Résumé Content

Overview

Deciding what to include in your resume and how to write it up is where most of the work comes in — it is in the careful wording of the body of your resume that you can really sell yourself for a position. Ideally, you should review your resume for each position to which you are applying, particularly to include any accomplishments that you would not include in a generic resume, but that are relevant to that particular job, and to reorganize and rephrase your content to best suit the position.

Regardless of the format, potential employers expect your resume to be be clear, accurate, and up to date. Your resume represents you in your absence, and you want it to do an excellent job.

According to the published results of a study conducted by The Ladders, recruiters spend an average of six seconds skimming a resume before deciding whether the candidate is a good fit – or not a good fit – for the position. In other words, based on a resume alone, and applicant can be rejected in just six seconds. The report, titled “Keeping an Eye on Recruiter Behavior: New Study Clarifies Recruiter Decision-Making” is only for content pages, but it’s worth a read.

You don’t want to be represented by spelling or grammar errors, as they may raise questions about your education, attention to detail, and dedication to the position. Particularly in cases where hundreds of applicants are applying for just a few positions at a big company, recruiters and hiring managers are looking for a reason to thin the pile of resumes they need to read carefully before deciding on which to interview. Don’t provide them an easy excuse to toss your resume at the start of the process. Do your best work the first time. Plan carefully, write rhetorically, and edit meticulously.

Resumes are subjective. Although there is no such thing as perfect resume organization or format, there are basic elements that employers look for: contact information, a summary of qualifications, education, and work experience. when you are on the job market, you may also decide to include an objective statement, a section of leadership positions, volunteer experience, and/or honors and awards.

Contact Information

This section is located at the top of the document. Include your full name, mailing address, primary phone number, and email address. You may also consider adding a URL to an up-to-date LinkedIn profile or online portfolio if they highlight your accomplishments and represent you professionally.

Temporary/Permanent Addresses:

If you maintain two addresses (e.g., a campus and a residential address), make it clear when you can be contacted at each. For example, if you can be contacted at your on-campus address until graduation in mid-May, then provide that indication.

Email Addresses:

Use a professional-sounding email address. You can certainly use a Gmail, Yahoo, or similar provider — just be sure the user ID portion is professional.

Consider using FAU Lifetime Email Forwarding. According to FAU’s Alumni pages, you can

Take advantage of a new benefit available for Florida Atlantic University alumni – lifetime email forwarding. This email forwarding system allows you to create a personalized FAU email address that can be forwarded to an address you have with any other email provider … for life! (More at FAU Lifetime Email Forwarding).

Middle Initials:

According to a 2014 study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, researchers van Tilburg and Igou found

…the display of middle initials increases positive evaluations of people’s intellectual capacities and achievements. We document this effect in seven studies: Middle initials in authors’ names increased the evaluation of their writing performance, and middle initials increased perceptions of status. Moreover, the middle initials effect was specific to intellectual performance, and it was mediated by perceived status.¹

So use that middle initial! Don’t have one? Make it up! (Again, a resume isn’t a legal document.)

Trans* Applicants & Names:

A resume isn’t a legal document, so if your legal name is different than your given name, you have a couple of options. You can use your first and/or middle initial and last name (T. Smith), you can include your preferred name in quotation marks (Michael “Tina” Smith, or M. “Tina” Smith), or you can use the name that matches your identity (Tina Smith).

But what should you do?

Dr. Jillian T. Weiss at the Billerco Project suggests “The answer to this question depends a great deal on the type of job you are applying for, how “out” you are, and whether your previous name is requested in an employment application.”

More Advice and Information for Trans* Job Seekers:

• FAQ for Trans* Job Seekers, from the RIT Office of Career Services and Cooperative Education
• Writing an Effective Resume: When to Use Your Transgender Name from Resume Professional Writers
• Lambda Legal

Objective

Professionals, hiring managers, and academics are generally divided on the use of an objective statement. Some find it redundant because they already know your objective is to get a job. Other find it useful as a means to quickly assess whether or not your qualified for the position and as a means to frame the rest of your resume.

Additionally, it’s an opportunity to demonstrate that you’re applying for a particular position (at a particular business) where you hope to use particular skills well-suited to the job. It’s a way to separate yourself from the “resume spammers” who write one version of their resume and “cast a wide net” by sending it out to lots of companies (sometimes whether or not they’re even hiring).

Your goals in crafting an objective statement are three-fold:

• Immediately demonstrate that you meet the major qualifications for the position
• provide a framework through which the reader can assess your resume
• show what you will bring to the position in order to benefit the company

Typically, an objective statement contains 1) the position title, role, or function, and 2) the skills, experience, and/or education that both qualify you as applicant and will benefit the organization. Optionally, an objective statement can include 3) the name of the company or organization to which you are applying and 4) the industry in which you hope to work.

Examples:

Summary of Qualifications

The summary of qualifications is a broad statement of self — a little like an infomercial or elevator pitch — that answers the question, “Why should you hire me?” It summarizes the resume in 3 to 4 bullets or sentences and provides an “executive summary” of your document. The content/ language of the summary of qualifications should align with the qualifications, skills, and experience as written in the job ad.

Education

List your education in reverse chronological order, with your most recent degree first. List the school, degree, and the year of completion (or expected month/year of completion, e.g., “M.A. English, expected May 2016”)

Unless you went to a particularly noteworthy high school (such as a magnet school or prestigious private school) then should not include your high school on your resume.

Including a high school on your resume gives away your age—the younger people are, the more likely they are to include their high school on their resume. In a job market where you may be competing against people who are older and have more experience, your general age might not be the first thing you want your audience to know about you. besides that, if you are attending or have graduated college, recruiters and hiring managers will assume you graduated high school.

Selected Coursework

Particularly in situations where you don’t have a lot of work experience or experience relevant to your future career, or in situations where you’ve taken advanced or specialized coursework in your field, you may want to include a section of “selected coursework” to help fill out your resume and show where you learned/how you’ve used the skills you claim on your resume.

Perhaps you used your leadership skills to lead a few of your peers during a group project. Perhaps you demonstrated your understanding of engineering estimation skills in STA 4032: Probability and Statistics for Engineers. Maybe you created a portfolio of designs in ARC 4504: Architectural Structures 3, or perhaps you demonstrated a 15% increase in investment returns as part of a FIN4504: Investment Analysis.

If you decide to include a section of relevant coursework, consider leaving the course prefixes/numbers out (those vary by university anyway) and using course titles instead. Along with the course titles, be sure to provide a short description of the course content, objectives, and/or projects, and/or the concepts and skills learned. You can start by looking at the FAU Course Catalog section for your academic program, but be sure to write a description of the courses in your own words. Often, the course catalog descriptions don’t provide a good summary of the courses themselves, and in some cases, the catalog descriptions are unclear (for a variety of reasons).

Example

Work Experience

Action Verb Lists

185 Powerful Verbs That Will Make Your Resume Awesome from The Muse

Action Verbs — By Skills Categories from Quint Careers

Resume Action Verbs, from Colorado State U. and the Way Back Machine

MORE ON

Verb/Accomplishment
Statements

List your employment history — including the positions, companies/organizations, locations, and dates — in reverse chronological order. Use bulleted lists to describe your accomplishments, skills demonstrated, and/or knowledges/abilities acquired. Additionally, you may also consider a bullet that succinctly describes your duties.

The most effective resumes will focus on your accomplishments and strengths — not just the positions you held — and will use (dynamic) action verbs to emphasize skills, experiences, abilities, and results and describe duties and responsibilities.

Examples:

• Prepared state and federal tax returns for individuals with incomes under $25,000.
• Conducted interviews with over 50 individuals to elicit data regarding taxes.
• Determined legitimate tax deductions and recorded them accurately.

The most effective accomplishments are quantifiable and include numbers to back them up. If possible, indicate dollar amounts, percentages, or numbers to support your achievements. However, as mentioned in Resumes: Part 1 under “It Quantifies Your Accomplishments,” many entry-level applicants (like newly graduated college students) won’t be able to indicate quantifiable results. If you are unable to quantify results, accomplishments, or achievements, then qualify them.

Find a way to speak to quality, effectiveness, and achievement as they pertain to your essential job duties and to soft skills such as communication, leadership, and time management skills — qualities that every employer values. Indicate skills you developed, demonstrated, or improved in order to ensure your success in the position and meet the organization’s goals.

More about Soft Skills for Employment and Career Success:

• The 20 People Skills You Need To Succeed At Work from Forbes
• 6 Soft Skills That Guarantee Your Success from Forbes
• Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills: What They Mean to Your Job Search and the Weight They Carry With HR from Huffington Post Business

Skills
Résumés

Skills

A skills (or functional) resume works best when your individual skills are more appropriate for the job than your general work history. A skills resume may be better for college students and recent graduates, as it allows you to combine skills from work, school, and volunteer activities.

A chronological resume has “Work Experience,” as a section/major heading, and may have headings like “Volunteering,” “Awards,” etc., with items under each heading organized in reverse chronological order.

In a functional or skills resume, the major headings are skills related to the position, for example “Leadership,” “Organization,” and “Communication.” Under each skill/section heading, you can combine information from paid jobs, unpaid work, classes, clubs, activities, community work, etc.

What Skills Should You Use?:

Obviously, you should possess the skills you claim to have. Beyond that, it’s best if you can frame your skills to reflect those mentioned in the job ad, those commonly required of the position, and skills every employer values.

Additional Recommendations for Skills Resumes:

• Under each skill/section heading, include bullets with verb statements showing where you gained the skill, how you’ve used it, to what result, etc.
• Use strong, action verbs, and if possible, quantify (or qualify) outcomes and results. Those verb statements should “prove” you possess the skills and abilities you claim.
• Consider how the skills are phrased in the job ad, and if needed, shift your language. (For example, while “logistics” and “planning” mean roughly the same thing, if the job ad uses the word “logistics,” then you should use the same language. While skill in “purchasing” may be synonymous with skill in “procurement”, if the job advertisement uses “purchasing,” then you should too.)
• As a rough guideline, you should include sections/headings for 4 to 6 skills, at least 3 of which should come directly from the job ad (the most specific or most important skills required of the position).

Read more on Functional/Skills Resumes:

• How to Write a Functional Resume: Tips and Examples from Business News Daily

Awards & Honors

List awards and honors, particularly if you have three or more. If you have only one or two, consider including it with information in another relevant resume section. For example, if you have only one award, “Employee of the Month,” if you are writing a chronological resume, you could include an indication of the award in your “work experience” section under the job title and business where you earned it. If you are writing a functional/skills resume, you could include an indication of the award as part of a section of points on “customer service.”

Unless you’re sure the audience knows about the award (and knows its purpose and/or selection criteria), be sure to include an indication of what the award is for, who its from, and how it’s awarded/earned.

Unless you’re sure the audience is familiar with the acronyms you might use, then spell out the full names of organizations and/or awards (you can put the acronym in parenthesis if you choose—see NCTE Award in the “Clear” column below).

Memberships (Professional, Academic, & Other)

If needed — if you have a lot of memberships in clubs, organizations, or societies — you can create a section that lists your involvement. As with awards and honors, unless you’re absolutely sure your audience recognizes the name of the club, organization, or society, then be sure to explain what it is and what its for.

Unless you’re sure the audience is familiar with the acronyms you might use, then spell out the full names of organizations (you can put the acronym in parenthesis if you choose—see NCTE Award in the “Clear” column above).