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Help for Students: Resumes

May 1, 2009

Resume writing is hard. How do you sell yourself on a couple pages? Potential employers often look through a pile of resumes looking for one that stands out… often giving them each about 30 seconds. Your goal is to make an immediate positive impression! Create a resume that captures the essence of who you are and what you have to offer. Update your resume at the beginning of each semester. You’ll need it when applying for internships, co-ops, jobs and even graduate school.

Getting started.

1. You should make a work sheet. This is to gather your information – objective, address, phone number, courses, credits, certificates, schools, licenses, activities, awards, employers, previous jobs (all the info that goes with each job), volunteer activity, etc. Everything you need to include on your resume should be included in your work sheets. (Chronological worksheet) From there you can put it into order and decide what exactly needs to be said.

2. Use action verbs when resume writing to communicate your accomplishments in the experience section of your resume. Here’s a couple examples.

Without action verbs

Company Name, 123 Anystreet, Your Town, ON
Human Resources Intern, Summer 2008
- Duties included administrative tasks in an office setting.
- Responsible for distributing a survey to current employees.
- The needs of recent hires were collected, documented, etc.
- I was involved in a variety of other activities, as needed.

With action verbs

Company Name, 123 Anystreet, Your Town, ON
Human Resources Intern, Summer 2008
- Worked with a project team on the redesign of New Employee Orientation.
- Created a survey to use with current employees. Received an 80% response rate.
- Interviewed 15 recent hires to gain insight into the needs of new employees.
- Wrote report and presented results to project team.

3. Resume Do’s and Don’ts. Always be brief, clear and concise. Be honest… you con’t want to let on that you’re good at everything… we all have our downfalls.

4. Have your resume critiqued by someone who will tell you what needs to be changed or pumped up a little. (Highschool students could get a Guidance Counsellor to take a look.)

5. Write a cover letter that pertains to the job you are applying for.

There are many types of resumes. The internet has a wealth of tips and free templates that are available to download. These should help ease the pain of having to come up with a killer resume. Good luck with your job search!

Written by Deb · Filed Under Recent, Skills, The Area, Youth, theOwen 

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