Mar 10

Free Resume Formats – The Structure to a Winning Resume

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Searching for free resume formats on any of the search engines can yield 1,000’s of results – which can lead to endless confusion when writing a resume.

There’s no need to be confused. Generally speaking there are only 3-basic resume writing formats used by all job seekers. New formats are starting to attract some attention, but 99% of all the resumes submitted are in one of the 3 basic styles or formats.

The 3 most commonly used resume formats are: Chronological, Functional, & Combination (Hybrid). Each one is used to provide structure to your resume and display your information in a clear, concise manner. The format you use to write your resume will depend on a number of factors. You want the style that works best for your particular situation and clearly presents your skills & qualifications to the employer.

Chronological Resume Format is very popular with the majority of employers. However, other styles are gaining in popularity. It is an excellent format for those who’ve had a consistent work history and are seeking employment in the same career field or industry.

It is not a good style to use if you are a new graduate, have gaps in employment, or are a career changer.

Functional Resume Format focuses on highlighting your skills, accomplishments, and experience with little or no attention to specific dates. It emphasizes your skills and/or functions that are directly related to the job qualifications.

It is a good resume for career changers, graduates, and new people entering the job market. It is not as popular with employers as gaps in employment are not as noticeable.

The Combination Resume Format is just what it sounds like. It is a combination of what’s good about a chronological and functional resume molded together to present your skills & qualifications to an employer.

This format works very well for many job seekers and is gaining in popularity among employers.

So remember, when looking for free resume formats, Keep It Simple and boil it down to the three mentioned above to structure your winning resume.

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Mar 09

The Functional Resume – Avoid at All Costs!

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In the current job search marketplace, there are really only 2 major resume formats: the CHRONOLOGICAL format, which lists positions starting with the most recent and working backwards, and the FUNCTIONAL, which typically has a “Selected Highlights” or similar section listing ALL career achievements, followed by an abbreviated work history. While the latter has been a mainstay over the past few years, what most recruiters/hiring agents won’t tell you is that they RARELY, IF EVER work! Here’s why:

PROBLEM #1: FUNCTIONAL RESUMES ARE CONFUSING

The typical hiring agent spends LESS THAN A MINUTE scanning a candidate’s resume. Within that time, the single most important thing they need to know is: what have you ACHIEVED? A Functional resume, while seeming to help achieve this through consolidating successes within a single section, actually DOES THE OPPOSITE! It is all-but-impossible to summarize an entire career within a few bullet points. Therefore, what usually occurs is a highly confusing jumble of details and metrics that do nothing but waste a hiring agent’s time, and will, more often than not, result in an outright rejection.

SOLUTION: A Chronological resume contains a concise list of bulleted successes for every job. This keeps your work history CLEAR while greatly increasing the readability of the document.

PROBLEM #2: FUNCTIONAL RESUMES PROVIDE NO CONTEXT

The typical functional resume focuses so heavily on the “Selected Highlights” section that there’s little-to-no room left over to describe job responsibilities! As important as quantifiable successes are on a resume, they mean nothing without the context provided by an effective job description.

SOLUTION: A Chronological resume starts every position with 2-4 lines describing unique responsibilities, setting the stage for the bulleted successes that follow. This ensures that even a reader with zero knowledge of your industry can perceive your unique value.

PROBLEM #3: FUNCTIONAL RESUMES ARE NOT TRUSTED

If you’re considering using a Functional format to cover up a gap in your work history or other potential issue, think again. Recruiters/hiring agents are trained to pick up on these issues at a glance, and attempting to paper over them via a Functional resume will only call FURTHER ATTENTION to it.

SOLUTION: A Chronological resume honestly tackles work gaps and other issues within your work history, allowing you to mitigate the potential harm to your candidacy.

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Mar 08

Sample Teacher Resume

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Sample teacher resumes are the first step for any teacher who needs to write a teacher resume. When you want to apply for a teaching position you can get tips from a sample teacher resume to help you create your own unique resume. Since teaching methodologies have changed, if you are returning to the teaching profession after some time or if you are a recent graduate, your resume should reflect that you have knowledge of how to use these methodologies. You do need to highlight your accomplishments and demonstrate areas of strength in your teaching profession.

Teaching is one area where educational background is just as important as work experience. However, like all jobs, you learn more in your first year of teaching than you ever could in five years of university. This is where you put the theories you learned to the test in actual practice.

Your resume should start with a summary of your profile as a teacher. In this section, you showcase areas of specialty or areas where you feel you made a contribution to the teaching profession in your most recent assignments. You can also include the accomplishments you made in areas of extra-curricular, since taking part in after school activities, such as coaching and supervision is an important part of a teacher’s job, even though it is not paid.

Since “balanced literacy” is the buzzword in every job posting, your resume should demonstrate that you can deliver a balanced literacy curriculum in your classroom, whatever the grade level. This includes providing details of the use of guided reading, literature circles, small and whole group discussions and hands-on learning.

If you have training outside of the regular university courses, you must include them in your resume. It is best to include these professional activities in a separate section, especially if you have a certificate from the course. Some of the areas that you could include in this section would be any professional development that you took part in, such as attending seminars.

The resume for a teaching position is only one part of the process for obtaining a teaching position. There will be many resumes similar to yours submitted for each job posting. You may need to submit many resumes before you are even contacted for an interview. The tip that you should remember is to tailor the resume for each job that you apply for. If you have experience teaching several different grades, concentrate on your skills and accomplishments pertinent to the grade level advertised for in the job posting.

Copyright 2007 Jay Tokarz Career Expert

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Mar 08

Resume Writing — When Spell Check Is Not Enough

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Okay, I am dating myself, but when I was starting out, the only tool we had was the typewriter, which meant that if you wanted to submit an original copy of your resume, you had to type each and every one individually, along with the cover letter. As inefficient as this may seem in today’s world of automated everything, it forced us to ensure that spelling, grammar, personalization and customization were correct.

In today’s world of personal computers, there is no excuse today for typos and poor grammar. Regardless of how obvious this may be, I receive lots of resumes and cover letters every year that are poorly formatted, grammatically incorrect, and chockfull of misspellings.

Remember, spell check will pass on homophones. Don’t know what a homophone is? This is where you typed “there” or “they’re” but really meant “their.” “My great work at XYZ Company helped improve there bottom line by $1 million.”

Likewise, today’s automated checks will not tell you that your cover letter is addressed to Company A in the salutation, but describes Company B in the body of the letter. Believe it or not, I receive many cover letters addressed to me followed by the name of my company in the salutation, and then go on to describe in the body of the letter how the applicant would be a great addition to the team at some other organization. Cover letters aimed at finding employment are not good choices for mail-merge. Do not — repeat — do not reuse cover letters. The danger of not properly personalizing your introduction to the company to which you are applying, or leaving something in the body of the letter from a previous version, is too great a risk for the few extra minutes of retyping.

I also receive resumes from many applicants who have mastered the art of poorly formatted resumes. In a “what the heck was I thinking” flash of creativity, people often use all sorts of designs to draw attention to their resumes. Marquee-size fonts, mixed fonts, too short, too long, disjointed, resumes on gaudy stationery — I’ve seen them all. Clear, simple, concise, and classical styles work best, on a good solid white or ivory stock paper.

So don’t squander your great work experience, solid academic foundation, and valuable extracurricular accomplishments by botching your resume or cover letter. Take the time to rethink each cover letter for the position and company to which you are applying and truly personalize each and every introduction. Put your resume and cover letter aside and reread it after a few days. Find one or two trusted colleagues and ask them to read it as well. You may be astonished at your own reaction after reading your resume anew after a few days, as well as that of your close acquaintances.

Remember, you have one shot to get your foot in the door. Typos, grammatical errors, and formatting faux pas will land your application in the trash for sure, and could close that door forever.

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Mar 08

Sample Resume Objectives – Read, Don’t Copy

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The resume objective statement is typically something that trips people up.

Confronted by the silent challenge of the blank page, most folks Google for “sample resume objectives”. They hope that’ll help.

Probably not.

I say that because sample resume objectives often are like sample resumes, or sample cover letters, or sample anything. They’re samples. They aren’t exactly what you need. They’re fine for generating ideas, I suppose, but they come with a temptation.

Remember that apple affair in Eden? Well, the serpent made an attractive offer, and swept the downside under the rug. Adam and Eve went along. It seemed okay at the time.

The temptation with sample resume objectives is to copy them. You know, copy and paste? That’s not necessarily evil, but it’s often a lazy way out. Nobody will ever know, right? Maybe, maybe not.

Maybe nobody has ever said this to you before exactly this way, but you need to hear it. Your resume needs to be all yours. It’s fine to get ideas from samples, but it’s unwise to copy them.

The way I describe this to people is that your resume needs to talk like you do.

By all means, put your best foot forward. A resume isn’t supposed to be conversational. It’s supposed to be professional. It’ll be at least a little more polished than the typical lunchroom chat.

But if you don’t use the word “conceptualized” in normal speech, and you can’t define it off the top of your head, you probably don’t want it on your resume.

The same goes for sample resume objectives.

If you copy and paste a sample resume objective (or work experience, or qualifications, or anything), at least make sure you know what all the words mean. Maybe change the order of the points in there. Replace words you don’t know with equally good ones you do. Learn to love your thesaurus (but don’t go for weird words).

In other words, own your objective.

Remember, your resume should be selling you, not some mythical person writing checks your real-life performance can’t cash. Don’t set yourself up for failure.

(c) Copyright 2005 by Roy Miller

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Mar 08

Google – The Best Place For Resumes

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Google has everything; you can access information from ants to elephants and from machines to highways on the website. The company is one of the biggest globally and is a ‘cyber wonder’. Google is used for employees to seek jobs and for employers to scout for talent. It is beyond doubt the best place for accessing CV’s. Everyone posts their resumes on Google. Thus the effort of the companies to hunt for people using various means has disappeared.

Online visibility is very important in this modern world and it is necessary that your resume needs to be on Google. As an employer you can find resumes on Google. There is talent out there that needs to be exploited. Having a resume of Google will help you find the job as there are many job givers out there. International talent search can be exploited by the employers by viewing their resumes on Google.

After all aren’t the human resources the most important foundation of your company and it’s overall marketing strategy. You need to find the best people in the least amount of. Find resumes on Google, you will be able to select many people for your company.

As a job-seeker, your resume should be comprehensive; it should contain your accomplishments, your blog and your assets. You would then be assured that it will be viewed by online talent search websites or individual companies. You should write as much about yourself as you possibly can. A CV on Google will help you get closer to your dream.

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Mar 08

Creative Ideas for Writing Your Resume

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There are basic rules for writing effective resumes. Those rules are not discussed here – they may easily be found on the Internet by looking for “advice for writing resume” or “resume tips” on any major search engine.

Rather, this article focuses on making your resume stand out among thousands of other resumes that employers see.

You should follow the basic rules of resume writing, and then use the following tips for giving your resume that unique twist.

Hope this advice helps you land your next great job!

You are also welcome to contact me if you have some questions on the subject.

Write “Case Studies” of your successful projects:
Even if you include all the basic information needed in a formal resume, there are bound to be other good applicants competing for the employer’s attention.
Writing one or two “case studies” of projects or achievements you’ve been a part of can help you demonstrate the qualities and skills that you bring to the workplace. It will also enable the reader to become more familiar with the person behind the formal data, and give them something to remember you by.

Commit to achieve specific results for the prospective employer:
You should take care not to boast or seem like you think too highly of yourself. However, if you are able to research the company you are applying to and the specific job and its requirements, you may be a bit more bold by writing down some of the things you believe you can achieve on that job.

Try to be specific about results and timetables – e.g. – “I intend to increase the sales of the product in existing markets, and explore to 2-3 new markets within six months”.

Stress your ability to learn from everything:
In almost every profession and organization today, the ability to learn and improve is one of the most important traits, if not the most important one.
You may show how you, too, consider learning to be a major objective by adding lines to the resume that detail major things you’ve learned on past jobs, through your hobbies, travels, etc.

It will also make your resume more personal and interesting to read – e.g. “One of the major things I’ve learned from this job is how to be an effective team member, and how to be open to the ideas of colleagues”.

Begin with your favorite quote or motto:
A short sentence adds a touch of your personality to the resume. Be sure to choose a quote or motto which is in line with the values and requirements of the company and position you apply to.

Make it as honest as you can – it will look more credible if you just pick one to please the reader.

Fun idea – recommend great websites: Add a section on the end of your resume which is titled: “My favorite websites”. This is especially appropriate if you are applying for a job that is related to the Internet.
However, you can also make it work if you choose websites that are related to the application – make a list of your choice of marketing advice websites for a marketing professional job, for example. Make sure you pick high quality sites and check that they are active – or you will be seen as unprofessional.

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Mar 08

How to Write an Effective Resume – A Resume That Will Stand Out

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I’m going to take a wild guess and say that you’ve learnt how to write an effective resume. In schools they’ve been teaching students how to write effective resumes since the olden days! But let me tell you right now, that the methods are changing. Back a few years ago resumes were simple, these days they’re more complex. So forget all you’ve learnt about writing resumes, bin your current resume. It’s time to leave the old tired methods of writing behind and enter the new era of resume writing.

These days writing an effective resume isn’t just important, it’s vital. So is presenting your resume. A well written and presented resume will do you justice and ensure your resume actually gets read by a potential employer. I’ll let you into a little secret, potential employers don’t have time to read every resume they receive. They simple scan each one for a few seconds! But when they find one that’s presented nicely and is well written they read right through to the end! It should go without saying that a well written and nicely presented resume is the way to go!

Before you started writing your new effective resume, you have to put yourself in your potential employers shoes. Think about the job role you’re applying for, the requirements for the job, what they’re looking for etc. You better have qualifications related to the job role you’re applying for, that is a requirement! But understand that most people applying for the same position will have the same qualifications. So you have to be more unique so you stand out from the crowd. Are they looking for a team leader with stellar leadership skills? Great! Include your hobbies and other activties where you demonstrate leadership skills. In my case, I’m a captain of a local soccer team.

Always remember to sell yourself in your effective resume, that’s the only way you can stand out and beat out the other competetion. Brag about your qualities all day long.

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Mar 08

Functional Resume Format – Ideal If You Have No Experience

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Graduating from college is probably one accomplishment you can take pride in. All your hard work has finally paid off. You are aching to enter the job market and put what you have learned to good use and finally earn that first paycheck. Eventually, you find out that looking for a decent job is not as easy as it seems. Most employers are looking for someone with experience. And you have no professional experience to speak of.

As a fresh graduate, it is best to target entry-level jobs as employers will generally expect not too much from you in terms of work experience. They do expect, however, that you have a degree majoring in a subject related to the role you are seeking. They will expect you to have some general experience learned from summer or part-time jobs and other community or volunteering involvements. So, how do you best present this information? This is where a functional resume format plays an important role.

It is applicable if you have just graduated and have no professional experience. Using a functional resume format, you can put more emphasis on your skills and competencies rather than a chronological order of your employment. As such, a functional resume format is popular among college students and fresh graduates keen to enter the corporate world for the first time.

Making a Functional Resume Format

1. Start your resume with a clearly defined career objective. Ensure that your career objective is relevant to the position that you are applying for. Your career objective must also indicate what you can offer to the company in terms of the skills and experience that you bring.

2. Your educational attainment is listed next on a good functional resume format. Include the university name, location, year graduated and subjects you majored in. List honors and achievements you received as this shows excellence in what you commit to. Trainings and courses undertaken can also be listed in a functional resume format as long as it supports the requirements of the role.

3. An important part of a functional resume format is the section for skills and competencies. Rather than listing work experiences in order, use the required skills and competencies as subheadings. If a role requires someone with an experience in customer relations, then you can use “Customer Relations” or “Customer Service Skills” as subheading. Then list duties and tasks that support and validate this competency. You will have a lot to work out from by considering your part-time or summer jobs, volunteer works, school projects you headed and the like. If you have good proofreading skills acquired from working for the school paper, then highlight it if you want to be employed as a proofreader. A functional resume format can work wonders if done right.

4. Include a section for references in the last part of the resume. As a recent graduate, you can use teachers and professors as references. However, you need to let them know beforehand.

Now, that you have a basic idea of the structure of a functional resume format, put that knowledge to good use. If you need some samples of how it is presented, the internet is a good place to search for. It offers plenty of useful samples of a functional resume format to use as a guide in making your own.

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Mar 08

How To Make A Resume Stand Out — Smart Strategies To Beat The Competition

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When you’re applying for a job and competing against hundreds of other candidates, it can sometimes seem impossible to get noticed, however well suited you are for the position. That’s when a powerful resume and cover letter come into their own, raising your profile to make your application stand out from the rest. Here are six strategies to help you present your talents with panache:

Understand and promote your ‘personal brand’. Can you identify what it is that makes you a uniquely valuable asset in your work? Which of your professional attributes are you most proud of — and, more importantly, how would an employer benefit from them? Develop a statement of your most powerful selling points as a self-marketing tool.

Have you targeted your resume? You may be describing your skills and attributes, but it’s important that you speak to the needs of the hiring company. Don’t get so bound up in talking about yourself that you forget to highlight the features of your skill-set that are most likely to appeal to your prospective employer. Sure, it takes a little more time to personalize your resume for each application you make — but you’ll avoid giving a bland and generalized impression.

Show, don’t tell. Aspiring writers are taught to show their characters in action rather than just describe what they’re like — so use this technique to validate the summary statement of your skills. Don’t let unsubstantiated claims raise doubts in a recruiter’s mind. Give quantifiable evidence of your achievements where appropriate — dollar amounts, percentages or other measurements — to convince and impress an employer.

Make keywords work for you. Did you know that more and more employers are turning to digital solutions to help them screen candidates for vacancies that attract large numbers of applications? Including industry-specific keywords in your resume raises the likelihood of scoring a relevant match when your resume is scanned. Look at the job description or advertisement to research terms that ought to be used. These might include:

names of widely known companies
job titles, such as consultant, administrative assistant, customer service, bookkeeping
competency statements, such as change management, staff development, team leadership
professional certifications
IT skills, for example database management, CAD or knowledge of particular software programs
other terminology or acronyms familiar to professionals in your industry

Organize the information in your resume to focus on your strongest features. Do you want to illustrate your career progression over time, or would it be more effective to highlight clusters of skills you’ve acquired through a variety of roles? Many recruiters prefer the reverse chronological format — but it may not suit a candidate who has changed careers or whose last position is not what qualifies them best for the job they want now. Try drafting a chronological and a functional version of your resume and compare them side by side to see which structure gives the better picture.

Make it a good-looking document. If your resume is your professional calling card, it’s not unreasonable to expect an impeccable standard of presentation. Spelling mistakes and poor grammar are pet peeves for many recruiters and can consign your entire application to the waste paper basket. Proofread your resume and cover letter carefully — and don’t be too proud to ask a trusted friend for help if you need it!

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