A resume or CV is a very important application document, especially for those who seek employment. It is the only chance to demonstrate your qualification to a potential employer before you are invited for a job interview. Therefore, resume writing becomes more and more complicated as job seekers look for ways how to impress hiring authorities. With so many questions being asked today about how to write an effective resume or CV, we decided to start with the basics and explain what kind of information needs to be included in this main marketing document of yours. It may seem like an easy question to answer but that is not so. The truth of the matter is that too many applicants put on information that most hiring authorities are not even interested in. So if you made up your mind to write your own resume from scratch this kind of article should be very beneficial in order to deliver a professionally written application document.
What Should Be in a Resume?
Contact Information. The first thing you should say on your resume is your full name along with the contact details. Don't use any nicknames here. Use the form of your full name as it appears in your academic records or official documents. Include your contact phone number and email address so that employers could get back to you if needed.
Summary. This one is debatable as many resume writing experts argue whether or not this section should included. However, we believe this could be a good attention grabber if you know how to write it well. This is the section where you should emphasize your key qualifications and skill needed by employers. Since this information is the first thing hiring authorities see on your resume you really need to work on this section to make it both relevant and effective.
Work experience. List all of your employments in a reverse-chronological order. That means that most recent jobs go first in the list. Make sure you include the name of the company, your title and accomplishments/responsibilities for the job. Do it for every employment but don't go back over than 10-15 years. This experience will likely be overlooked anyway. Focus on results you achieved rather on duties you performed in order to demonstrate that you can contribute to the overall success of the employer.
Education & Training. Usually this section follows the professional experience section; however, sometimes it can be placed before work experience depending on the job requirements. Be brief here listing the names of educational establishments along with the degrees and graduation dates.
Skills. If you think there is anything else you should have said, you can just add it under the other skills section. For example, you could mention your technical or computer skills that would help you address job requirements of the position you are applying for.
Important Notes
You can obviously have more sections on your resume, such as community involvement, volunteering, etc. The only filter through which you should process all information before adding it onto your resume or CV is relevance. Any information you choose to include should be relevant for employers. In other words, it should answer the question that most HRs keep in their heads "How do these skills match our needs?". Throughout the entire resume writing process keep in mind that you are not writing your CV for yourself but for employers.
