Resume 101: Make yours snap

By Alison Maxwell for Gannett News Service

Bio 101, Psych 10 and English Lit. — no problem. Late-night parties and all-night study sessions — piece of cake.

Finding your first real job and writing your first resume — not so simple.

Much like the college-application process, preparing your first resume can be a daunting task.

"College students tend to doubt themselves and their abilities," says Regina Pontow, author of Writing Proven Resumes: Strategies That Increase Salaries and Change Your Life. "They say 'Oh, I worked at McDonalds that doesn't mean anything.' What they need to think about is the positive skills they gained. To succeed they need to push themselves."

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Think of your resume as a very expensive advertisement.

"If you were taking an ad out in the newspaper to sell your car, you wouldn't use your space to say it has a faulty transmission and a zillion miles on it," says Linda Conklin, a career coach at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "You're paying for every single word in opportunity cost."

Content counts

Being concise while providing detailed, applicable information is key for rookie resume writers.

Your resume should be a short marketing piece, not an autobiography. It "should highlight the things that you will take to a job, and help a prospective employer see you in that job," Conklin says.

Whether you use an objective or summary statement depends on the individual, says Ruthann Haffke, a career counselor at the University of California at Berkeley

"It's really a personal choice," she says. "If the student needs filler, a summary statement makes sense. But a real tight objective can work if the student has a lot of experience."

What's an objective statement? Try:

"OBJECTIVE: Position in public policy research." Or "OBJECTIVE: School district teaching internship."

If you choose a summary statement instead of a traditional objective, write four sentences about yourself and what you are trying to achieve.

Conklin suggests: "A recent graduate with a background in economics. Strong computer skills and experience in Web design. An enthusiastic learner and capable problem solver with a creative flair. Experience in advertising and marketing."

Pontow also recommends using a summary statement, but suggests including just one summary sentence and adding bullet points highlighting specific experience:

Seek a customer service position using the following experience summary:

• Overseeing customer service procedures for up to 600 customers daily, processing sales in excess of $2 million annually.
• Utilizing MS Word and Excel to prepare departmental documentation and managerial reports.

Once you've written your objection or summary, succinctly state your educational background.

According to Haffke, the best format is: Name of school, major, degree received, graduation date or projected graduation date.

For example: University of Missouri-Columbia, Journalism, BJ, May 2001.

If your degree included courses in areas relevant to the position you are applying for, list those course titles. Honors and grade-point average information is optional.

Job experience is perhaps the toughest, but most valuable section of the resume. Don't fret if your work experience consists of waiting tables and working the graveyard shift at the student library. These experiences can be molded into useful resume information.

"If you've had a job as a waitress, be creative," Conklin says. "What did you learn? You learned to deal with cranky customers or an impossible work schedule. If you drove a forklift for a summer, don't write 'operated a forklift.' What the resume reader wants to know is what you are bringing to the party."

Don't just write down your job title and a couple sentences. Expand on that to include your duties and skills. What revenue did you bring in? How many people did you supervise? How did you personally improve operations?

"Students have to do some serious soul-searching because the worst thing a student can do is tell me things I already know," Haffke says. "If they were a secretary, I know they filed and answered phones. Use the resume to show me the things they did that were unique."

Did you learn how to use a 15-line phone? How many people did you manage the phone lines for? In other words, find the skills that differentiate you from the competition

Looking good

Appearance isn't only important when you start interviewing. It starts with your resume.

"Most prospective employers take about 30 seconds to read a resume," Conklin says. "The information needs to jump off the page. It should be attractive, not too dense with plenty of white space. You're creating an image."

Experts agree that new graduates should have a one-page resume. Keep the type at 12 points, using Times New Roman or Arial fonts.

Include an e-mail address with your personal information, but make sure your address is professional.

"Your school e-mail address is best — not yourname@hotbods.com," she says. "Anything that makes it look like you're conducting business from a coffee shop is suspect."

To be a true resume know-it-all, job-seekers should familiarize themselves with how to send resumes electronically.

Find out which format the employer prefers. Some recruiters prefer attachments, while others prefer resumes included in the text. If you can't ask, send the resume both ways in one message.

When including a resume as an attachment, use a common word-processing application like Microsoft Word. Choose a file name the recruiter will associate with you, like doejohn.doc. And make sure the resume is virus-free. Send it to a friend to confirm it's easy to open.

When pasting a resume in the text of an e-mail, avoid using underlining, bullets, colored text, bold or distinctive fonts, and HTML codes. Instead, use asterisks, plus signs, dashes and capital letters to highlight text. Limit lines to 60 characters width to avoid line wraps.

"The common complaint I hear from students is 'but it doesn't look pretty when I send it in the text of an e-mail,'" Haffke says. "My answer is if this is the employer's preference then all of the resumes will look the same. It becomes more of what you say than how it looks on the page."

Next Steps:

• Set aside a few hours to outline your job experience and skills. The key to a successful start is getting some general ideas down on paper.
• Meet with a career counselor to discuss resume strategies, then flesh out each section of your resume.
• Read, read and re-read. Have several people proofread the final version.