Resume-athon
Let's take the time to think about what the purpose of a resume is. The purpose of a resume is to make a good impression. It is your first chance to convince the employer why they should pick you over others applying for the job. It is also your personal advertisement. It's your marketing tool that demonstrates that your product, you, meets the expectations of a hired organization. It also clearly highlights your qualifications. It's an outline of your education, experience, activities, accomplishments, and skills. There are two types of resumes that we encourage students to have, a master resume and a target resume. Your master resume is an all-in-one resume where you upload everything that you've done, so every school, skill, job, etc.
into one place. This speeds up the resume writing process when applying for jobs. It is not typically submitted and it has no page limit so it can be as long as you need it to be. The target resume is tailored for a specific job, so when you're applying for a job you want to copy and paste relevant information from the master resume. Your target resume generally should not exceed one page, particularly for people who are now answering the workforce. Now let's look at some fast facts. Your resume should be one page long. Again, this is particularly for people who have not had much work experience. Employers take 6 to 12 seconds to look at your resume. This means you want to make sure that your resume is as clear and concise as possible. Always use action verbs to describe your responsibilities. This lets employers know what you are able to do. There are four essential sections of a resume. This means that every resume should include all four of these sections. The heading which includes your name and contact information, your education, your experience, and your skills. Your heading should include your full name, city and state, you no longer need to put your street address, telephone number, professional email address, and optional LinkedIn information. And here is an example. Your education should include the name of the college, the city and state, the type of degree you are getting, your major, your expected graduation date, graduation date for completed degrees, and GPA is optional, but if you choose to put it, we suggest 3.4 and above. And here is an example. Your experience must be listed in reverse chronological order, and it should include the name of the company, the city and state, your job title, the dates that you work there, you want to use month and year to present for your current job, action-based job descriptions with bullet points, use appropriate tenses, and awards, recognitions, and accomplishments are optional. And here is an example. Here is what your skills section should include, technical skills, which would be programs you are familiar with, and the level of proficiency, such as Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. Also languages that you speak. If you speak more than one language, you can have a language skills section. Be certain to accurately represent your skill level. For example, if you can read, speak, and write in Spanish or any other language, that is when you want to use the word fluent. And here is an example. Here is a tool that you can use to assess how well you can speak in another language. It is called Opti-Langle, and you can go to this site and it will tell you what proficiency level you are in that particular language. You want to make sure that you are representing as accurately as possible how well you can speak, read, or write in another language on your resume. Here is a resume template with the major sections pointed out for you. You'll notice at the top is our heading with the name and contact information. Then we have the education, and typically we recommend that students put their education first on the resume. You will notice the degree type and the major, Associate of Arts degree in Liberal Arts and GPA. Then is the work experience, and remember, your work experience should be listed in reverse chronological order, so your most recent job or experience should be first. And then at the bottom is the skills section. You'll also notice a couple other optional sections, which we will get to in an upcoming slide. Here are the optional sections that you can include on your resume. You may want to include optional sections if your resume is kind of short or you do not have any or enough work experience. So you can add a profile summary or a resume statement, some extracurricular activities that you are currently doing while you're in college, honors or awards, volunteer experience, relevant coursework, class projects, and certifications or licenses. So you want to remember that any honors, volunteer experience, or relevant coursework should be what you are doing now while you're at Kingsborough. Here is an example of a resume statement or profile summary. It is used to highlight your major qualifications. You can also use it to include relevant skills or keywords that employers will be interested in. And it also gives employers a quick summary of your professional experience. Here is a list of things that you want to leave off of your resume. It's important to make sure that you're not including anything that could be used against you. So, personal data, any information that may give away your age, such as your date of birth, your marital status, your religion, sexual orientation, etc. Any photos, of course, dependent upon the industry. Salary history, so you do not need to include what you have made at a previous job. Company addresses are not needed, only the city and state. High school, middle school, and elementary schools are not needed on your resume. Incomplete degrees, so for example, if you went to a school before Kingsborough and you did not complete the degree program, you do not need to include this on your resume. Oftentimes, this only raises questions with the employers. However, if you feel like you gained a lot of useful education during that time, you can always talk about this in an interview when the time is right. Objectives are currently outdated. We no longer need those on resumes. And references and or the statement references available upon request should not go on your resume. Here are some tips to make sure that your resume is formatted and organized as best as possible. You first want to make sure that your resume is always typed, should not be handwritten. You want your name to be big and bold, so your name should be the biggest thing on the page. Everything else other than that should be the same size. You want to bold or capitalize major headings. So, for example, you can bold experience, you can bold education, skills, etc. You can also use bold or italics to highlight any other items on your resume that you would like to stand out. Avoid abbreviations. Therefore, you should not have KCC on your resume. You should be writing out Kingsborough Community College. You can utilize the tab key for spacing instead of the spacebar. It will give you more of an accurate spacing. Use consistent formatting throughout. So whatever font you're using to start off with in your heading, you want to use that same font throughout the rest of your resume. You want to make sure that it's consistent. Print on high-quality paper. So for job fairs or interviews, you can go ahead and print on something called resume paper, which is just a stockier paper. Use font that can be easily read by employers. So Times New Roman, Ariel, Calibri, etc. You do not want to use any font that is script, cursive, anything that is too fancy. Not only will it make it difficult for employers who are quickly scanning resumes, but also for applicant tracking systems, which we will get into as well. You want to make sure also that you spell check your resume. Have another set of eyes look at it to pick up on things that you might not have picked up on. There's a link at the bottom for more tips on formatting your resume. As mentioned, let's talk about the applicant tracking system. The applicant tracking system, also known as ATS, is a software that enables the electronic handling of recruitment and hiring needs. It allows recruiters to filter hundreds of resumes by searching for key skills and titles in the resume that are associated with what's in the job description. So you want to make sure that you tailor your resume to include key words in the job description. For example, if a job description requires proficient use in Adobe Photoshop, you want to make sure that you specifically state that you are proficient in Adobe Photoshop if this is a skill that you have. So instead of writing proficient and using editing software, you want to be specific and state the name of the software. Another example is suppose a job description is asking for a cash handling experience and you know that this is something that you have done in the past, be sure to specifically state cash handling experience on your resume. You also want to avoid using fancy templates and fonts, also any lines and colors. As mentioned before, the applicant tracking system does not pick up on this. A recommended resource that you can use is called JobScan. You can actually upload your resume and the job description on there and it will let you know if your resume will be picked up by the applicant tracking system and if not, maybe some things that you can add to it to make sure that it is. Let's look at some tips for lengthening and shortening your resume. You may want to try to lengthen your resume if you do not have much experience to include. As mentioned earlier, you can try adding additional sections or the optional sections, such as extracurricular activities, awards, etc. You can also separate skills into their own categories or utilize more vertical spacing and adjust your font size a little, although it shouldn't be any bigger than 12. You may want to shorten your resume if it becomes too long. Think about the jobs you are applying to. Make sure you are mostly including experience that is actually relevant to the job. You should shorten the number of job descriptions, so if you have 12 bullet points for one job, you should go through to make sure that you are not repeating yourself and that you are including things that are most relevant. You can also make use of horizontal spacing, make your font slightly smaller, and adjust the margins a bit. Keep your resume polished, updated, and accessible. Procreate your factual, spelling, and grammatical errors. Ask professors, friends, family, and others for feedback. You can also meet with an advisor and see 102 of the Career Development Center. Keep it updated. Remember to set a reminder to update your master resume regularly. Save a version in Word and PDF, email as an attachment to yourself, or save on the flash drive. As job seekers, it is important to be as truthful as possible on your resume. Here are some common lies to stay away from. Hiding employment gaps, which means extending employment time at one job to avoid having a gap on your resume. Focused college degrees, indicating that you received a college degree from a college when you did not. Embellished experience, so over-exaggerating your responsibilities at a particular job in a particular role, and then language proficiency, stating that you are fluent in a language when you may only know specific words. Employers can find out all of these incidences with a little bit of research, so it's best to stay away from putting any lies on your resume. Here are some tips for addressing employment gaps. Be open and honest about your gaps. Employers can find out if you are not telling the truth. Provide context in the cover letter. Do this if you feel comfortable, and you feel like the reason is good enough that it wouldn't turn an employer off. Stay productive in between jobs. Attend career and networking events. Learn a new skill and highlight your efforts on your resume. Be confident and optimistic. Practice how you will address employment gaps during an interview. And consider using a functional resume that highlights your skills and experiences and not the dates. There are three types of cover letters that can be used. These are the most common types. The application letter, the referral cover letter, and a letter of interest. The application letter is the one that you typically use to apply for a specific job opening. The referral cover letter mentions the name of a person who referred you to a job. And the letter of interest inquires about possible job openings at a company. Just like your resume, the cover letter requires certain components. The heading, which includes your name and your contact information. The greeting, which includes the name and contact information for the company. And then the body of the cover letter, which includes an introduction, the name of the position you are applying for and how you heard about the position. Two to three previous work or education experiences to support why they should hire you. And then thanking the employer for their time and noting your availability for follow up. You will also include a closing and your signature. Tips for a great cover letter. You want to make sure that you always send the cover letter unless they say not to. It would not be a good first impression if you sent your resume without a cover letter when the job description specifically states that a cover letter is required. Research the position and company so that you can have a little bit of that information to put in your cover letter. Have a strong opening statement that makes clear why you want the job and why you are right for the position. It can be a little enthusiasm, but keep it short so that it can be right at a glance. Don't try to be funny as this often falls flat. Do not send generic cover letters. Each cover letter should be customized for the specific job that you are applying to. Do not go overboard with flattery. And do not treat it like a personal essay. It should include relevant experiences and motivations, not your life story or any detailed personal information. Here is a cover letter sample and you will notice at the top the contact information of the person applying for the job and then the contact information of the company. And then in the body of the cover letter you'll notice the position the person is applying for. Relevant work experience and education experience and skills that support why they should be hired for the job.