Organization: Planning Your Resume
Making a plan for writing or editing your resume will create a faster and more efficient process while you are working on your resume. You will be able to focus more on the writing and less on trying to figure out the next step(s). I use lists, steps, and outlines for everything I do, including my articles, blogs, and resumes. I wouldn’t want to work with a resume writer who wasn’t generally organized.
As a person and as a resume writer, I know people who so random that they actually have a bit of resentment if they have to schedule or arrange things. These people usually say something like “I don’t like to control things. I let things happened naturally.” While this seems like a healthy thing to say, we can take this idea into unhealthy levels, levels in which you never have control over yourself.
Being balanced gives you the ability to use both random and organized thinking together. I think about this as central thinking. Central thinking gives you the ability to use both emotions and logic simultaneously. After my brain injury, I try as much as I can to always stay balanced because that gives me the ability to use both random and organized thinking at the same time. All of my creative thoughts start with random thinking, but then I used organized thinking to make a thought into a song, resume, or a photo.
When you are emotionally unstable, you let your emotions manage and even control you; it means that you usually communicate ineffectively, or do something that you know you shouldn’t do. I have learned that you either manage your emotions or you let your emotions manage/control and manage you. When you aren’t control yourself, it is much harder to stay organized.
There are 5 things that should be in every person’s resume, no matter what your talents are or the job you are thinking about applying for. For this article, I will discuss these key points.
· Contact Information
· Opening Statement (Summary)
· Work History
· Education (including Certifications)
· Skills
Before I talk about these parts of a resume, I want to talk about a stunning website to help you with these parts of your resume. It is https://www.idealresume.com/. I used this website for every single resume I write. It shows your resume next to the job description of the job you are thinking about applying for. It will tell you, in a percentage, how close your resume is to what this job is asking for. It will give you information about the skills, industry, job titles, certifications, education, and if this job needs you to have management skills. All of this information will give you the data needed to make a resume that is MADE for each job description you are going to apply for.
In your contact information segment, make sure that you have your name, phone number, email, LinkedIn URL, professional title(s), and a professional website URL if you have one. Now, there are some resumes writer and resume websites that will tell you to use other social media website, like Twitter. I, personally, dislike using any social media websites except for LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a website that 100% professional, while other social media are much less professional.
Also, make sure that your professional title(s) are the same as the job titles asked for from the job description of the job you are interested in applying for. If the job asks for an operator, do not say that you are a “supervisor.” The second reason to do this is because you want to use the same keywords so that the ATS software, if ATS software is being used, will see this keyword in your resume. We will talk much more about ATS in another article.
For your Opening Statement (Summary), remember not to write an objective. I have found that objectives say very little about why you should be interviewed and instead tells the HR employee what they already know. An objective says that you are interested in applying for a job. Of course you are interested in applying. This is why you are applying after al. Instead, I like to write summaries that talk about major skills that you have in your resume, the best accomplishments you have done, and who you are.
An objective usually says something like “I am interested in the engineer position. I can apply my experience as a software engineer and can use my history…” You have only two pages at the most to say everything you need to say, and “I am interested in the engineer position” really says nothing. They need to know WHY they should read your resume, what makes you worth an interview.
Here is a much stronger summary, “As a software engineer with 4 years of work with 2 companies, I have been able to make one of these companies 24% faster throughout all teams by making an analytical software that gave the same information in a more agile way.” This is full of information about you and what you have done instead of saying that you are aware of the job or that you are aware of the information in the job description.
In your history, I don’t think that there is a reason to use entire sentences. In fact, the only part of your resume that might need entire sentence is the summary. Remember that while writing your history, you can’t tell everything you have done.
First, talk about what your actual work included and the title you had. Second, talk about the skills that you have used throughout this job and the company you worked for. Third, you should talk about any accomplishments you might have with any job in your resume.
Your education should be written in the same way. If you have any classes that you should be talked about, maybe because this shows that you know EXACTLY what is asked for by the job description you are thinking about, then you can put this information in bullet.
Make sure that you put your school’s location next to the school’s name. If you don’t have the diploma/degree/certification but are very close to getting it, then write the expected time in which you believe you will have this diploma/degree/certification. Make sure that your diploma/degree/certification has the right name, like a bachelor’s degree in Marketing. Your GPA isn’t usually needed, but there are a few reasons to write your GPA. If you got a GPA score of 3.5 or higher or this is your first job after getting the diploma/degree/certification. For people who have just gotten their diplomas/degrees/certifications, they especially need to show how and why they are worth the interview because they rarely have a history of jobs that will show these skills or experience.
When we are thinking about skills, we first need to be aware of the difference between our soft skills and our hard skills. Knowing how to code as a software engineer (hard skill) differs from having communicational skills (soft skill). In our country, we are naturally more interested in hard skills, but that doesn’t mean that soft skills are not usable. I especially like using soft skills in a cover letter because there I can talk about how you use this soft skill and why it matters.
Before writing your resume, write two lists, one for your hard skills and one for your soft skills. A main reason to write this list is to see the keywords and all your abilities, so you will be able to say any of these talents during an interview. These soft and hard skills are also keywords that you need to use in your resume and cover letter.
Now, if you are a psychotherapist, then “communications” is essential for your work. I like to think about this as a soft skill becoming a hard skill. A psychotherapist uses communication abilities throughout every minute of being a psychotherapist. Another soft skill, persuasion can become a hard skill for a man/woman who is an advertisement writer. An advertisement writer uses persuasion in each word written in a script.
There are two things that you can put in your resume, if you have either of these things, and they will help you but are not NEEDED. The first is Professional Memberships/Awards/Accomplishments. This shows you doing more than just what you are asked to do, and this can be used in your summary, history, or/and education. Accomplishments can be showed in two ways. The first way is to show your accomplishments next to the job you are talking about, while the second way is to have a section in your resume that shows all of your accomplishments together. Try both and see which way you believe shows you in the best way.
Any way in which you have made a company stronger, faster, or exceptional can be thought of as an achievement. Of course, there are also actual prizes that people get from their schools or from their companies, and this counts as an accomplishment. Accomplishments don’t have to be substantial accomplishments for you to put them in your resume. Anything that might be thought as an accomplishment should be put in your resume.
The second thing that you can put in your resume if you have any is volunteer work. The skills you learn as a volunteer mean just as much as the skills learned in a job. Knowledge is knowledge, no matter where you have learned it from. If you have a skill that has only or mostly used in a volunteer work, I will talk about this in a small sentence in your summary so that you can make sure that any reader will know that you have this experience.
Though you only have 2 pages (at the most) to say everything you want to say, you also have a cover letter. One of the best reasons to write a cover letter is that you will be able to talk about your accomplishments and your story in a much more detailed way.
I can’t wait to talk with you about any questions or thoughts you might have about this article/blog. Let’s make things happen!
