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Resume Essentials | Resume Action Verbs | Cover Letter

Resume Essentials | Resume Action Verbs | Cover Letter

Resume Essentials

Initial Considerations

The goal of your resume is to get an interview with the employer of your choice. Most employers will spend about one minute looking at a resume. Therefore, it is usually best to keep it to one page and to make every word count. The main strength of the resume is the service you can provide for the employer.

The ABCs of the Resume

• Accuracy: be honest and specific
• Brevity: hit the highlights with action verbs; do not write in long sentences or paragraphs
• Clarity: invest time in layout and design; your grammar, spelling, and appearance should be flawless

Essential Content

• Contact Information: Keep this as streamlined as possible. Include name, address, phone, and e-mail address. For college students, listing a home and school address may help the clarity.
• Education: List your highest degree first. Include month and year of completion and institution. Give your major and minor. Depending on the position you are seeking, you may want to include applicable courses, grades, internships, and skills. Include GPA if 3.0 or above.
• Experience: List your most recent employment first. Give the years of service and significant duties. Highlight relevant employment. Use a variety of vivid language to clearly explain responsibilities. “Designed and implemented marketing strategy” is better than “helped with sales plan.” When an action verb is used with a direct object and level of accomplishment, the resulting phrase makes a much more complete and impressive statement. The combination describes what you did and how well you did it (i.e., Increased sales by 20 percent).

Optional Content

• Objective: Although an objective is not necessary, most employers have come to expect one. A good objective tells not only what you want (“To serve in a Christian elementary school in the Dallas area”) but also how you will benefit the employer (“to help young people love and serve the Lord Jesus Christ.”) Try to customize your objective for each particular employer when you print or email your resume. By including the employer’s name you are able to personalize your resume and stand out from other generic resumes.
• Accomplishments: This can be the most valuable part of a resume. List significant activities, awards, honors, interests, memberships, and offices. Some are easily overlooked: “employed since the age of eleven,” “appointed residence hall assistant,” “served as vice president of Phi Sigma Chi literary society,” “Employee of the Month (June 2009),” “performed in University Chorus,” “merited a dean’s list GPA while earning over 50% of room, board, and tuition.” Include only those that may prove helpful for the employer to know; an accounting firm may not be interested that you coached softball, but a school surely will.
• Skills: Sometimes it is appropriate to list specific skills in a separate area, especially if your field of employment requires certain languages, licenses, software applications, tests, etc. However, beware of overwhelming your prospective employer with unnecessary information. Stick to the critical essentials.

Resume Layout and Design

Avoid using templates: usually outdated, too restrictive for future editing, too lengthy because of excess white space.

• Your layout and design depends upon your employment.
• Your page should be balanced. An accountant or engineer will want to have a very classic and conservative presentation. A creative designer or a musician will want to employ a more adventurous and stylish presentation.
• Check out the resume examples to give you an idea of how to start.
• Use the highest quality paper. You cannot give too much attention to detail.

Preparation

Customize your resume for the position. Design your cover letter to match your resume (font styles and design). Prepare a separate list of references to give when requested. If you have a portfolio, streamline it, and know it. Attend an interview workshop and seek interview coaching. Posting your resume on CareerCentral, BJU’s online placement service, will greatly improve your exposure.

Scannable Resumes

Some employers are beginning to use technology and software packages to sort through the multitude of resumes they receive for a particular opening. Note the following guidelines:

• Don’t use any special formatting like bullets, tabs, boxes, indents, shading, etc.
• Use a basic font like Arial and font size between 11 and 12
• Keep your contact information at the top using separate lines for your name, address, phone number, email, etc.
• Only use capital letters for section headings
• Save as a plain text file in a pdf format
• Print it on regular, 8 1/2 x 11 white paper (don’t fold or staple)
• Don’t abbreviate words
• Describe your experiences using similar words that are found in the employer’s job description

Resume Advising Service

To receive timely assistance with your resume, current students and alumni are welcome to email your polished draft to Career Services. We will gladly review your draft and provide professional advice.

Resume Essentials | Resume Action Verbs | Cover Letter

Action Verbs

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Resume Essentials | Resume Action Verbs | Cover Letter

Cover Letter

A cover letter should always be included with your resume when it is mailed to a potential employer. Emailing an attached resume and cover letter is very acceptable as well.

Contents

• Why are you writing?
• What do you want?
• Why might your qualifications interest the employer?
• How do you plan to follow up?

Guidelines

1. The cover letter should always be addressed to a person if at all possible. If you are unable to find the person's name, you may address it to Director of Personnel, but that is not as good as the person's name.
2. A cover letter should not repeat everything on the resume. It may highlight some of the important parts such as your good background preparation, or you can say, “As you might note, my grade point average is very good.” Just briefly allude to any of those.
3. A cover letter can pick up some other fact that you may have omitted from your resume, or what you have done since your resume and didn't want to change the whole resume.
4. The letter should be 3 to 4 paragraphs and should be very positive and upbeat. It's always nice to hear a kind word about the company that the person represents, and if you can genuinely say you use their products or that you have heard some good things about them, that is fine.
5. Use a modified block or block style letter with the address of the company and the person.