Creating a resume can be a daunting task, but it is a necessary step towards employment. Moorelands youth leadership programs, Youth LED and VITAL are designed to give kids the skills they need to succeed in the future. As our programs have ended for the year and some of our participants will be looking for jobs we’ve created an outline taking you through what it takes to create a good resume.Before you start creating the perfect resume thoroughly go over the job posting taking note of keywords in the job description. You can also do some additional research by going to the employer’s website and learning about the business; how it operates, who are their employees, who it serves, and what are its services. This information will become useful when tailoring your resume.The content of your resume is the most important part. Your goal is to tailor the content of your resume to prove that you are qualified for the job.
Name and Contact Information
Your name and contact information (email, phone number, address, and LinkedIn) should be at the very top of the page. It should be the first words that the recruiter reads, so they know who this resume belongs to and how to contact them.
Education
Including your education is necessary on a resume, especially for jobs that look for applicants with a particular academic background.
Qualifications
This is where you briefly introduce yourself, what job you are applying too, your skills, your experience and how they apply and qualify you for the job. When writing this section, refer to the job posting, making sure to include the skills, qualifications, and objectives that the posting mentions.
Skills
Use this section to show how your personal knowledge ties into the job posting. For example, for the job of a Communications Associate including proficiency in Microsoft word, excel, powerpoint, etc., in the skills sections is a good idea.
*Note that you don’t need both a Qualifications and Skills section. You can have one or you can combine the two. It all depends on how you have chosen to tailor your resume.
Work Experience
This is the section where you summarize the most important and relevant information from your work history. For this section make sure to keep your work experience relevant to the job you are applying for. In bullet points summarize your position, responsibilities, and achievements in that position. When describing your position, responsibilities and achievements make sure to tie it back to the job posting or additional information about the business. If you lack work experience, you can also use relevant volunteer experience.
Achievements
This is another optional section or section that can be combined with another. In this section, you list or summarize your achievements. For example listing that you won an essay contest would catch the eye of a recruiter looking to hire a Communications Associate with a strong writing background.
Relevant Courses
While not a necessary section, if you are a student, recent grad, are taking or have taken a course that can apply to the job, then you can add that to your resume.
References
You do not need to add your references until you are asked by a recruiter.
Wording
Lastly, how you word your content is important, so here are some resources to help you.
Forbes- Best and Worst Words to Use on a ResumeWhen formatting a resume readability is key. According to Business Insider, recruiters only spend about six seconds looking at a resume so utilizing white space, sectioning and formatting your resume will increase readability and allow for easy navigation.
White Space
You don’t have to fill up the whole page, make sure to strategically leave spaces to section out your content.
Sections
Just as you have outlined your content earlier make sure to section it out accordingly by using white space, line breaks, headings, different fonts and text styling such as bold and italics. This makes your resume look neat, organized and increases readability.
Length
Keep your resume short; your resume should be no more than one or two pages. Here are some resume samples from Monster.ca and resume Templates for Microsoft Word to help with formatting.
In the competitive workforce having well-crafted resume can give you the extra edge needed to get your dream job.
Written by Vimbai Chikoore