Your resume should be clear, concise and free of first person pronouns.  Its purpose is to generate interest in your background and to secure a interview.   A well-written resume is still a critical component of the job change process, even in these fast changing hi-tech days!

There are many physical layouts/formats you can use but the key is to have at least as much black type on the page as you do empty white space.  Don’t use a format that has  3 inch margins and stretches for 6 pages – when it could easily fit on 2 pages if you adjusted the margins, tabs, spacing, and font size.  You should use at least 10 pitch font; we prefer 11 or 12 pitch.

Personal Resumes can and should include the following basic sections:

Your Name and Full Contact Information  --  Give your full name, your mailing address, the city, state and zip code plus telephone number(s) and email address.   Make it easy to be contacted.

Technical Skills --  Include your hardware and software experience (Training is included in education). This should include computing platforms, software languages and software tools and packages. It should also include the functional areas you have experience with as a separate entry.  You can have as many sub-categories as you like in this section.

Experience  --  Use a reverse chronological format (most recent job first).

For each company entry, give the full company name, city & state, starting and ending dates (use month/year format) of employment, and your position title.  If you were promoted and/or held more than one position at one company, use sub-dates beside each position title to show length of time you spent in that job using that particular skill set.

Each position entry should include your primary responsibilities and duties.   Also briefly list secondary or backup duties. Be sure to include platform/environment you worked with, and the specific technical skills you used in the body of the resume at this point.  Use those buzz words!  Don’t be afraid to bold them, italics and underlining can be good emphasizers also but use them sparingly.

Education  --  Include formal university level education as well as professional seminars and in-house corporate training classes, if applicable.

The first degree listed should be your highest level received, followed by next highest on down to Bachelors level, i.e.,  PhD,  MBA,  Masters, or Bachelors level.  You should show degree type, major course of study, university name, location, and date degree was conferred.  It is not necessary to list the time span you attended (unless there are special circumstances, such as  “attended night school while working full-time, 1990-1998; degree received Jan. 1999”)

Next list specialized courses and seminars organized by subject matter, dates attended and sponsoring organization or school.  Regardless how you present the information, be consistent and orderly.   Reverse date order (most recent listed first) should be used.                     

Personal or Miscellaneous -- If you have awards and honors from both College and the Professional or Private  worlds, list them here and categorize them as:  Collegiate, Community, Professional or whatever is suitable.

References --  make a one line statement:  References provided upon request.

SPECIAL NOTE:   Always keep copies of current and past resumes on computer disk and hard copies.   Keep a copy of each resume you create because you will find that as time goes by, you will forget specifics on projects, time frames, goals, etc.  The old resume can refresh your memory. It is easier to add to an old resume and edit the old information than to recreate it from scratch.

Keep copies of reference names and numbers and stay in touch with each group of  people with whom you work if at all possible. 

If you have written references or recommendation letters or even performance reviews, keep these for future use or reference.

RESUME NO-NOs

· First person pronouns.  Use of “I” throughout a resume can indicate more than one negative.  Its best to avoid all pronouns.  Start sentences  with action verbs.

· All caps.  

· Typos.

· Hard-to-read fonts.

· Specialized company, military or government acronyms.  Use generic terms in the job descriptions.

You may also download this resume in .pdf format

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