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The Job Cafe
Your resume
is one of the most important parts of any job package. Potential
employers will use your resume to make a decision about your suitability
as an employee. That decision will often be made quickly. That's
why your resume needs to be complete, simple to read, and kept
to one page.
Tips:
- Be concise.
One way to do this is to use sentence fragments separated by semicolons.
- Be well-organized.
Experts offer different suggestions about what should come first
on your resume. It probably makes no difference what the order
is, but have a plan. In general, your professional experience
is most important. Always list the most recent experience first.
- Don't write
your philosophy. For example, your job objective should be to
report, or to edit, or to work for a nonprofit agency etc. Be
exact. Don't write silly things about "contributing to the
company's growth."
- If you are
applying for your first job, it is useful to add a sheet of references.
Include title, name, address, phone number and e-mail. Often an
employer might want to contact a reference immediately and not
have to contact you first. Later in your career, you may choose
to withhold references until you are certain an employer is serious
so you can avoid potentially embarrassing contacts with your current
employer.
- Edit, edit,
edit. Many a resume has been tossed because of fact errors or
spelling and grammar mistakes.
- Describe
your professional work in positive ways. Focus on your responsibilities
and especially your work accomplishments. Brag about yourself.
- Use white
or neutral, high-quality paper.
- People can
tell a great deal from an application. Whether you come across
as professional, competent, and an all-around good potential hire
can be determined by that envelope of application material. Make
sure the name on the outside of the envelope is correct. Employers,
especially editors, have ditched applications without opening
them because the applicant misspelled a name on the envelope.
No newsroom or business needs that kind of laziness or sloppiness.
Inside the envelope, everything must be typed. Handwritten cover
letters and particularly handwritten resumes get ditched.
 Find
a job
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an internship
Employers:
Post an announcement for an internship or job
Resume
tips
What's
a cover letter?
Work
samples and how to present them
Tips:
How to find a job or internship
Tips:
Preparing for that important interview
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