Resume Guide

A resume is a summary of your educational background, employment, internship, student teaching and volunteer experience, special skills, and any other information that you think helps you become more marketable. An effective resume, while emphasizing what you have gained through past experiences and achievements, is focused on your future work performance. Thus, it should communicate the potential you have to contribute successfully in a new work setting.

As you prepare your resume, think about the impact it has upon the employer. If it is well done, it can communicate your competence and your interest in the position. Conversely, if it is disorganized or has mistakes, it can communicate a lack of willingness to do a job well.

BASIC GUIDELINES FOR YOUR RESUME

• Make your resume neat and easy to read. Use a clear, crisp font (12 pt. if possible)
• Accent the positive. Emphasize your strengths and accomplishments.
• Make certain your resume is current; do not send it with an outdated address or phone numbers.
• Spell correctly, and make certain your grammar is proper.
• Omit personal information such as weight, marital status, date of birth, and photograph.
• Avoid excess narrative. Write in phrases, leading with action verbs. This eliminates the need to use personal pronouns, like "I" and "my".
• Use dates in the employment and experience sections; however, avoid excessive use of dates in other categories.
• Print only on one side of the paper, staple multiple pages together.
• Omit salary requirements. If a job announcement asks, include information in your cover letter.
• Length should be dictated by the amount of information you have to convey. Never try to crowd two pages of information on to one page. Have your resume critiqued by someone who can help you eliminate unnecessary information.
• As a rule, stay with conservative colors such as white, off-white, or gray.
• Your resume should be printed on a quality printer or taken to a commercial printer for duplication.
• Please use e-mail and voice mail addresses and messages that convey a professional image.
• Include a cover letter with your resume whether you are sending it by mail, email or faxing it to an employer. For more information, see Letter Writing on the Career Services Home Page.

CONTENT SUGGESTIONS

A resume should promote your individual skills and strengths; however, there are categories of information that employers usually seek and you may wish to include (see below.) Keep in mind that these categories should be added, eliminated, or rearranged based on their relation to your strengths, background, and job objective.

Category headings may be changed to meet your needs. Be creative in developing your categories and the headings you give them. For example, you may wish to use "ACADEMIC BACKGROUND" instead of "EDUCATION", or "UNIVERSITY INVOLVEMENT" instead of "EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES." Consider specialized categories such as "RESEARCH EXPERIENCE" and "PRESENTATIONS AND PUBLICATIONS".

IDENTIFICATION

• Begin with your name in all capital letters as the heading.
• Include a complete present address and/or permanent address where you can be reached or a message can be left.
• Place telephone number(s) and area code(s) below address(es).
• Include your email only if you check it regularly.

JOB OBJECTIVE

• To maintain flexibility, you may choose to omit an objective on your resume. If not included on your resume, your objective must be included in your cover letter.
• Make certain your job objective will enhance your employability. Objectives, which are vague, will not tell an employer what kind of job you are seeking.
• You may want to avoid using the term "entry level" in your objective. In some organizations, entry level positions may be at a lower level than you wish to work.
• Keep your objective short. Typically, you should only address immediate plans in your objective. Not all employers will value your plans for graduate school or your interest in management. Also, your long range plans may change once you have been with an organization for a while.

EDUCATION

• Students from UW-La Crosse graduate in May, August, and December. Even if you participate in the May graduation ceremony, but take summer classes, August is your official graduation date. Your name will not appear on the official May graduation list. This is very important if an employer calls to verify your degree.
• List your degree, month and year of graduation first, followed by your major(s), minor and any special concentration or emphasis. Complete this information with your institution, city, and state.
• Include your grade point average if you feel it is to your advantage. You can give your major or minor area grade point average if either is better than your overall grade point average, as long as you identify what it represents.
• If you attended more than one institution, list the name and dates of others attended with the most recent school and degree listed first.
• As a rule, omit high school information.
• Academic honors or awards (dean's list, scholarships, honors graduate, etc.) may be included in this section or listed in a separate section labeled "HONORS AND AWARDS".
• Study abroad experiences may be listed in this section, or placed in their own section such as "INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCES".
• If you helped defray more than 75% of college costs, you may wish to indicate the percentage of your education for which you are responsible.

CERTIFICATION (if applicable)

• Include Wisconsin subject code number(s) and grade level(s) for education majors. Current certification numbers are available on the Wisconsin DPI web page.
• Include other certification information as appropriate to your education or profession. Do not include certifications that are not related to your employment interests. Appropriate certifications might include CPR or Water Safety Instructor for a recreation position, or CPA for an accountancy position. List only current certifications.

RELATED COURSE WORK

• This section is typically used only on resumes of those students seeking internships, fieldwork, etc. List the course titles, not the course numbers, of the courses you feel are relevant to the type of experience you are seeking.

SKILLS SUMMARY

• Utilize this section to outline special skills and knowledge that you will bring to the job. Examples might include laboratory skills, computer skills, foreign language skills, or communication skills.
• Describe yourself according to your ability, using qualifying adjectives such as extensive knowledge in..., basic understanding of..., exposure to..., etc.
• Use course descriptions from the university catalog to help describe knowledge gained in classes.
• If appropriate to the career you are pursuing, personal qualities and strengths may also be included in this section.

EXPERIENCE

• Consider categorizing your experience using headings such as Professional Experience, Fitness Experience, Sports Management Experience, Accounting Experience, Research Experience, or Teaching Experience. Within headings, list most recent position first.
• Introduce each position with job title, organization name, city, state, and dates of employment.
• Describe your responsibilities and achievements, the skills you gained, and the impact you had in your work experiences. Highlight skills that are valuable to employers. List most important job responsibilities first.
• Highlight student teaching, internship, co-op, clinical, and related volunteer experiences in a special category. Elaborate on details of these experiences as they relate to your job objective.
• You may want to include all positions from which you have gained meaningful experience; even positions such as wait staff or bartender. Often it is significant to an employer that you have gained work experience, even if the work itself is not directly related to your job objective. Do not, however, describe obvious or commonly understood responsibilities of such positions.
• If you choose to omit some positions, you may want to make a general statement such as: "Have held various other full (or part) time positions to finance college education."
• Describe your skills and responsibilities with action verbs. When applicable, use adverbs such as effectively, successfully, or consistently. Use quantitative descriptions when possible.
• Many employers want to know the dates of previous employment. You may, however, wish to de-emphasize dates by listing them after the city and state or after the description of each position.

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

• Include memberships, offices held, and other involvement related to your profession.

COLLEGIATE/COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

• List campus and community organizations including athletics if you have been an active member. Include offices held, committees, responsibilities, and results of projects and activities. This illustrates leadership qualities and how you spend your time. List significant offices held first.

REFERENCES

• Professors, intern supervisors, and employers are usually considered the most significant references. Their names should not be used, however, until they have agreed to serve as your reference. Do not use relatives, and as a rule, do not use members of the clergy.
• List at least three and no more than five references. In most cases, references will be telephoned about your ability to serve in the new position.
• There are several options for handling your references:
  • List names, titles, place of employment, and business telephone numbers of professionals who have agreed to serve as references, or
  • State that a list of references will be furnished upon request, or
  • Teaching candidates: List names, titles, schools, addresses, and telephone numbers (school and home) of professionals who have agreed to serve as references.
• Inform your references how this information will appear on your resume.