Resume What Do You Really Need? Part III

Format is yet another part of the resume. What format is best Chronological, Functional or Combined? Many word processing programs have resume templates, which are good but don't really help you with questions that you may have about what to put in your resume. We found a resume program at Half Price Books called Resume Works Pro for less than $10, you can also find a copy on Amazon.com from $15-19. It is easy to use and has a lot of helpful features.

• Resume samples
• You can convert the resume that you create in Resume Works Pro to MS Word, PDF and text files
• Tons of sample cover letters
• Contact manager
• The ability to easily edit the look and content of your resume after you finish to change the style or add/delete sections.
• A walk through much like many Income Tax programs.

Formats, Chronological is the most common but may not be for you. I found a good explanation of the three types here it is for Psychology but much of it applies to everyone. I found that the Combined format works best for me, due to the complexity of my job field. Next, is the different sections within your resume. Which ones to use is up to you but, I have the following; Name and contact information, Job Title, Summary, Work Experience, Designs, Skills, Patents, Security Clearance, Education and References.

• Name and contact information - Pretty self explanatory (Name, Address, Phone numbers & Email). If you have an online resume on Monster or one of the others, I suggest that you only put your name and maybe the area in which you live (Dallas, TX or San Diego, CA) and leave off the rest of the information.
  
• Job Title - I use the industry standard job title for my profession "IC Mask Designer"
• Summary - I use Summary as opposed to Objective just because one it tells someone exactly what you do and two if you are sending a resume "duh, you are looking for a job." This is just my opinion.
• Experience - For my situation, since I worked for the same company but several groups within the company, I chose to use the following format for my experience. Company Name - Group Name, Location (Dallas, TX), Dates and Title. Then used bullet points for each detail of my job, this comes in to the keyword searches from employers.
• Skills - I have all of my programming languages, programs (MS Office, AutoCAD, Photo Shop, etc.), operating systems (Mac, PC, Linux, Sun workstations, etc.)
  
• Designs - A list of all of the designs that I worked on.
  
• Patents - A list of my patent number's and what they are used in.
• Security Clearance - This helps if you wind up applying for a company that contracts with the government, even if it is not currently active.
• Education - I only have use my college education. Most people say not to use your high school since it dates you if you are "cough cough" a middle aged to older person. In my case though my college eduction still dates me.
• References - I put "Available upon request" for one references will extend your resume. Always ask before you put someone as a reference.
  

This software has tons of resume examples from Account Executive to Worldwide Procurement Director. Although, I did not find exact matches for my field, I did find a lot of examples that I could adapt to fit my resume. I wound up with a great resume that is also pleasing to the eye that will hopefully help get me a new job.

Resume What Do You Really Need? Part II

Continuing with my last resume post, the length of your resume seems to be a BIG question and depending on who you talk to they may tell you one page "period" and no more and others up to three pages. When I was laid off, my group manager told everyone that we needed one page resumes. When I heard that my wife and I thought "What!?!" How in the world can someone with an Engineering background and who has worked for over 25+ years have a one page resume??? Finally, after many edits, deletions and revisions my wife finally got my resume down to two full pages.

My old boss was not the only one that told me that my resume needed to be one page. So, after searching around the web and blogs I found a great blog Liz Handlin's Ultimate Resume Blog and found this post Tips For Writing the Ultimate Resume and posted the following question on how long should a resume be "I have a question about resumes, how long is to long for a resume for someone with a lengthy job history in a hi-tech profession? I was laid off from my one and only job that lasted almost 30 years. I worked in a hi-tech engineering field and have several areas to list; patents, designs, security clearance and technical skills. After several revisions, I finally have my resume down to two full pages. Is this to long? If so what do you leave out?" Very quickly Liz emailed me the following answer "Thanks for you post and kind words. A 2 page resume is fine but if you have a lot of experience a 3 page resume is appropriate. Resumes should never be more than 3 pages long. with that said, what I often do for clients is separate long lists (patents, board memberships) and create separate documents that you can hand to employers in addition to the resume. That way you can still submit all of the information but you can do it in a way that isn't intimidating....I think that candidates who had recruiters/hiring managers a huge resume are pretty much guaranteeing that it won't be read."

Liz's answer made a lot of senses to me. Say you have you Masters, PhD or Doctorate school alone would take up one full page. Then if you have published articles, patents, etc. that will take up a large portion of a page. So put in only what you need but, don't leave important information out either.

Resume What Do You Really Need? Part I

If you are looking for a job more than likely, you need a resume. But, what do you really need in it, how long and how long? I started this post as one post but it has taken on a life of its own and it will need to be continued in parts.

What? These days "most" large companies use a software to look for key words. this is one reason the preferred format is MS Word. After talking with several Headhunter/Recruiters, I have found that even if you have all of the pertinent key words with in your summary section, you also need them in "each" of you job duties for each job. Example; in the past 25 years, I have worked for several different groups within the same company. I basically many of my job functions were the same just different processes, programming languages used and EDA (Electronic Design Automation) tools that I created. So, even if you have the keywords pertinent to the job that you are applying for in you summary section you also need to put it in bullets under each job or company that you have worked for. Personally, I think that it is a bit of "word over kill" but if that is what they want that is what we must do. Not to mention the fact that more than likely these very same keywords will likely be in your skill section, too. For the most part, long gone are the days that people not programs first looked at your resume.

With keywords, look at the job description that you are wanting to apply for. If I were looking for a job programming

I will talk more about keywords in a later post on the format of your resume.