Guide & Samples

Action Verbs

There are two basic formats for resume preparation: chronological and functional. Regardless of which style you elect to use, preparing your resume will take considerable time and effort. Remember, the resume is your sales tool. Therefore, select the style that will highlight your best qualities and yet remain visually appealing to the reader.

There is no overall consensus as to what constitutes a good resume. However, one of the prime rules to keep in mind is that employers will spend less than 30 seconds scanning your resume to determine if it is worth further consideration. Therefore, be certain your resume is organized and attractive enough to pass this test.

Your resume, if effective, will quickly identify for the employer:

• Who you are
• What you know
• What you have accomplished
• What you would like to do
• What you can offer your employer

Design your resume so that it emphasizes the job qualifications and personal strengths that will serve the reader's needs. Remember, there is no exact, right way to develop a resume. It should, however, be:

• Typed and spaced properly. It should be printed on a laser printer on high quality bond paper. Limited to one or two pages in length.
• Brief and to the point, incorporating phrases rather than prose and complete sentences.
• Complete, containing all information relevant to your education, work experience, and career objectives.
• Truthful

Chronological Resume

Chronological resumes are the easiest to prepare and thus appear to be the more popular style of resume used. In this style, you identify information in descending order, with the most recent events listed first under each heading.

Chronological resumes require selective wording in order to minimize the amount of interpretation an employer will have to do. Use action verbs in describing your experiences, and highlight transferable skills. Avoid cluttering up the resume with personal data and names of references. See chronological resume sample.

Functional Resume

The functional resume enables the candidate to focus on skills, aptitudes, and qualities that can be applied to a number of situations. This style of resume de-emphasizes chronological listings and emphasizes qualifications, skills, and related accomplishments. Skills are organized into categories that tell employers what you will be able to do for them.

The functional resume is especially valuable for candidates who lack direct job-related field experience; who want to work in fields not related to their academic background; or for those whose education is so general that they must find a way of bridging the gap between their education and the job requirements.

This type of resume is also well-suited for those candidates who have considerable work experience, because it allows them to portray the skills they will be able to put to immediate use. See functional resume sample.

Target Your Resume

A resume is not one's life history.  It is a summary of the knowledge, skills and abilities one brings to a particular employer.  Include information that specifically relates to the position to which one is applying.  Given today's access to word processors, it is relatively easy to cut and paste documents and tailor resumes to specific jobs.  Someone looking at a variety of employment opportunities might have three to five different resumes.  The content is basically the same but it has been reorganized to highlight different strengths. See targeted resume sample.