Preparing to Write Your Resume

Most people are immediately obssessed with the formatting when they begin resume writing. What should it look like? Where should I indent? What type of paper do I use? What's the most persuasive font? While format is important, it’s the last thing to think about. First, you have to decide what you are going to put on the paper.

The easiest way to start out is to write out brief summaries of your experiences to tell yourself what you have done and accomplished. You can write it in whatever form is most comfortable. Evaluate yourself, including jobs you’ve had, duties you’ve taken on, accomplishments in school or work, skills you’ve acquired, and any education or training you have received. Don’t leave anything out at this stage. Include volunteer work, employment, school projects, and activities.

Having trouble? That’s not surprising. Nobody said it was easy to pick yourself apart and figure out your best features. You spent most of your life with people telling you not to brag and now you have to sell yourself. Most students find themselves at a loss when it comes time to really explain what they have done. They tend to underestimate their own lives. Here’s an exercise that can help. Imagine an average work day at a past or current job. What are the things you did? What are some of the challenges you faced and overcame? What were you most proud to have done or learned? What made you a good employee? What made you successful outside of school? Write everything down. Don’t edit or worry about formatting just yet. Try to be very specific. Quantify wherever you can (handled over 200 calls a day, etc.)

The next step is to rank your information in order of importance from an employer’s perspective. Ask yourself these questions:

• What would you be most interested in if you were an employer? Education? Interests? Work Experience? Personal Qualities? Activities?
• If you had 100 resumes how would you get through them all?
• How would you decide who to interview

If you’re having trouble putting yourself in an interviewer’s position then try using something concrete to guide you. Pull up an advertisement from an online posting for a job in which you might be interested. Try to choose a longer job description as it will give you the most information. Take a highlighter and mark the sections of the job that share what they want in a candidate. Look for buzz words, descriptions, and specifics. Pay special attention to skills that are a must vs. those that are preferred. This will help you look at your list from an employer’s perspective. I recommend trying three different job descriptions to give you some variety.

Now its time to put your list and their list together. Looking at what you wrote about yourself, decide what are the things that would best sell you to this employer. The lists won’t match perfectly, and in fact, you are probably woefully under-qualified. Don’t worry about that part. At this stage, you are just trying to understand the organization and its needs. If you wanted to work for this organization, what skills, traits, and experience do you have that they might find appealing?

Now that you know yourself and your audience, it’s time to start writing.