Your first point of contact with potential employers is often through your resume. A resume provides a chronological or skill-based listing of your work history to give hiring managers an idea of how you might fit into their organization.
The most important thing to remember when creating or updating your resume is that you only have a few seconds to impress the person who is reading it. It doesn’t need to be fancy, but you should create a document that is concise, easy to read and provides good, solid information about you.
Here are the basics:
Contact information: List your contact information at the top of the resume. Include your full name, mailing address, phone number and email address. If you have a website, list the URL only if the site shows your skills or applies to career goals.
Objective:
The objective section gives recruiters an immediate sense of who you are and what you're looking for. To view sample resumes that have strong objective statements, visit Monster.com or other similar websites. If you decide to include an objective with your resume, stress what you'll add to the company, not what you're looking to take away.
Experience:
List your work experience by job, starting with your most recent position. You can also list your job experiences by level of importance (with the most impressive listed first).
In either case:
Skills/Interests:
This is a good place to list technical and computer skills. You may also want to list if you are a member of any professional organizations. Listing activities and hobbies can also portray you as a well-rounded person.
Education:
Record your most recent education first and work backward. This should include trade school and certification courses. State your degree or certification (if applicable), dates of attendance and the school’s name and location.
References:
Contrary to what you may have learned in the past, you do not need to list references or a statement about references on your resume. Prospective employers assume you’ll provide those upon request.
When formatting your resume, make sure that every word counts. Be to the point and try to keep your information to one page.
Choose fonts that are easy to read, clean and consistent. Some good examples of font types are Arial and Times New Roman.
Read, edit and re-read your resume to make sure it sounds impressive and that it is typo-free. Ask several friends and family members to review it to provide additional feedback. The more eyes that see your resume before it goes out, the better your chances that it will be error-free.