Job Applications and Resume
What is a Resume?
Resumes are what people use to get jobs, right?
Wrong!
A resume is a one or two page summary of your education, skills, accomplishments, and experience. Your resume's purpose is to get your foot in the door. A resume does its job successfully if it does not exclude you from consideration.
To prepare a successful resume, you need to know how to review, summarize, and present your experiences and achievements on one page. Unless you have considerable experience, you don't need two pages. Outline your achievements briefly and concisely.
Your resume is your ticket to an interview where you can sell yourself!
Resume FAQ
What should the resume content be about?
It's not just about past jobs! It's about YOU, and how you performed and what you accomplished in those past jobs--especially those accomplishments that are most relevant to the work you want to do next. A good resume predicts how you might perform in that desired future job.
Why your resume is important?
It's the first meeting between you and a prospective employer. First impressions are lasting ones. Well, your resume is the first meeting between you and a prospective employer more often now than ever. So, how do you want to be remembered? Wrinkled and unorganized or Neat and structured. Long and boring or Precise and interesting.
Main purpose of resume writing
Your resume is a tool with one specific purpose: to win an interview. A resume is an advertisement, nothing more, nothing less. A great resume doesn't just tell them what you have done but makes the same assertion that all good ads do.
What resume writing isn't?
It is a mistake to think of your resume as a history of your past, as a personal statement or as some sort of self expression.
Focus on the employer's needs and not yours
Employer is not much interested in your needs but in company's. Ask yourself, what would make a perfect candidate for this job. What does the employer really want and need? What special abilities would this person have? What would set a truly exceptional candidate apart from a merely good one?
Great resumes has two sections
In the first, you make assertions about your abilities, qualities and achievements. You write powerful, but honest, advertising copy that makes the reader immediately perk up and realize that you are someone special.
The second section, the evidence section, is where you back up your assertions with evidence that you actually did what you said you did. This is where you list and describe the jobs you have held, your education, etc.
Objective of Resume Writing
Your resume should be pointed toward conveying why you are the perfect candidate for one specific objective or job title. Good advertising is directed toward a very specific objective.
