Black In Business

We spoke about listing out your most impressive credential first on your résumé. If you have heavy experience, and that is your most marketable trait, list you job history first. In situations where your education is it, list your University, major, and if over 3.5 GPA, your grade point average.
If you are a recent graduate with out much work experience, it is time to get creative. If you contributed to the cost of your education, relate the percentage you paid. A statement like, “I paid 75% of my educational cost through savings from summer jobs and part time works while a student,” is one way to point this out. It is impressive to have had to figure out the financial aspect of your education. Hopefully you have some internship related to your field you can itemize and refer to what you accomplished in the internships.
If you were active in the student body, list out your activities, such as sports or student leadership organizations. You should not refer to “the Friday afternoon drinking club,” as one of your activities. Another good item to list is volunteer organizations. Please make sure to visit your social networking sites to clean up any thing that may cause a hiring manager to question your judgment.
Those of us for whom our experience is the most vital selling point, a way to keep your resume to 2 pages or less, is to only itemize your most recent experiences. In a previous post, we spoke about listing 2 to 3 accomplishments for each position. I suggest you do not do that for positions over 15 years back. You can have a section called Earlier Career Experience. You would list the companies and position you held along with the timeframe. You should list any community involvement or board post you have held. It is not necessary to review your marital status or age.
Keep in mind, your resume’s job is to get you into a interview. You want to intrigue the hiring company but also save to best for the interview, yourself! In a future post I will discuss the interview. Please share your thought on resumes and job hunting here.