How Do You Write A Great Resume
You can write a great resume by paying attention to the specifications in each job posting and tailoring your resume to every job you apply for. Make sure you are concise, honest, and that your resume is free from errors. Only include the most relevant information and never apply to multiple jobs using the same resume.
Things To Not Include In A Canada Resume
There are several elements of a resume that are necessary or useful in other countries but are not essential for a resume in Canada. If you are applying for a Canadian job you can consider removing these items:
- Graphics such as charts and tables can be distracting for a professional job.
- Personal Information such as your marital status, identification number or social security number, any family names, date of birth.
- Aggregate grades, many Canadian employers will not understand what this means. You can find a different way to describe your academic achievements such as Ranked 7 out of 100 students or Graduated with highest honors.
- Ideally, a resume should reflect the experience that is relevant to the job that you are applying to and typically no more than ten to fifteen years in the past.
Creating a resume for a Canadian job can be confusing but follow these steps in order to make it much easier for you to get a job in Canada. After applying for jobs if you do get a job offer you can apply for several Canadian Work Permits. With so many applicants each year from around the world looking for a Canada work permit, it is important to get experienced legal help that will ensure your application package has the best chance of being accepted. If your application is refused, your job offer may also fall through so make sure you speak with an experienced Canadian Immigration lawyer.
How To Write Canadian Resume For A Canada Job
Ella Bergquist CanadaWorking in CanadaJob Opportunities
When you and your family are looking to move to Canada you may not think of all the little things that are needed to become successful. Whether you are searching for a Canadian job in another country or searching for a job while youre in Canada, you will need to create a resume. A resume is a written summary of your education, work experience, credentials, and accomplishments. Several things may be different in a resume if you are applying for a job in Canada.
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How Far Back Should Your Resume Work Experience Go
Your resume work experience should contain every piece of information that is relevant to you securing the role. This will dictate the amount of work experience in a CV that you might include.
If you have a 30-year career, you might choose simply to list the employers for the first 10-15 years and use your precious resume space to describe the most recent resume experiences. However, if your career is 15 years or less, you should definitely include resume work experience about everything.
In terms of the amount of work experience on your resume, try to give more information on the more recent roles. Make use of bullet points and solid text after your have listed the employer and date details – as you can see in our many resume samples.
Should I put seminars on my CV? Typically, a one or two-day seminar would not be included on work experience in a CV. If the training or educational event has a certain prestige or lasts more than a week, then you might consider including it in the education section, but as anyone can attend a seminar, it will not give a huge indication as to your individual level of suitability for the role. You will certainly have more important information to share.
Canadian Resume Sample Sections:
Resume Heading: Full Name, Street Address, City, State/Province, Country, email address, telephone number and LinkedIn profile.
Objective: Give the employer a brief description of your qualifications and your working goal. You can include that you are looking for long term or short term employment, if you are looking to move up within a company, or wanting to learn more about a certain aspect of a business, etc.
Work Experience: This is the most important part of the resume and should take up most of the content. Employers want to know: where you have worked, how long you worked there, what your job title was, and what your responsibilities were. List the jobs, internship, or apprenticeship that you have held in reverse chronological order with your most recent position at the top. Only add positions relevant to the position you are applying for.
Education: In this section, you will list the degrees you have earned, when you graduated and from what college, institution, or university. List each degree you have obtained from highest to lowest.
Example: Masters in Architecture, May 2018, McGill University. Bachelors in Architecture, May 2011, Queens University.
If you are currently a student then the education section of your resume will be listed below your objective and above work experience.
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Pair Your First Job Resume With A Complementary Cover Letter
If youre writing a resume for your first job, youre likely writing a cover letter for your first job too. Knowing how to write a cover letter is even more important for you than experienced job seekers, because it gives you a chance to really pitch your application on grounds other than work experience.
To complement your first-job resume, use your cover letter to showcase your passion for the position. Explain how your skills, certifications, and relevant life experiences make you the perfect fit for the role.
Ideally, your cover letter will present you as a hardworking, loyal, and personable employee, justifying the investment the company made in hiring you.
Creating a good cover letter is straightforward:
- pick a professional cover letter template
- address the hiring manager by name
- explain why youre passionate about the role
- include at least two body paragraphs that show how your experience makes you the right person for the job
- conclude by repeating your contact information and requesting an interview
Focus On Your Education And Skills
In lieu of a work experience section, it’s best to expand and focus on an education section to highlight the skills you’ve developed on your resume. What can you do well that this job requires? What will be useful to the hiring company? What have you done in school and what have you studied that has prepared you for assuming this job? This is generally a little easier if you’re a college graduate with specialized education, but even a high school graduate can talk about their electives and relevant coursework, why they wanted to take them, and what they learned from the class.
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Creating A Resume Skills Section
The skills section is an essential part of your resume. However, there are several different ways to approach creating yours.
Here are a few examples demonstrating the different ways you can format your resumes skills section:
Example 1
If you have many relevant hard and soft skills, add them to your resume skills section using separate bullet points, like this:
If youre a student or recent graduate and have no significant job skills yet, there are still plenty of things you can list in your resume skills section. Heres an example of a skills section written by a candidate with no work experience:
Example 2
Another way to organize your skills section is by using bars to provide employers a rough estimate of your proficiency.
This type of skills section is particularly popular with more creative professions, like graphic design or social media management:
Have You Been With One Employer For Many Years Here Are Seven Ways To Use Your Long Tenure As A Selling Point On Your Resume
Seven Tips to Leverage Long-Term Employment on Your Resume
Job seekers often worry how to handle job-hopping and long periods of unemployment on their resumes. But occasionally, someone asks the flip side: how to handle long-term employment with one company. With so much disruption in the labor force and many workers eager to jump at better jobs, employees who stay with one company for a significant amount of time may wonder, Am I a dinosaur? The answer, of course, is no. The key is to present your long-term work history as a positive attribute, proof youre in for the long haul. Recruiting a new employee is an expensive endeavorcompanies are always looking for ways to promote long-term tenureso demonstrate you are a worthwhile investment. If you would like to use your solid work history as a selling point, here are seven ways to enhance your resume:
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Writing The Work Experience Section
Writing the resume work experience section is one of the most influential and often trickiest resume sections to get right.
The work experience/job history on a resume is where past job descriptions and professional experiences give credibility to an application or interview. All the other information and sections on a resume, from hobbiesto the personal statement, frame the list of relevant work experience over the last 10 – 15 years. So, how do I describe my work experience on a resume?
This guide will show you everything you need to know about including work experience on a resume, including:
- How to list your current job and previous positions
The five-word rule. Think about five words that would be sum up your career. How would you describe your experience? Those five words should then come across incredibly strongly in the work experience on a resume. A hiring manager is not going to remember the sentences that you write, but if they stop reading with those five words in their minds, your resume will have done its job.
Section 2 How To Write A Resume
Now that we have a general idea of what a resume should include, lets look at how to write one that helps you stand out from the crowd.
Again, lets go back to our poor beleaguered hiring manger toiling away over mountains of unfocused resumesand while were there, Im going to let you in on a little secret.
Out of all of those resumes, there are hundreds of qualified candidatespeople who would probably do an amazing job and would be great additions to any company.
Sure, there are those in that pile who have NO business applying for the jobbut I guarantee theres a big chunk of applicants who are qualified and would be great hiresproblem is, their resumeswellsuck.
Luckily yoursdoesnt. In fact, yours is brilliant and you are the perfect candidate! Youre the answer to the hiring managers prayers. Youre the reason they post jobs and slog through piles of paper poo and when they finally stumble on your little nugget of job history gold, jump to their feet in excitement and yell Bring this one IN!
Or at least, if you follow these guidelines and rules, you will be!
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Tailoring Job History On A Resume For Each Application
Instead of mass applying to every job ad on the internet with the same resume, take the time to tailor it:
Besides the fact that 36% of hiring managers throw out resumes that dont seem personalized for a particular role, a tailored resume and application:
- Shows the hiring manager you took the time to apply and their job wasnt one of 50 different places you sent your resume.
- Get past the automatic keyword filtering larger companies might use to automatically screen candidates in their Applicant Tracking System . Your work experience samples need to be scanned by the machines first.
- Tweak diverse experiences to focus on the most relevant experience for a particular job. For example if youve ever had a job wearing many hats unless youre applying for another many hats position, this strategy gives you a chance to focus your work experience on the hats that are most relevant for the new role.
Restarting this process every time you apply for a new job may seem excessive. Ideally, the more time you put into tailoring your resume, the less jobs youll need to apply to.
Example Of A Career Summary Statement:
Accomplished Creative Writer with four published books, over twenty years of industry experience, and an excellent track record writing content for online magazines and digital media. Created informative, engaging articles for numerous local and international publications. Increased number of annual Cosmopolitan subscriptions by over 30% in the space of four years working as the editor. Deadline-driven, skilled, and innovative.
The above Summary Statement is from a resume submitted for an Editor. What follows is a breakdown of what makes this a great opening paragraph for a resume:
- The first sentence provides an overview of the candidate, her career highlights, and her experience.
- She chooses her words with care, including only the most pertinent information.
- She lists achievements, but also provides statistics to back them up.
- She gets to the point quickly and concludes by listing her three most important attributes.
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What Are Some Examples Of A Good Resume
Heres the thing: Your resume wont ever look exactly like someone elses, nor should it. How you choose to format it, organize your information, and talk about specific experiences depends not just on your career path, but on your field, the job youre applying for, the company that job is at, and more.
So there isnt a universal way to do a resume. But there are common themes. To give you some context as to how yours might turn out, here are three examples of different kinds of resumes.
How To List Skills In Your Resume
When mentioning skills in your resume, there are 3 essential steps to follow:
Step #1 – List Hard Skills with Experience Levels. For each hard skill you list, you want to mention your proficiency level:
As a rule of thumb, you can divide them by:
Beginner – You have some experience with the skill, whether its from some entry-level practice or classroom education.
Intermediate – Youve used the skill in a work environment with a good level of understanding.
Advanced – Youre the go-to person for the skill in your office. You can coach other employees, and understand the skill on a high level.
Expert – Youve applied this skill in more than a handful of different projects & organizations. Youre the go-to person for advice about the skill, not just in your office, but even amongst some of the best professionals in your field.
Make sure to NEVER lie about your skill levels. Otherwise, its going to be pretty awkward both for you and your employer.
Imagine your first task at work as an Illustrator – to create a graphic vector to go nicely with an article. If you end up delivering a hastily drawn stick figure colored with a paint bucket tool in Microsoft Paint, youll be out of the job before your probation period ends.
Step #2 – Tailor Your Skills to the Job. You might have some super rare, awesome skills, but theyre not always going to be useful. For example, its awesome that you know accounting, but would you really need it at your new job as a line cook? Exactly!
Systems:
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List Your Experiences Or Skills
For Chronological/Combination Résumés, List Your Experiences
Starting with your most recent or current job, list your previous work experiences.
- This section shows where you have worked and when. It also states specific accomplishments for each position or job.
- This is where content can make your résumé run over a page, so be selective about what you include.
- Pick experiences that seem most relevant to the position you seek. For inspiration, think of your full-time or part-time work, summer jobs, occasional jobs, internships, fieldwork and special projects.
- Don’t worry whether your experiences are “good enough.” Employers admire people who have worked hard in a variety of positions.
- Always start each achievement with an accomplishment verb, like accelerated, achieved, expanded, influenced, solved, maintained, generated, effected, advised, controlled, trained or utilized.
- Don’t worry if there are gaps in the timeline, but keep everything in chronological order, with most recent jobs at the top.
Examples:
Southwestern Writing Center, Peer Writing Tutor, Yuma, AZ
Camp Granite Falls, Area Director, Mountainville, TNJune 2013September 2017- Directed staff of four while supervising 20 campers.- Taught crafts, sports and cooking.
For Functional/Combination Résumés, List Your Skills
Examples:
Self-Motivated: Proactively organized volunteers to assist with distribution at the community food bank.
Education And Academic Achievements
After your key skills, create a resume section for your education. List any degrees you have obtained or any degrees you are currently pursuing. If you stopped going to school before obtaining a degree, you can list the credits or hours you have completed.
For each degree, list the school, the location, your degree, your field of study and the dates you attended. You should also include academic honors and awards, such as graduating Cum Laude.
Example of how to list education in a resume #1:Coral Springs University, Coral Springs, Florida Bachelor of Science in Biology Minor in PsychologyGraduated Magna Cum Laude
Example of how to list education in a resume #2:Coral Springs University, Coral Springs, Florida In ProgressAssociate of Arts
Example of how to list education in a resume #3:Coral Springs University, Coral Springs, Florida Bachelor of Arts in Art History 200 Credit Hours Obtained
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