Resume Outline

Essentially, your resume is an time line of your work history and the best way to get started on building your resume is to create a basic resume outline. A basic resume consists of a number of different sections that are usually going to be on your resume.

Basic Resume Outline

These sections are your name, your profile, accomplishments/skills, career history and experience.

These are the four major sections you should have on your resume. Other sections you could include in your outline are your language skills, interests, and references.

Resume Outline

Let us break down each section of your resume outline.

Resume Outline: Contact Info

The first one is pretty basic and that is your name and contact information. This includes your address and telephone number (which includes both your home and cell phone number). You do not need to list a fax number on your resume or your outline and it is probably not a good idea to list your work number either unless you are self employed or you have a private line.

Resume Outline: Profile

The next section in your resume outline is your profile. This section is going to outline your skills, and capabilities that are relevant to the employer. This section of your outline should be brief. Try to keep it to 6 lines or less and while it should be factual, you can always put a little bit of personality in here.

Resume Outline: Achievements

The third section of you resume outline is your major achievements. Try to outline anywhere from 3-6 major achievements in this section. The achievements that you are listing in your outline should be what you have done for your current and previous employers. If you worked for a call center and have received any awards or recognition for your excellent customer service, this is the point in your outline you want o mention it. Achievements can also be anything that has to do with saving your company money, increasing profits, improving work flow or anything you may have done to improve company business.

Resume Outline: Work History

The fourth section of your resume outline is your work history. You should always list your work experience on your outline in reverse chronological order. This means you start your outline with your most recent or current job first and end with your earliest job. A rule of thumb for your resume outline is to really zone in on your current job and the job you had before that. The rest of them you can list a few key details about. Stick with outlining your main responsibilities on your résumé outline. If you were responsible for getting your boss his daily cup of coffee you do not need to list that on your outline. However if you helped your boss design a way to increase production while saving money, you want to make sure you put it on your outline.

Resume Outline: Education

The fifth and possible final section of your resume outline should be your education or any training you may have. You can also list any qualifications you may have in this section of your outline. You do not need to mention your GPA especially if it has been some time since you were in college.

Resume: Summary & Goals

Your whole goal is to make your resume outline as user friendly as possible for the employer who is reading it. They should be able to read quickly through your resume. Most of the time employers quickly scan resumes and you want to make sure that your resume outline jumps out at them.

High School Resume

So you think high school might be a little too early to start thinking about a resume? Do you think that you do not need to worry about a resume until you are a college grad and ready to begin your search for a full time job? You might want to reconsider.

High School Resumes?

As a high school student you need a resume just as much as college students do. You need a resume to get a part time job and more importantly you need a resume to help you get into college.

It is becoming more and more common for college recruiters to request a resume to see a brief summary of your abilities, and experience, not to mention education.

High School Contents

What should you included in your high school resume? For starters cover the basics such as your name, address, phone number, cell number and your email address. Something to keep in mind about your email address is that is should be a professional sounding email address.

If your email address is cutiepatoey24@yahoo.com, you might want to consider opening up a second free email address using the first initial of your first name and your last name.

High School Resume Objectives

It is also important for a high school resume to have an objective. If this is a resume for a college, you would state what your objective is to “obtain a degree at such and such college”. An even better objective on a high school resume would be to state what kind of degree you would like to obtain, but not high school students go to college ready to declare a major. For a part time job, you could simply write “to obtain a part time position with company xyz”

High School Resume: History

The next thing to add in your high school resume is your education. Make sure your resume included your GPA especially if it is a 3.0 or higher. It is also a good idea under this heading to list any awards, honors or special recognition you have received. If you have been on the honor roll, you want to make sure you mention that. If you won any academic awards, here is the place to mention it.

High School Resume: Experience

The fourth heading should be experience. Now this heading could be a very simple section on a high school resume, especially if you have little work experience. If you do not have any work experience, you can list class projects that you may have worked on and what you have learned from them. Otherwise you can skip this section all together. This is a big difference between a high school resume and a career resume. On a career resume your work experience could be vital to your job, while on a high school resume it is not as important as say your education or your extracurricular activities.

High School Resume: Extra Curricular Activities

So let’s talk about the extracurricular activities. This is a very important section when it comes to a high school resume that is geared toward college recruiters. Extracurricular activities are becoming almost as important as GPA when it comes to getting into a college. You want to make sure you list any extracurricular no matter what they are. This is the one place where you can really show your uniqueness.

Lastly, make sure your high school resumes contains some references or at least your resume says “references available upon request” if you do not feel comfortable putting names and numbers down on your resume.

It is not to hard to draft a high school resume. It is simple and will help you get a feel for how to write one down the line. Make sure you have one on file because you never know when a college recruiter or even a job opportunity might want to see one.

Resume Tip

5 Resume Tips To Get Noticed

If you are having trouble writing your resume don’t feel bad, it can be tough.

Everyone could use some resume tips to help them write a resume that is interesting and will land them the job they want. If you are stuck at any stage of resume writing, consider our resume tips.

Resume Tip #1

A great resume tip is to keep your resume easy to read with bulleted sentences. Most employers just skim through resumes anyway so writing lengthy paragraphs is not the best idea. Use short sentences organized in list form to give your resume the most impact. If you use this resume tip, your resume will be easier to read and make more of an impact.

Resume Tip #2

A little known resume tip is that it is ok to use symbols. Symbols like the dollar sign, percent sign, and number sign make the text in the body of your resume stand out and usually lend to greater specifics which is always good on a resume. Be specific on your resume and use these symbols to illustrate the points that you make while being concise. Using this resume tip will keep your resume short and to the point.

Resume Tip #3

Most people list their job skills on their resume but a great resume tip is to make your important skills really stand out. Because employers usually just skim thought resumes, you should be sure that the skills you include are targeted to the job you are applying for and stand out on your resume. This is an important resume tip because you only have a few seconds to impress a potential employer so make them count.

Resume Tip #4

No matter which resume format you choose, a good resume tip to follow is to leave plenty of space. A crowded document is hard to read and this included resumes. Leaving plenty of space is good design and makes your resume more attractive. Employers are more likely to spend time reading a resume that is pleasing and easy on the eye as opposed to one that is cluttered. Glance at your resume after you print it and make sure it looks balanced and clean. If you follow this resume tip your resume is more likely to get thoroughly read.

Resume Tip #5

Another resume tip for after you print is to have a person proof read it for you. Obviously you need to make sure you resume is free of spelling and grammatical errors, and a real person can give you advice on anything you may have overlooked. It is sometimes hard to properly proofread something you are close to so having another person proof read for you is important. Ask questions to determine how much of an impact your resume makes and what things can be improved. If you follow these resume tips you will be on your way to a great job in no time.

Functional Resume

A functional resume is one of the most used styles of resume writing. The other most common style is chronological which lists all you experience from most recent to least.

However a functional resume will list your experience in spurts because a functional resume is meant to be used by those with a lot of different experiences that do not add up to a straight career path.

Functional Resume, College Grads

Other people who will benefit from using a functional resume would be a college graduate. Usually if you are a college grad, you have some work experience that is going to have nothing to do with whatever career path you have chosen to follow. Let’s say you decided you want to work in human resources after you graduate. How many opportunities are you going to have to experience all the aspects of human resources? Chances are very little. You may get you feet wet by doing an internship but for the most part your experience will be limited. Another reason why a functional resume works well for you college students is because it allows you to show the skills you got by experience other than paid employment.

Functional Resume, Stay At Home Parent

If you were a stay a home parent who had a career and then left it to raise your family and have now decided to return to the work place, then this is the resume for you. If you use a chronological resume, it will probably draw attention to the fact that there is a big gap in your work experience. Some employers might not even bother to call you for an interview because of this gap.

If you have been at some of your jobs for short periods of time because you were still trying to figure out what you want to do career wise, a chronological resume would not benefit you. A chronological resume could you give an appearance of a job hopper and again this might give employers a bad impression of you.

Functional Resume Format

Keep in mind though that if you are using a headhunter or recruiter they may not want to see a functional resume and neither do some of the online job boards like Monster or Hot Jobs.

Another idea to keep in mind when creating your functional resume is to make your resume in a functional format but include a brief work history in reverse chronological format. This is a style of resume that is also known as a combination resume.

If you are unsure what your functional resume should look like, you can always do a search online to look at function resume examples to get a rough idea on how to format it.

Resume Example

When I met with my college counselor to talk about potential job positions he mentioned to me the benefit of having a good resume.

He went on for a good hour about how the right resume will land me the job of my dreams. I left there excited and when I got back to my dorm room I sat down to write my amazing resume and I got as far as my name. I had no idea where to begin. I needed help and I needed help fast.

I found a book on resumes at the library and while it gave me good information I still had no idea on how my resume should look. I needed a good resume example to guide me as I wrote my resume. I made an appointment at career services and it was there I was able to find resume examples. I was able to use these examples as a blue print for my own resume.

Search Resume Examples

Nowadays it is a lot simpler to find a resume sample than it was when I needed one. Technology has advanced so much since then that all one needs to do is turn on their computer and they will be able to do a search for a resume example and be shown examples of every type and style of resumes.

It is a good idea to use a resume example if you are unsure of where to begin. Examples can show you what employers are looking for and what you should stay away from. In fact some of the examples you might find online are written by professional resume writers and if used correctly can land you the job you have always wanted.

Resume examples can show you the different styles of resumes and the different types of headers so you can decide which one works best for you. These examples also show you the format a resume so you know what to follow. In fact you can find some resume examples for almost any career field to show you what details you should include and what details you should leave out.

There are some people who might balk at the idea of using a resume example to help them develop their resume. They feel using a resume example is almost as bad as falsifying information. You are not passing the example off as your own; you are simply using it as a model for your own. It was from following a good resume example that I was able to draft my own resume.

Graduate Student

Graduate Student Sample Resume

If you are a graduate student and need some help writing your resume we have a sample graduate student resume that will get you started. Add your own information and make sure to customize your resume for each job you applying for.

mba

MBA Sample Resume

Although you have spent a good deal of time and a great deal of money investing in your MBA program and you would like to scream about it from the roof tops the truth is an MBA sample resume is no different than any other professional / executive resume.

The only caveat would be if you are a student who has just completed an MBA program and have little or no paid professional work experience.

You will find an MBA sample resume below but it will do you little good actually.

Let me ask you my MBA sample resume searching friend. Would the CEO of a Fortune 500 company be found creating sales collateral or sales brochures? Probably not, because that is not one of the many professional and desirable skill sets they possess and employ on a regular basis.

Likewise you are not a professional resume writer with the ability to be write objectively about yourself. If you think you are you are kidding yourself.

If the position you seek is also being sought by standard college graduates then you are in luck as a vast majority of them will operate with a homemade resume and your homespun MBA resume will not stick out like a sore MBA thumb.

Use A Professional Resume Writer

On the other hand if the position you are seeking will only attract other MBA graduates and other high end executives you are in a bucket full of trouble if you even think about utilizing homemade career documents.

Now is not the time to have short arms. Now is the time to step on the gas full throttle. I can guarantee you that a majority of your job seeking competitors will employ the expert skills and advice only a certified (not quite like and MBA) professional resume writer can provide.

Have your MBA resume custom written by a professional resume writing service that guarantees you get interviewed.

MBA Sample Resume

Student Resume

Student Resume Sample

Student resumes can be very tricky. Most students have had or will receive help with writing their student resume. The problem is that most of that help will be misleading and or down right wrong.

A student resume sample that has been custom written by a certified resume writer is the best place to start. Professional resume writers are adept describing and highlighting a students previous work experience and educational background so as to position the student to get an interview.

Student Resume Format

The problematic situation facing an individual who is writing the student resume is that the student often has little or no professional work experience, little or no experience working in a specific job function and industry. Top that all off with a degree that does not support the career function and you have a quagmire.

Student Resume Qualifications

The upside to making a student resume is that often times a student has many marketable qualifications that all employers covet and search for.

If you have experience that is related to the job you are applying for, be sure the resume reader knows it. If your degree supports the position or industry you are applying to make sure they know it.

Creative Student Resume

If you are like most students and you have no job / industry experience and your specific college degree does not grant you immediate entry to a career or industry you need to try harder and be creative.

Highlight what you DO have going for you.

I can read and write
I am energetic and eager to learn
I am a real team player
I am reliable and timely
I am respectful and helpful
I learn new tasks and functions quickly
I fit in
I am a good listener
I am honest and have a high level of integrity
I know how to complete a task

You get the idea I am sure.

Every employer I have ever known, worked for, worked with or heard about appreciates an honest, well spoken hard worker who fits in and acts professionally.

Student Resume Sample

Ok, so you have probably invested a lot of time and money on your college experience and degree. Don’t you think it would make good sense that you make a small investment in your professional future and have yourself an outstanding student resume?

Try our resume builder and if you don’t like it you will get an immediate refund. You have nothing to lose and EVERYTHING to gain.