Resume Content : What to include

Ingredients of a Resume:

There is no magic recipe for an effective resume. Just a few basic ingredients and you'll have a document worth presenting to an employer.

You do not have to spend tons of money to end up with a presentable and professional resume that will serve the purpose.

Career changers and those job-seekers with varied work experiences and accomplishments may want to utilize a functional resume style (we'll cover that tomorrow in part II).

A basic type of resume that will suit both entry level and career seekers without an extensively long list of jobs is known as a chronological resume. Here are the key elements:

Name and contact details:

This will be the information by which employers or recruiters will reach you. Keep this up to date at all times.

Include your name, address, phone number(s), and e-mail address.

Ensure that if you include a phone number you want that phone number used (ie. a work number is not always well advised). Also, people often change cell numbers or don't keep their cells on. It is preferable to offer a home and cell if possible. Keep your email addresses professional - some emails may be funny to friends but would lift an employer's eyebrow on a resume (I could share some "funny" email addresses that weren't so funny on a resume). Make sure it is appropriate to what you are trying to present. Bold your Name and centre the whole section.

Job Objective
If you choose to include this keep it short and sweet. Come at this with the attitude of what you want to offer as a contribution to the position or the employer's organization.

Key Accomplishments

Think of this section as an executive summary of your resume; identify key accomplishments that will grab the attention of an employer. Do this in bullet points if at all possible. An extremely long paragraph summarizing everyting will lose the impact of important accomplishments.

Education and Experience:

You can choose to do these two sections next, in either order. If you only have a small amount of experience because your a new grad you'll want to start with education. If you have 2 or more years of related experience start with experience first and follow with education.

Education
The education section will include include school(s) attended (including years of attendance), majors, degrees, and honors and awards received. If your degree happens to be from a country outside where you are applying include and equivalency testing results that you have received from authorities within the country where the job is located. Make sure your dates and facts are correct as this is often part of the fact checking when an offer is being considered. You should expect that an employer will ask for evidence of education presented on your resume.

Include additional designations and certificates that you have completed in the education section. If you do have an additional designation go ahead and use it after your name in the contact information area. This makes your qualifications easier to identify right off the top.

Employment Experience

This section should include company name, your job title, dates of employment, and major accomplishments. List experiences in reverse chronological order, starting with your most current experience (just a little tip, don't go backwards it will confuse everyone! Trust me). A helpful addition that I particularly like is a one sentence description of the company's product or service. If I'm looking for someone with a food background but I don't know that's what ABC company does because it is not apparent in their name this will help you get it across.

List your responsibilities and accomplishments in bullet format (rather than paragraph format).
Use action words/verbs when describing your accomplishments.

Affiliations/Interests

You can include this if you want. It isn't required.

References
"References will be made available upon request" - (This will conclude your resume)