Resumes

Remember that the goal of a job-search resume is not to get you a job, but to get you on the short list of people who will be invited for an interview. Also keep in mind that your overall goal in the job search is to get you the right job, not just a job.

Use your resume to begin a conversation with an organization that might lead to a match.

Send your resume to someone in the organization in charge of the kinds of projects you'd like to do.

Identify readers within organizations who will understand and appreciate the arguments you make in your resume.

Remind yourself that your readers are likely to be busy, distracted, and perhaps skeptical or resistant when reading your resume.

Provide evidence that you can do, want to do, and will do.

You can make the will do argument (based on character) directly through mention of service or citizenship awards, for instance, or indirectly through the way you present yourself in the resume.

Include your name, addresses, and phone numbers and your e-mail address or URLs for your websites.

Make a direct claim about your qualifications or an indirect claim about your character in your career objective.

State your objective clearly, concisely, and concretely and focus on prospective employers' needs.

Clarify that you're looking for an internship, part-time, or summer job if you're not seeking a full-time, permanent position.

At minimum, state your degrees, majors and minors, graduation date, and locations and names of schools attended in the education section of your resume.

Consider including second majors, GPAs, certifications, significant classes, seminars or workshops, special projects, computer and foreign language skills, as long as they are relevant.

Use a chronological resume if you can demonstrate long-term interest and commitment in a field.

Use a functional resume if you want to stress your accomplishments and positions held.

Use a skills resume to stress abilities you've demonstrated through work experience and volunteer activities, especially if you're making a can-do argument based on technical and interpersonal competence.

Use activities and honors sections
to demonstrate long-term interest in a field
to confirm that your personality and preferences match those needed for the position
and to answer questions readers might have but can't ask (about health, for instance)

Indicate willingness to provide references to prospective employers as the last item in your resume.

Ask people ahead of time for permission to list them as references.

Select references carefully to help you make arguments about your technical and interpersonal competence and about your character.

Don't include information prior to the last two major mileposts in your career or information that is personal.

Talk about personal interests or hobbies that are job related only if doing so helps you make want to do or will do character arguments.

Your resume should be clean and neat, effectively formatted, and readable.

Document design should help readers spot your most important qualifications and your documentation of these qualifications; design should also make it easy for readers to contact you.

Use horizontal and vertical white space, side headings and lists, and an easily readable typeface to emphasize important information and make your resume inviting.

Present your experience concretely, using action verbs.

Select language that helps you to build your argument.

Follow the conventions of spelling, punctuation, and usage to show that you care about getting the job done right and that you pay attention to details.

Online Resumes

Design your online resume to produce hits for the sorts of jobs you're seeking.

Your online resume shouldn't look like your print resume; rather, it should be designed as a hypertextual screen document.

Make the argument that you can do the sorts of technical tasks readers are looking for, including using computers and the World Wide Web.

Instead of using action verbs and verb phrases in your online resume, use nouns in the text itself and in keywords visible to search engines: doing so will produce hits.

If you intend to send your online resume to an employment service database, keep it simple in design and typeface so that it will scan well.

Design your web resume so it's more complex visually than your print resume, using background textures and colors, font colors, and graphics and icons.

Avoid making graphics busy and distracting, however.

Design your web resume so it unfolds for readers: link initial web screens to concrete evidence of credentials.

Supplement your regular mail address and phone number with a mail to: line so people can contact you via e-mail.

For questions and suggestions, please e-mail us at kilbornj@stcloudstate.edu or rinkster@stcloudstate.edu.

The print version of the Instructor's Manual for The Writing of Business
was written by Robert P. Inkster and Judith M. Kilborn for Allyn and Bacon.
This web version of the manual was coded by Judith M. Kilborn.