 Welcome to the Job Search Preparation Resume Writing Workshop. I'm Cynthia White, Human Sciences Regional Extension Agent with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. Extension carries out the land grant mission of Auburn University and Alabama A&M University. We provide educational programs statewide through a network of county extension offices. I work in the areas of financial management and workforce development. This workshop will cover resume writing. As we know, most employers will require that you submit a resume in order to actually apply for a job with their organization. Now a resume is a written summary of how a person's skills, work experience, and education relate to a target job. A resume gives an employer insight into what an individual has to offer and opens the door to a job interview. On average, employers spend about 60 to 90 seconds reviewing a resume before making that decision on whether or not that applicant should move to the next phase of the employment process. This means that you have a quick second to get an employer interested in meeting you in person. So the materials that you present to that employer must communicate your qualifications quickly and clearly. Now a cover letter sets the stage for the resume. You always attach a cover letter to a resume when submitting it for a job application. Now the purpose of that cover letter is to motivate the employer to read the entire resume for the details. So you think of the cover letter as somewhat of a commercial that's designed to get the employer interested in learning a little more about you. So to be effective, that cover letter must emphasize your strongest job qualifications and should typically be kept to about one page in length. Now preparing an effective resume and cover letter is really not difficult, but it does require careful thought and requires that you think through exactly what content is going to be included in that resume and how to present that content in the most impactful manner. So putting forth a little extra effort in creating that resume and cover letter just puts you a little bit closer to landing that job and on the right path to achieving your employment goals. Now in this resume writing workshop, you will learn the guidelines to follow when preparing a resume, how to select a resume style, information that should be included in a resume, how to write and organize a cover letter, and how to format an electronic resume. Now we're going to start off with a resume writing checklist. This you will have to kind of look back on, it gives you some tips, things to always consider when creating or updating your resume. You can just frequently take a look at these items and make sure that they're always included. Write the resume to meet the needs of the employer. Place a strong summary near the top of the resume. Highlight skills that are relevant to the job. If you have trouble spots, include contents that point to your future, not your past. Include measurable details and action verbs. Include accurate information and avoid errors. Range information logically so that it is easy to read and follow. Design a resume that is simple and clean. Limit the resume to two pages maximum. Use an 11 or 12 point font. Use margins that are one inch wide all the way around. Use white or cream colored paper. Use black ink to keep color to a minimum. A few additional resume writing tips. Review the job announcement. You want to make sure you review that job announcement for the job qualifications and requirements. Then make sure that you match that information or your information to the requirements that are described in that job announcement. Consider the employer's perspective. Now the employer feels positions job openings to address needs of that organization. So what you need to do is paint a picture of how you can contribute to those needs for that organization. So you may have a laundry list of information or skills and requirements that you have for yourself. But you want to resist the urge to fill your resume with skills and accomplishments that have nothing to do with the job that you're applying for. Tailor the resume to the targeted job. Take a close look at what you have to offer and only include that training skills and experience that's going to show you as qualified and capable of doing that job and doing it well. Organize the information under headings and subheadings. Use clearly defined sections to make sure that that resume is easy for the reader to follow and understand. And now in each section, you want to place your strongest qualifications first. Always remember one size does not fit all. You will need to prepare a basic resume and then edit that resume for each job that you apply for. Typically the combination resume works really well for these situations because it contains your work history as well as your skills and accomplishments. So then you can just switch it up, make those edits to target the particular job that you're applying for at that time. Now there are several different resume styles and it is really important to use a resume style that makes your skills, your experience and your background really stand out and shine. So you want to look at a style and choose a style that minimizes any weaknesses that could possibly work against you but focuses on those positive things that we really want to stand out. So we're going to look at three different resume styles, chronological resume, the skills-based resume and the combination resume. Each style is going to be a little more effective in certain situations as opposed to others so you always want to use the one that makes you look the strongest and most impressive. The first style that we will look at today will be the chronological resume. Now the chronological resume typically benefits job seekers with a strong consistent work history. If there are any employment gaps that chronological resume is going to show them because it does list those states. And so that could be problematic if you don't want to reveal those gaps as well as if you don't want to show or bring attention to your actual age. Sometimes that could be fearing age discrimination or something. So if those are the things that concern you then the chronological resume may not be the style of choice for you. Skills-based resume which is also referred to as the functional resume is the next style that we will look at. The skills-based resume will have the skills and accomplishments front and center. They're going to be your focus. The skills are going to be organized in those relevant categories. And this one is particularly beneficial if the applicant has worked short-term jobs or has limited work experience or perhaps is changing careers or re-entering the workforce. Now the one con about this is sometimes employers review this or feel that this is one that is concealing information. So we have to make sure that we're careful about that as well. The next style resume is the combination resume. And we're going to look at a couple different samples of the combination resume. The combination resume is a combination of the chronological and skills-based resume. It will emphasize both the skills and the work history. So you can include relevant work history and skills that are relevant to this job but it does not focus on or highlight those gaps in employment. The next style is also a combination resume. This one shows the benefits of the job seeker that is looking to change industry or particularly change jobs or again re-entering the workforce and even veterans transitioning to a civilian position. It's going to focus on those skills, highlighting those skills, putting them up at the top. And so it doesn't bring a lot of attention to dates or work history. Style of the combination resume is one that is going to be easier or shows how it can be used with multiple pages. You're always going to use the page number in the event that you have to use multiple pages. Now, there are times, although they say don't use or you don't want to have more than one page, there are times that you will have more information than what will fit on one page. And if it's job-related skills and work history, then you definitely want to include that information. Try not to go over two pages, but always make sure that you include the page number. Now, we'll look at a couple of scenarios that will help you kind of look at the styles of the resume a little closer. This particular one is going to be James. James worked in the automotive industry for 15 years where he had a solid employment record. However, the plant closed down and James moved to another state. He is now applying for a job in the new automotive plant that just opened. He wants to move into a management position this time where he can utilize the knowledge and skills that he's developed over the years. If he is successful, it will be his first time in management. So what we have is James is currently in the automotive industry. He has a solid employment record, but his current employer closed, and that's the only reason he's looking for a job. So he wants to continue in that industry, but he wants to move into a management position. So in this situation, James would lose a chronological or combination resume. Because he has that solid work history, he can still use the chronological resume. Now, he's standing in that same industry, but he wants to move to a higher level position. So he would want to focus a little on his skills. So he does need to emphasize those skills and knowledge that he's gained over the years. This one is Brittany. Now Brittany just graduated from high school. She developed many skills through club participation, sports. She maintained a high grade point average and is looking for her very first job. She's worried that her lack of experience might prevent her from finding employment. So again, she just graduated from high school. She's been active in clubs and sports. She has a high GPA, but she doesn't have any work experience. So Brittany is going to go with the skills-based resume. This is her first job, and she needs to highlight her skills and accomplishments, achievements that she didn't necessarily obtain from employment but from other activity, other life experiences, which include volunteering, sports, clubs, and other activities. And next one is going to be Martha. Now Martha worked as a teacher's assistant in a daycare for three years. She now wants a job as a customer service representative at a call center. This will allow her to work the night shift and care for her elderly mother during the day. Martha is an active volunteer and has taken on many leadership roles in organizations. She has picked up a variety of managerial, organizational, and communication skills that are valuable to many employers. So our key points here. Martha is a teacher's assistant currently. She has three years experience so she has a steady work history. She's applying for a call center job, which is different from what she was currently doing. And she has many leadership roles and good business skills that she's developed outside of her employment. Here we're going to go with the skills-based resume because she's changing industry. It's not apparent that she has skills for the call center position, so she's going to need to highlight those skills and knowledge that she's actually obtained through life experiences like her unpaid volunteering and her community activities. Our next sample or scenario is Andy. Andy worked as a machinist for many years. When he got laid off, Andy enrolled in a computer programming course at the local college. So now he has a new skill set and he's looking for employment to use that new skill set as a computer programmer. So again, Andy's a machinist. He got laid off, which is why he's looking for employment. He's gained a new skill set during his time off and so he's looking for something to utilize that new skill set that he obtained outside of his work experience. So for Andy, we're going to go with the combination resume. While he does have a strong work history, he does also need and want to highlight that new skill set that he's obtained outside of his employment. So he wants to focus on that. So he's going to focus on the skills as well as his employment history. So we've looked at those three styles, or those scenarios, and I hope that those scenarios gave you a little more insight into how to choose the appropriate resume style based on your situation. And now we'll look at a little more at the actual resume and the contents that will need to be included in the resume. Now we know that that resume is going to be a summary of that person's history, work history, skills, and accomplishments. So that effective resume is going to be written to communicate a person's best qualities for that job. So to be considered a good job candidate, you're going to want to put your strongest information on that resume. The information must also make sure that it is relevant to that job that you're targeting. So to achieve those goals, you're going to look at four basic categories of information, that name and contact information, the skills and accomplishments, the work experience, and the education and training. So when we look here at our name and contact information, we want to make sure that basic your name, first and last name, using your middle initial or middle name is optional. Your street address, if you're not comfortable with sharing your full street address, just make sure that you include the city and state where you live. You want to make sure that you're using and including a working telephone number for your contact number. Make sure that the recorded greeting on that phone is a pleasant and tasteful greeting. So you also want to inform your family if someone else is available. So if you're using a house phone and other people might answer that phone, you want to make sure that you inform your family that you are searching for a job and you are expecting to receive phone calls from potential employers. That way you want them to make sure that when they're answering the phone that they are courteous as well and that they are quick to notify you of calls that are coming in. We also want to make sure that we're including an email address. Many employers are beginning to make communication for job candidates or with job candidates through emails. This means that you're going to need to have a working email address that you check frequently. So it's kind of a good idea to sometimes open a new email address that's set aside specifically for contact and communication with potential employers or people that are involved in that job search. This keeps your job related communications separated from other messages and using this separate email address will also help you to see and respond to those emails quickly and efficiently. You want to make sure that you choose a username that sounds professional. Perhaps that first initial and last name is an easy way to remember and it's also a safe way to develop an email address that's specifically for business purposes. Now I want to look at these skills and accomplishment section. A resume is going to be your personal marketing tool and it's designed to sell an employer on the idea of offering you an interview. So employers expect to gain a good understanding of what you can do based on what's in that resume. So a clear description of your skills and accomplishment is a must in your resume. So everyone has skills and accomplishments including individuals that have never held an actual job before. Throughout our lives we grow, we develop and as a result of that formal training some community involvement volunteering, parenting, internships, extracurricular activities, projects, just all of our life experiences we develop skills and accomplishments. If you look closely at the many roles and things that you've gone through during your life you would be surprised at the skills and accomplishments that you've actually accumulated. Now if you have one way that we can always do this is we also there's a tool online that's on the website mynextmove.org or even onnetonline.org and those are two websites that you can access and take a skills inventory assessment and that will help you to kind of pull out your skill set based on things that you've done throughout your life. Looking at your helps you to kind of guide you into taking an inventory of your life experiences where you have developed those skills and accomplishments and don't even realize it. Now there are also situations where individuals who are re-entering the workforce are identifying those skills for their resume may be a little more challenging. So you may have a new graduate and if they're looking to apply for a position this is their first job they may have to be a little more creative in considering skills that they learn through possibly coursework extracurricular activities volunteering, sports looking for those marketable skills for those new graduates might require a little more creativity so they might want to do a little additional research or additional skills assessment for sure into looking into extracurricular activities things that they've done throughout their coursework. Formerly incarcerated that may be another challenging situation to determine your skills and accomplishments and so you may want to consider looking at experiences and training that was obtained before that confinement and also looking at skills that were learned through a job or trade or certification that was done during your confinement or if maybe you were required to do community service you may want to consider your skills that you developed during that time and those might be skills that are actually marketable as well because it's always going to be important that you present that information in a positive way and not in a negative way. Again if you're just returning to the workforce you've been out of work for a while it's important to look for ways to overcome those gaps so it may be positions or short term positions or volunteer work community involvement or other experiences that actually took place during those gaps and those are also going to be when you want to use that skills base or combination resume to put that attention on your skills and not necessarily those fragments in your work history. Another thing is we're going to talk about those summary statements the summary statements that we want to make sure are included now the summary statements are also they've been referred to previously and by other names it might say objective we may have heard of it as referred to an objective we always want to make sure that we include our summary's statements as well that's going to be a common way to to make the skills and accomplishments stand out on that resume. The summary statement clearly communicates the most important qualifications and makes them visible right up front and employer can review hundreds of resumes but if an applicant's strongest points are not highly visible then that resume is likely to be tossed aside so an effective summary statement is going to grab that employer's attention and it just might keep your resume from hitting that file 13 also known as the trash being. A summary statement can take a few different forms and can be called different names and so what's important is to use a style that complements the information that you want to emphasize so you review let's review a few examples here we're going to look at the professional summary this particular summary summary points that are going to emphasize the points that you do not want that employer to miss out on so an example here is a certified electrician with experience in commercial construction proficient in electrical installation maintenance and repair of advanced electrical systems that possess excellent technical problem solving and communication skills and team oriented safety minded and able to work with minimal supervision that's an example of a professional summary where you have certain things that you want highlighted and don't want to be missed here's one if you want to highlight your qualifications and you just want to include maybe a bullet list of those relevant skills and so here's an example of those bullet points 18 years of varied experience in increasing responsibility in secretarial positions highly skilled and greeting customers and answering phone calls proven ability to handle multiple competing priorities in an effective manner through thorough knowledge of written English grammar spelling vocabulary and punctuation this one highlights those relevant skills and you can easily list them and have them stand out by using links another one is the skills and summary of skills this one again you're using those bullets if you're going to show those contributions to an organization showing those skills are in high demand and essential to that particular targeted job that one can look a little something like this this is the skills and summary and you just have them listed you know with the things that are important that you feel are in high demand and want to stand out this is an accomplishment statement now with your accomplishment statement it's going to show an action and achievements an example of that one would be increased volunteers from 25 to 60 over a two year period conducted 125 seminars for bank staff members maintain the company webpage and increased online sales by 20% in six months so this one focuses on those accomplishments highlights those accomplishments brings them to the top where they can make sure that that potential employer sees those right off the top and gives them a little more interest in reading further and looking at the details is that you want to make sure that you remember when looking at the summary statement and creating that summary statement always remember that that summary statement is going to be placed on the first page of the resume and your qualifications will be difficult to be overlooked if they're right there under that contact information so you're definitely going to have it on the front you're going to list the most important skills and accomplishments first things that are most important to that job you want to make sure that you list them first you want to make sure that you are concise making sure that each point is easy to read and understand you want to look for keywords in that job announcement that indicate the knowledge the skills the abilities that that employer is looking for what they actually want in that new employee and you want to use those same key terms those same keywords in your resume and in describing your skills and accomplishments so you want to make sure that you're using keywords and action verbs that are listed in that job description looking at that job announcement and pulling out those keywords what they're looking for and you turn around and use those same key terms in your resume and cover letter looking at work experience you want to list relevant jobs that you have held previously and briefly state the duties associated with each one of those jobs if you're using a combination style resume you want to indicate the significant accomplishments or contributions that you've made to that particular organization using that action words that can help you accurately describe your job duties and your contributions you want to list the most recent job first and list all the other jobs in descending order and you want to make sure that you include your job title or the position and the company name and the dates of employment and location like the city and state education and training you want to make sure that you're listing any diploma certificate or any degree that you've earned that's relevant to the job that you're targeting indicate the year that it was you know received organize this information from the highest level of education obtained to the lowest and making sure that you include the name of the school the dates are a year that you completed the location city and state the field of study or your major and if there was any specialized training in reference to that things that you don't include in a resume you're not going to include your references you will supply as references upon request personal information you definitely don't want to include things like your age your birthday your social security number those things are not going to be included in your resume weaknesses you're never going to focus on weaknesses always want to focus on the strong points and the positive childhood background not relevant parental status that is not relevant your date of availability you all will discuss that later in the interview but don't include it in your resume any type of health or physical description definitely not going to be included in your resume reasons for leaving a prior job not we're focusing on the positive your desired salary that can be discussed in the interview or after they actually extended offer but do not put that information on your in your resume never using slang language written testimonials no photographs we do not include photographs on our resumes charts and graphs you're going to limit strictly to text information in abbreviations do not use abbreviations spell words out use complete sentences and punctuation I will take a look at a cover letter we're going to make sure that we're creating a cover letter and using all the key points there the contents of a cover letter is going to start with one you want to make sure that you're using the return address your mailing address which includes your information your name your address your city and state and your zip code the date of course the recipients address that's going to be the person that you're sending this letter or two make sure that you have the correct name the correct job title and the correct address for the person that's in charge of filling that position now that may take a little research where you may even have to actually contact that organization but do try to make that extra effort to achieve that to obtain that information a greeting most of the time you're going to start it with Dear Mr. Mrs. or Ms. and you're going to follow that with that individual's name that's going to be reading that cover letter again that goes back to doing that research to determine exactly who that person is then we're going to look at the contents which is starting with the body the body is going to have you're going to start with the introduction you're going to say why you're sending that letter and that could be you know an example would be I'm writing to apply for a position posted on your company website my resume is enclosed for the nurse practitioner in position and that was just given an example your first paragraph you're going to write about why you're interested in that job and briefly talk about the skills and the knowledge that you have that make you qualified for that job tell why you're interested in that company as well now your second paragraph is going to highlight any related experience that you have be sure to tell how you can meet the qualifications in that job as they have it advertised and point out any relevant training classes or anything that you've completed that's relevant to that position and those requirements your closing paragraph you're going to close by thanking that reader and requesting that interview now example of that would be I welcome the opportunity to discuss my qualifications with you in person I can be reached out and then provide your contact information thank you for your time and consideration you always want to make sure you use that complimentary close ending that letter with the salutation such as sincerely or thank you leave space to actually sign the letter at the bottom and then type your name just below where you would actually sign and then you'll at the very bottom you'll have signature enclosure and after your signature that is going to indicate that your resume is actually attached or enclosed here is an example of a cover letter just for you to review and it includes all that information that we refer to that return address the date the recipient address the salutation the body the closing paragraph your complimentary close and then your signature and enclosure just a few tips for the cover letter always make sure that you address the right person mention your top qualifications for that job make sure you discuss the ways that you can meet that company's needs write a well organized easy to read letter get someone to proofread it get someone to go back to spell check grammar check and all of that explain how you meet that organization's needs and be sure to check for errors and make any necessary corrections now in the event that you're submitting that resume electronically which a lot of organizations are now opting to have the application and resume submitted online so in that case you're going to do that resume a tad bit different you want to you're not going to use the standard resume when you apply it's going to need to be converted to that electronic format and so the electronic resume is going to contain the same information as that standard resume but the electronic information is going to need to be in plain text all of your formatting like anything that's been bolded or underlined that's going to need to be removed and electronic resume is going to it's often referred to as a plain text resume so by removing that formatting it allows the computer system to send that a resume without it becoming distorted on the other end so the document won't be changed while it's being sent from one computer to another that way the receiver will be able to easily read and understand the contents of that resume without trying to figure out exactly what happened now with the electronic resume here are a few tips want to use plain text you want to justify left just justify the text to the left margin you want to limit each line to 65 characters capitalize your headings all text is going to be the same size so the way your headings are standing out is by using capitalization no bold no italics no underlining no bullets you can use the hyphen or the asterisk but don't use any bullets because they're going to be disfigured never use jpeg or any type of graphics period just simply plain text again you want to save it in plain text a few additional tips send the resume electronically only if that is what the company or organization that where you are applying request produce a paper version and convert it to plain text never save in pdf remove all page separations do not use the tab key to align the text instead use the return key a good thing would be to purchase a jump drive save your resume on there that way you can easily pull it up and make changes when necessary anytime you post your resume on some of the online database systems like maybe indeed or monster.com make sure that you go back periodically and update that resume update that information to just keep it fresh thank everyone so much to for taking a look at this workshop on resume writing my contact information is here if anyone or anyone is interested in contacting us for a full interactive session on resume writing or any of the other topics that we provide information on or workshops on you can take a look and find that out on our website www.aces.edu and my contact information again is right here Cynthia White thanks so much for taking a look at this resume writing workshop