Update Your Resume

Career  – Activity: Update Your Resume

Knowing how to create a resume that will have the best possible positive impact in the search for a job is a career skill that is an important part of the career search process. This week, create or review your resume to be sure the content and appearance enhance your chances of obtaining a great job. A video from Illinoisworknet provides a good overview of what to do.

Appearance:

• What format is the best choice? Make a decision between Chronological, Functional, or a combination. The Chronological format is generally preferred by employers.
  
• Does it look good? Do you make good use of white space, fonts, bullets and lines to organize and emphasize? Is it good quality printing and paper? It’s usually best to keep resumes to one page.
  

Content: Gather information to type with a printable form from careerchoiceguide.com.

• Many of the steps to Discover U provide helpful information to include in your resume: Identify your strengths, Explore your skills, Look at your values, and Uncover hidden talents.
• Is all information current? Is everything spelled correctly?
• Is information presented positively? Use action verbs, write clearly and concisely.

Outside the Box: Venturing beyond traditional advice is the visual resume (visualcv.com), or video resume.

Tools:

• Resumes Pinterest Board
• The Resume Workshop from Purdue University is a good guide to the whole process.
• Vertex42 has free Word templates and a 2 page printable tip page.
• “Resumes, Applications and Cover Letters” is a free printable 66 page U.S. Government publication with basic information about these tools.
• Publications at Wisconsinjobcenter.org
• Information on resumes at UNC
• ResumeBuilder-free online resume tool
• CareerZone Resources

This is one of the weekly activities for a Year of Personal Development.

About dailyplanit

I seek to create order from the chaos of complex information. Join me at the Daily PlanIt to gain insights, inspiration, and information to increase skills for a better life. I unlock the power of teaching reading with phonics in the pursuit of literacy at www.phonicspow.com. In my spare time I explore books and movies, often choosing titles available on both screen and page.