Resume Structure

Prioritize your resume. If your education is your strongest selling point, that should be at the top of your resume, otherwise it should follow your work experience. An objective is generally a good thing to include - two to three sentences summarizing your employment and career goals will suffice.

Style. Can’t decide whether to use a chronological style resume or a functional one? Choose the chronological format if you’re staying in the same field (especially if you’ve been upwardly-mobile). Choose a functional format if you’re recently graduated or changing fields, because a skills-oriented format shows off your transferable skills better and takes the focus off your old job titles.

Resume Layout

1. Contact Info and Objective. Put your name and contact information at the top of the resume. Be simple in the design; a centered list will work best. Don’t hide it in the Header of a Word document! Follow this with your career objective, if you have a well-designed and concise objective. Otherwise leave the objective out and just dive into the Experience section (or Education if you are listing that first).

2. Job Experience. If you are a recent graduate, highlight anything in your background that is relevant to the employer's needs and downplay experience unrelated to your career. After-school jobs and the like can be summarized in one paragraph at the end of your resume.

Each company you’ve worked for should have it’s own section. List the company’s name and the city and state where you worked for the company. Follow this with the dates you worked for the company ("1999 to 2002", for example). Next, list your job title in bold. Follow this with a bulleted list of your accomplishment and responsibilities. If you were promoted, list each position held separately following the format of Title followed by the Accomplishment List.

3. Education. List the full type of degree earned, where it was earned from, the location of that institution, and the year you graduated. Include any honors, if relevant. It is not necessary to list high school or education that is not relevant to your career.

4. Affiliations. If you are a member of career-related organizations, list those and how long you’ve been a member, plus any position you may have within the organization. If you have volunteer experience or other community service work that relates to your career, include that. Recent graduates can include school-related honors and activities, but those who are established in their career will want to leave them out.

5. Licensure. List your licenses and for what state(s) they are applicable. ("Licensed Physical Therapist in Ohio and Pennsylvania.")

Resume Content

Length. The days of the one-page resume are long gone, so don’t limit your experience because of page length. But don’t overdue it, either. Generally, you should have about one page on your resume for every ten years of job experience.

Content. Be sure to include at least the fundamentals of each job. This would include the years of employment, the name of the company, the city and state where the company was located, your job title, and your job duties and accomplishments. If you held several jobs within one company, list them, in chronological order, under one company heading.

Structure. Fill your resume with "PAR" statements. PAR stands for Problem-Action-Results; in other words, first state the problem that existed in your workplace, then describe what YOU did about it, and finally point out the beneficial results. Here’s an example: "Transformed a disorganized, inefficient facility into a smooth-running operation by redesigning the layout and updating policy; this saved the company $250,000." Employers love numbers, so quantify any accomplishments when possible.

Experience. How far back should you go in your Work History? Far enough but not too far - include what’s relevant to the job you’re searching for. Employers don’t need to know that you worked at the mall when you were sixteen if you're 25 years into your career. However, recent graduates may want to show that they have worked before, and can summarize unrelated work experience with something like "Funded 50% of college studies through part-time/seasonal employment as a sales clerk, waiter, and telemarketer."

Gaps. What if you have gaps in your work experience? You could start by looking at it differently. If you were doing anything valuable (though unpaid) during those so-called "gaps," you could just insert that into the work-history section of your resume to fill the hole. For example: “1997-99 - Full-time parent” or “2004 to 2008, Full-time Student”.

Titles. What if your job title doesn’t reflect your actual level of responsibility? When you list it on the resume, either replace it with a more appropriate job title (say “Office Manager” instead of “Administrative Assistant” if that’s more realistic) or use their job title and your fairer one together “Administrative Assistant (Office Manager)”.

Age. If you’re older and want to avoid age discrimination, remember that you don’t have to present your entire work history. You can simply label that part of your resume "Recent Work History" or "Relevant Work History" and then describe only the last 10 or 15 years of your experience. If something really important belongs from the distant past, here’s what to do: at the end of your work history, add a paragraph headed “Prior Relevant Experience” and simply refer to that ancient job without mentioning dates.