Resume Workshop FBLA

FBLA 3/25/24 Intro to Creating an Effective Resume

Overview

• Purpose of a resume
• Preparing to write your resume
• Resume content areas
• Resume format
• What to include and exclude

What Is a Resume?

• A resume is your introduction to the employer to review in under 10 seconds
• A resume is a one (or two for highly qualified candidates) page summary of your education, skills, experience and accomplishments
• As a HS student, ONE page is totally fine!

A resume gets you the interview so you can get the job! You're marketing yourself! Why should they pick you over someone else?

Curriculum Vitæ (CV) versus Resume

The differences between CVs and resumes are the length, purpose, and layout

• Curriculum Vitæ, (which means course of life in Latin)
• CV is an in-depth document that can be laid out over two or more pages and contains high levels of detail about your achievements, much more than a career biography.
• CV covers your education as well as other accomplishments like publications, awards, honors etc.
• Resume, or résumé,
• A concise document typically not longer than one page to two pages as reader will not dwell on your document for very long.
• The goal of a resume is to make an individual stand out from the competition.

Resume Content - Basic Section Titles

• Name & Contact information
• Education
• Skills
• Experience

• Employment Experience
• Volunteer Experience
• Activities & Honors / Professional Memberships/Certifications/Other trainings, etc.
• References *

Education

• List most current education first
• Include major if college grad/HS just use the name of your HS
• Anticipated graduation date
• GPA if over 3.0

Example: Commonwealth Charter Academy, Harrisburg PA High School Diploma, expected - June 2024 GPA 3.45 (optional)

Skills

• Skills can be technical (hard) skills and soft skills
• Skill examples
• Technical skills: MS Office Suite, Computer Programming, Language Proficiency, Social Media expertise.
• Soft skills: communication, teamwork, leadership, and management skills, creativity
• Employers know what the skills are so labeling the skills is not necessary

• Listing skills one after another separated by commas will save space and provide the employer reviewer a quicker and cleaner view of skills

Experience Format

• List paid & unpaid experiences related to career path
• List organization, position, location, and dates
• List in reverse chronological order
• Use past tense for previous positions
• Start each description with an action verb and ensure all descriptions are full statements

Experience Tips

• The skill sets identified in the Skills section should be integrated into the Experience section
• Employers want to see how an applicant has used the skills and to what extent the skill is developed
• Describe your responsibilities and accomplishments
• What did you do?
• How did you do it?
• What was the purpose?
• What was the result?
• Do NOT use pronouns such as I, my, me, etc.

Experience Tips

• Students with few paid positions can use non-paid experiences
• Unpaid internships
• Projects (group or individual)
• Relevant and significant course assignments
• Volunteer activities
• Use same format for non-paid experiences as paid work experience

Activities, Honors, Memberships, etc.

• clubs, sports, student government, honor roll, etc.

• Special scholarships – exclude amount
• Awards/Honors/Achievements--FBLA awards?
• List most relevant activities such as professional associations or honor societies first
• Other training/Certifications

References

• References are people whom the employer could contact to say that you are a good worker, responsible, a good person, reliable, and hardworking.
• These are NEVER relatives or friends your own age.
• You should have at least 3 references.
• One reference should be your instructor, but you ALWAYS need to ASK these people to be references for you.
• Include Name, Title of the Person, address, phone number and email if they have it.

Resume Basics

• Resumes should be clean, clear & concise

• Easy to read & align visually
• Resume length can be up to two pages with relevant and significant information determining the overall length
• Determine what skills and achievements are necessary, and keep only those that are relevant and significant to the job you are seeking

SPELL CHECK!!!!!

Do's and Don ts

• Do include all relevant experience
• Do use a legible font face and size
• Do use bulleted lists
• Don’t include your SSN, Photo, etc.
• Don’t use more than two fonts
• Don’t put references on the resume – create a separate sheet **
• Don’t use excessive bold face/italics or an ink color other than black

Layout Samples

CCA Layout Sample

No Experience Samples

Questions?