Resume Tips
 

Your resume is your first step to creating that solid impression to get the interview.
The purpose of a resume is to arouse enough interest and curiosity in the person who reads it to prompt them to call you or schedule a meeting. While even a strong resume cannot on its own get you a job, it can get you a face-to-face meeting with someone in a position to hire you or introduce you to someone else who might need you. That meeting is your opportunity to persuade them you're the right person for the job. Remember - you are in charge. You decide what goes into your resume- and what does not.


What You Should Include:

1. First and last name. Do not use initials.

2. Full address including postal code.

3. Telephone number. Do not forget the area code. Email

4. Career objective - In a few words summarize your skills, professional goals and a job you are looking for.

5. Skills that are work related. Include any foreign languages in which you are fluent. Especially include any computer skills, particularly involving popular business programs (i.e. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Windows, etc.), computer languages and software, research, laboratory, teaching or tutoring, communication and leadership skills.

6. Write down all the positions you have held so far in your career. For each job, note the exact title, the precise period during which you held the position and the full name of the organization you worked for, as well as its location. It should concisely explain what you did, why you did it, how you did it and what the results were.

7. Education history should follow work experience or employment history. However, place it before if you have just recently completed your school education.

8. What credits, degrees or honors can you claim? What non-degree or non-credit training have you had? Be sure to clearly indicate the institutions and dates you attended or received your degrees. What other important things have you trained yourself to do?


What You Should Not Include:

1. Do not use a cover page

2. Do not put your picture on your resume

3. Do not use odd-sized or odd-colored paper or colored inks.

4. Do not put a border around the text or heavy lines between sections.

5. Do not make corrections by hand. Spelling, grammatical and typographical errors reveal carelessness. Make changes on disk and print a clean copy.

6. Do not include salary. Too low and you may not even be considered. Even worse, you may be hired for less than your worth- a trend that is difficult to reverse once started. If your range is too high, you might also be eliminated from the running. Salary is best discussed at the appropriate moment during an interview.

7. Do not include Race, Religion, Sex, Date of Birth, Marital Status, Children, etc. This information is not relevant on your resume.

8. References. Make available upon request.


Sample Resume Structure:


Bill Smith, 1203-72 Street, Town, Province, Postal code, Telephone, Email

Career Objective: Looking for a permanent/contract position as an Accountant to apply my professional skills...

Professional skills:
Computer languages and software, research, laboratory, teaching or tutoring, communication and leadership skills

Work Experience:

Jan 1997 to date -

Nov 1994 to Dec 1996 -

Portfolio:
Memberships, Affiliations:

Education: M.A. in Accounting, University of Toronto 1995

References are available upon request.

Very handy tips there, and they are basically what I follow on my resume.

The interesting one is "8. References. Make available upon request."

Most people write their references, but I have always said "available upon request"

Which is better?

In my experience the references are the last thing that employers and recruiters ask for. They don't want to waste their time checking references if they don't know for sure if they want to hire you.

Yes, it pays to make them ask you as well.

It will inform you they are mildly interested in your application - at least interested enough to call you to ask who your references are.

This always gets my hopes up slightly.

If you chose to make references available by request, make sure you have them available on a separate printed sheet. It would not look good for you to be rifling through your purse or wallet for names and numbers, worse yet asking to borrow a phone book.