Resume writing toolkit

As you start to build the basis for your resume, pull 2-3 job descriptions that interest you. At this stage, these do not need to be jobs to which you plan to apply.  Use them to get oriented to the language, qualifications, and desired experience employers are seeking when recruiting for people with your skillset and job interests. Take these job descriptions and highlight the common language, skills, and qualifications that these employers state they are looking for AND that you offer.

In the example below, you see an excerpt from two position descriptions for an HR Manager role. The job seeker has highlighted responsibilities and skills listed in the job descriptions with which they have experience. Where there was overlap, they used the same color to denote the commonalities between descriptions.

Job description excerpt #1

Job description excerpt #2:

Professional branding as a tactic is possible for everyone and at all stages in career development. It involves stating clearly and persuasively your target profession and why employers should want you to do it. For the purposes of your resume, think of it as a combination of your target position and the essential skills you have to perform in that role. Add a few descriptive words and you have a working professional brand for your resume.

Here’s the basic structure and some examples:

• Influential, innovative HR manager, specializing in building a culture of community and high performance.
• Energetic, thorough, web-savvy market research analyst, supporting businesses to make informed product decisions

Tips

• Look at your resume brand as a guiding principle. You may or may not write your brand word for word on your resume but no matter what, the essence of your brand should be clear to readers. You can check this by asking a few people you trust to review your resume. Then, ask them, “Do you know what job I’m targeting and the key reasons why I am a good fit for it?”
• You can tailor any words you use in your brand to the language in the job descriptions. When it comes time to finalize your resume, mirror the employer’s language and descriptions to align yourself with their needs.
• This brand may or may not change a lot from one resume to the next. It depends on how similar the jobs are that you apply to. Always make sure your resume is addressing these questions:
  • What position are you targeting?
  • What benefit will you bring to the employer?

Key skills and qualifications should appear in the top half of your resume, under your headline. Plan to list around five qualifications on an actual resume, but for preparation purposes it’s fine to create more since you can choose the ones to feature at the point of applying for a specific job or opportunity. Make sure to plan descriptions to go along with each qualification.

See the example below from an HR Manager seeking technology sector employment:

In addition, if you have specific proficiencies that may be required for the job that you are not able to incorporate into your qualification summary, list them out. You may choose to weave these into the language in your professional experience section, or you may choose to list them all at once under your qualifications. 

Here’s an example of a list used by the same HR Manager:

Many people may have job titles or even a work history that can look similar to others, but everyone’s specific set of accomplishments are unique. If you use accomplishment statements to describe your past and present professional experience, you can set your story apart from others. Keep in mind that professional experience can include paid employment, academic projects, or volunteer activities. 

For each job or project you include on your resume, list 2-5 accomplishments including the elements you see below: 

Action Verb +  Result + Actions

So for each job, start by drafting something that looks like the following:

Resumes tend to follow a standard structure. Your goal should be to have compelling information on the top half of the page that inspires the reader to keep reading. Every should lead with a strong headline and summary of qualifications that standout visually on the page. Below, we discuss the two most common resume structures.

The Standard Chronological Approach

Most people should follow the structure depicted in this resume. In that resume, the job seeker presents information in this order:

• Name and contact information
• Headline
• Summary of Qualifications
• List of skills (optional)
• Professional Experience
• Education
• Awards and Acknowledgments (optional)

The Modified Chronological Approach

In less common situations, it may make sense to move the education experience higher on the resume. The two reasons you might do this include:

1. You are graduating from college, or are a recent college graduate with a very limited amount of professional experience. Even in this scenario, it’s usually preferable to present your education on the bottom and place internships and volunteer work higher on the page. However, if you feel that your education is your highest priority qualification, you can move it up.
2. You are a recent college graduate and your specific degree plays a critical role in your qualifications for a position. A good example of this scenario would be if you are seeking a nursing position. Nurses have very specific educational requirements and displaying these higher on the page might be a good strategic choice to prove that you have the required qualifications.

For this approach, the structure would follow the one seen in this resume. Here, the job seeker follows this order:

• Name and contact information
• Headline
• Summary of Qualifications
• List of skills (optional)
• Education
• Professional Experience
• Awards and Acknowledgments (optional)

Ultimately, you have the power to choose whichever structure you feel best represents your strengths. The fundamental principle to follow is to lead with your biggest selling points. With this at the top of page and easy to see at a glance, readers will be eager to look more closely at the rest of your resume.

Once you are planning to send out your resume, either for a job or a networking opportunity, it’s time to narrow down the information to the key elements. This means taking a close look at your headline, summary of qualifications, and accomplishment statements to include information that is most relevant to the opportunity. For some, resume adjustments may be minimal. For others who may have more than one type of job they’re applying to, or who need to adjust details to really speak to a unique opportunity, the targeting process may be more involved. In general, you should answer the following questions to determine the necessary changes to your resume:

• Does my resume headline speak directly to the opportunity?
• Do my qualifications show the valuable impact I could offer?
• If I have more than five featured qualifications, are they all directly relevant to the opportunity?
• Do the accomplishments statements compliment my targeted headline and summary of qualifications? 

With the steps that we walked through at the preparation stage, most of the answers to these questions should be yes. In some cases though, you may need to redraft some content, or simply choose the most important parts. At this stage, it should be less about drafting novel content, and more about selecting what to feature and making small adjustments to what you already have.

Before you send your resume off for a job opportunity, take a close look at the specific words the employer uses in the job description and their website. You can also look at the LinkedIn profiles of people working at the employer or similar employers. Pay close attention to the specific words they use to describe their mission, processes, and areas of knowledge. Because there are a variety of ways to describe things, it can make a big difference to align your language with that of the employer. It’s of higher importance to do this if the employer is likely to use an applicant tracking system which stores resumes from candidates and then surfaces them to a hiring manager based on a keyword search.

Here are a variety of tips for formatting and finalizing a resume. 

• Choose one or two fonts that are easy to read. Arial and Calibri are frequently used.
• Use font sizes of 11 points or more. Use a slightly larger font for your name.
• Use 1 or 2 fonts; use italic, small cap or bold variations if needed.
• Use generous margins and spaces between sections.
• Be cautious in the use of color, graphics, and positioning, unless you have professional design training.
• If using colors in your emailed or uploaded resume, remember that the recipient could be printing on black and white.
• If using bullet points or a list, try to use the same grammatical structure for each item. For example, if you start one bullet point with a present-tense verb, start the others with a present-tense verb as well.
• Use present-tense verbs for current jobs (e.g. creates, prepares)  and simple past tense (e.g. created, prepared) verbs for jobs or experience in the past.
• Don’t use multiple spaces or multiple tabs to position text horizontally; use center-tab and right-tab stops as needed.
• Don’t use multiple paragraph breaks to position text vertically; use paragraph spacing options as needed.
• Tables can be a good way to position text, both horizontally and vertically, if used correctly, but most chose to hide the gridlines.
• After creating the resume, check and resolve any spelling, punctuation or grammar issues flagged by the word processing program.
• Your finished document should be one or two pages and should look neat and uncrowded. Resumes may be longer for senior-level or academic positions.
• Unless instructed otherwise, it’s best to save and send your resume as a PDF (Portable Document Format). Most word processing programs provide an option to save as PDF.