How to make a Resume

By the Professional Development Society

What is a Resume???? A Resume is the first tool you have at your

disposal towards building a career

It is a means to sell yourself to companies

It represents what you feel are your most important experiences and qualities

What Types of Resumes should you have?

A Paper Resume Should Look Nice Have Bullets Be used for:

– faxing– e-mailing– Career Fairs– Interviews

An Electronic Resume Plain Text(not fancy) Used for on-line

resume submission (text box)

Melded to company specifications

What does a good Resume consist of?

Neat Clean Error Free Grammatically Correct Well organized ONE PAGE Unique Eye Grabbing

There are 4 types of Resume formats

Chronological Resume Functional Resume Combination Resume Curriculum Vitae(Vita)

Chronological Resume

Highlights your work experience in reverse chronological order(most recent jobs)

This is the most widely used format

Functional Resume

Highlights Specific skills for which the market has a high demand

Seldom used by college students or even recent graduates

Used to change jobs or careers

Combination Resume

Highlights specific work experience Highlights marketable skills Uses chronological order Occasionally used by college students

This should be the resume style of choice for most college students

Curriculum Vitae (Vita)

This is not “technically” a resume It is a 2-4 page summary of academic

experience, work experience, experiments, papers, and publications

This is mainly used by doctoral students

Electronic Resume

Keep the concepts for the Standard resume the same for this one

Make all the text the same size, without any style at all

No bullets, nothing fancy If you need to use bullets, use an asterik * Remember, this is only to be used when you have

to put your resume into a text box to submit on-line

The Standard Resume

The Header

The Header of your resume should contain:

•Your Name in a big font•Your e-mail address•The Address which you use most frequently or your permanent and current address•It should also contain and phone numbers you wish to disclose

The Objective

The Objective should be clear, concise, and to the point!!!

ex ) Bad Too Vague Objective: I want to get a job

ex) Good but still vague Objective: To attain an internship in the computer industry

ex) Good Objective: To attain an internship in the computer industry working with databases or networks

Education

First off, do not put your high school education on your resume

If you have decided upon a major, use a format similar to this: Bachelor of Science, Management Science Information Systems, May 2001

GPA 3.0 Major GPA 3.0

GPA should only but put if it is 3.0 or better

Honors and Awards

This section should only contain honors and awards from the time you entered college till the present

This can include scholastic and academic or extracurricular items

Give a brief description of the honor or award you received and what it symbolizes

Relevant Courses

This is an optional section for your resume It can be used to fill space, and/or to define

your efficiencies Mostly this should include courses within or

prerequisite courses towards your major Interesting courses or unique courses are

also a good choice for this section

Relevant Courses cont’d

A good way to design this section is a table

A good thought would be to keep the course names in ascending order(title size)

Also, keep similar courses together

Statistics MSIS CS111Calculus I Advanced MSIS CS112Communication Information Technology CS211

Skills Section

There should be a section to denote some important skills, computer or communication

Once again making a table layout is good

You can put any skill that you have used before on your sheet, just be sure to let employers know your level or knowledge when you interview with them

SQL HTML JAVAExcel Word AccessWindows 95/98 Unix(SUN) Mac O/S

Work Experience

This section is dedicated to your most recent and/or relevant experiences

This section should have your employer and location on the first line, your position and time-span of your job on the second

Telcordia Technologies, Piscataway, NJProduct Testing Internship, June 2000 - August 2000

Work Experience cont’d

Each experience should have at least 2 bullets explaining your role and contributions, relating it to your skill level

Tense and grammar are extremely important If you worked a job then you developed,

created, installed (Note past tense) If you are currently working a job then you

develop, create, install (Note present tense)

Work Experience cont’d

You must write your thoughts in complete sentencesI developed an integrated networking system relating sales and marginal profit.

Poor grammar will make your resume look half-done and leave a bad impression.

If you cant take your resume seriously the why would you take your job seriously???

Example of Work Experience

Rutgers Campus Computing Facilities, Piscataway, New Jersey

Computer Consultant, May 2000 - Present

• Provide level I & II help desk support for 1500 users

• Maintain a secure network of PCs, MACs, and X-Terms

• Develop and utilize communication and interpersonal skills

Activities

The activities section should be set up in the same format as the experience section, but instead of the address you have a general location

Professional Development Society, Rutgers UniversityFounder and President, March 2001 - Present•Developed marketing strategies, areas of focus, and the unique concept of the organization•Coordinate projects and develop courses of action to increase productivity•Develop and perform presentations for computer and communication skills•Hold executive meetings, create agendas, delegate responsibilities, and manage the organization

Organizations (Professional Affiliations)

This section should only have the title of an Organization that you are/were in, listing your status in that organization. You can specify when you were in the organization, but it is not necessary.

Once again make the section look nice through formatting

Member Capoiera Club Member, JCAStaff Writer Livingston Ledger Member, MBSAMember, Professional Development Society Member, MSIS Society

Projects Section

Very few people have this section, so getting the opportunity to use this is a huge plus!!

This section is used to show any lengthy, impressive, or relevant projects that you have worked on or contributed to

This should not include projects from your classes unless it is substantial

Projects cont’d

A good layout for this section is similar to experience and activities, but can be less wordy

ex) Non-wordy

Career Services Database Integration, MSIS Society

• Created an easy to use access conversion of File Maker Pro and implemented it for Career Services

Projects cont’d

ex) Wordy

Access Database Conversion Project, MSIS Society

Group Leader: Jay Mussan-Levy, May 2001• Designed an access database system, converting the old File Maker

Pro database into an easy to use system• Tested the program using test cases to optimize performance• Led the project group throughout the process, mediated conflicts,

made decisions, and implemented a group democracy system in which everyone had equal say and power

Putting it all Together

Remember these and you should do alright Proper Grammar Complete sentences

Dazzle it up Organize it

This is your sales pitch to companies, design it to leave a lasting impression

Jay Mussan-Levygreywolf@eden.rutgers.edu

11 Jennifer courtMarlboro, New Jersey, 07746

Current 732-373-3819 Permanent 732-536-6276 Cell 732-610-2402

Objective To attain an internship relating to computer science or information technology, gain experience in developing and maintaining networks or software applications, database design, or web pages

Education Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey Bachelor of Science in Information Technology and Informatics, May 2003 Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, May 2003

Relevant Accounting I & II Discrete Structures CommunicationCoursework Data Structures(JAVA) Computer Architecture Statistics for Business

Micro & Macroeconomics Information Technology Computer Science(JAVA)

Computer Excel PowerPoint Word AccessSkills Flash Photoshop Office 2000 Outlook Express

Windows 95/98 Unix Mac O/S Assembly HTML JAVA PERL/CGI SQL

Experience Rutgers Campus Computing Facilities, Piscataway, New Jersey Computer Consultant, May 2000 - Present • Provide level I & II help desk support to 1500 users as well as maintain the computers

• Develop and utilize communication and interpersonal skills

Telcordia Technologies, Piscataway, New Jersey Product Testing Internship, Delivery Department, June 2000 - August 2000 • Created templates and queries as well as SQL queries, forms, and reports • Gave a successful presentation to upper management on my internship and accomplishments

Experience Marlboro Travel Association & FIFA, Marlboro, New Jersey State Licensed Soccer Coach and Referee, 1994 - Present • Mastered 3 State License courses attaining the highest state license • Attained the level 8 FIFA referee license

Shapiro-Mason Campaign, New Brunswick, New Jersey Political Volunteer, September 1998 - November 1998 • Co-designed campaign literature and supervised its distribution • Involved in public relations decisions and marketing tactics

Activities Professional Development Society, Rutgers University Founder and President, March 2001 - Present • Developed marketing strategies, areas of focus, and the unique concept of the organization • Coordinate projects and develop courses of action to increase productivity • Develop and perform presentations for computer and communication skills • Lead executive meetings, create agendas, delegate responsibilities, and manage the organization

Organizations Member, MSIS Society Computer and Communication Director, Chabad House Staff Writer, Livingston Ledger Member, Minority Business Students Association Member, Capoiera Club Member, Japanese Culture Association

Projects Career Services Access Database Conversion Project, MSIS Society, March 2001 - April 2001 • Normalized and converted the archaic File Maker Pro database into an easy to use access format • Designed queries which run in under five seconds when less than seven queries are run simultaneously • Presented the Project to the client with a full demonstration of the database’s functionality and versatility

Putting Everything Together cont’d