Decide Which Type Of Rsum You Want
There are three types of résumés: chronological, functional and combination. You might want to consider more than one format of résumé if you’re applying for multiple jobs.
- Chronological is the most traditional format and lists experiences according to the order in which they took place. These résumés generally appeal to older readers and may be best suited for a conservative field.
- Functional is a type of résumé that lists your experiences according to skill. This is the format to use if you’re changing career direction . Because it displays your skills first, your work experience, or lack thereof, is not the main focus.
- Combination combines the best aspects of the chronological and functional styles. Be careful with length for this format the résumé can quickly get long.
List Your Relevant Coursework
Note that we suggest including only relevant coursework. You can tell itâs relevant because the job description will mention it. You can find out from the job description exactly what kind of person the company is looking to hire. The most important qualifications are the keywords you want to incorporate in your resume that are relevant to the job youâre applying for.
Customer Service Resume Examples And Writing Tips
Are you applying for a customer service position? If so, you’ll want to emphasize some of the soft skills commonly required for customer service employees, such as being an excellent communicator and having strong interpersonal skills.
Employers will also be looking for candidates who are punctual and responsible, because customer service workers often handle cash registers and replace other employees during shift changes.
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Design & Formatting Tips
The subject matter of your resume is ultimately what recruiters care about most. However, that doesnt mean you should slack off when it comes to design and formatting. A cluttered, visually confusing resume makes it more difficult to read, and therefore more likely that recruiters and hiring managers will cast it aside. On the other hand, a sleek, polished resume will have the opposite effect. Use these rules of thumb to ensure that your resume looks its best.
- Use an easy-to-read font of no less than 11 pt.
- Add margins of at least .7 inches.
- Make sure theres sufficient white space between sections.
- Dont go overboard with intricate design or decoration touches of color are fine, but avoid any clashing or visually busy details.
- If youre going to print out copies of your resume, invest in good paper and use a high-quality printer.
- Dont save your resume as a PDF unless the application specifically says it accepts PDF files. Some applicant tracking systems scan PDFs as if they were one big image, which fails to capture your information.
- Keep your resume to 1-2 pages max, unless youre in a field like academia or medicine and must cite papers and publications.
Want some specific examples? You can find attractive and effective resume templates here and here.
Importance Of A Good Cv
Think of your CV as your own living, breathing personal pitch a pitch that succinctly answers all the questions a recruiter or hiring manager has about you. The degree to which you present the reader with the information they require to make an informed decision can determine whether you are invited to interview.
This includes why you are applying for this job, with this organisation and in this industry, what value you can bring to the organisation and whether you have what is required to be successful in the role.
To leave the reader with no doubt about your suitability, you must present a strong CV that clearly conveys this information.
To do this, below youll find our tips on how to write a resume. Alternatively, you can download our resume template.
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The Most Popular: A Reverse Chronological Resume
As previously mentioned, a reverse chronological resume is preferred by many coaches and HR experts, mainly because its super readable. When everythings in a clear order, its easy to skim and even easier to draw lines between experiences.
Who its good for: Just about everyonefrom students applying to internships all the way up to senior-level executives
Using The Star Method
The STAR method can help you create impactful descriptions for each experience on your resume.
First, read through the posting for a job that interests you. This will help you understand the role and the employers needs. Identify the skills and qualities they seek. You can usually find them in the responsibilities and qualifications sections.
Next, use the STAR method to describe the context of your work, your actions, and how your actions had positive impact on the organization.
Situation: What was the situation, problem, or conflict you were facing?
Task: What were you tasked with? What were your responsibilities or goals?
Action: What action did you take? What did you do to solve this problem?
Result: What was the result or outcome of your action? How did it benefit the organization? Can this result be quantified?
Use the STAR method worksheet to create descriptions that incorporate the key skills and qualities the employer is seeking. Your nal statement will start with the action section and include the results section when appropriate.
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How To Ace Your Next Interview
Youve perfected both your resume & cover letter. Now, its time for the next step – the dreaded job interview.
Whether youre an extrovert or an introvert, you probably hate the interviewing process. After all, sitting there while someones prodding into your past experiences and judging the hell out of you isnt the most fun experience.
Did you know, though, that most interviewers ask the same questions? Yep – all you have to do is learn how to answer some of the most common interview questions, and youll be an interview away from landing your dream job!
Want to learn more? Check out our complete guide to Job Interview Questions and Answers.
Pick The Ideal Resume Layout
The hard part is over. Youve written your resume, and are feeling confident about getting that interview. Now its time to take a moment and consider your resumes design.
Depending on the industry you work in or the job you want, you may need to adjust your resume layout to fit the expectations of the hiring manager.
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Create A Clear Education Section
Having a clear education section is essential for your resume, especially if youre a recent college graduate or have minimal work experience.
If you lack professional experience but have a good track record in school , your education section should be highly detailed to highlight all of your education-related accomplishments.
On the other hand, if you possess more than a few years of professional experience, then its appropriate to keep your education section short and sweet.
Additionally, if youre a student or recent graduate, list your education section above the experience section of your resume. This way, you emphasize your most marketable qualifications at the top of the page.
Here are the main points to include in a standard education section:
- The names of your university, community college, or technical school
- Location of the schools
- Date of graduation
- Degree
- GPA
Additionally, include relevant coursework on your resume if youre a recent graduate and dont have much work experience yet.
Here are two examples demonstrating how to format your education section:
Example : Restaurant Manager
Tasty Treat Restaurant| Vadodara, Gujarat
Restaurant Manager
- Resolved customer complaints which reduced loss in revenue by 4%
- Implemented controls on inventory wastage to reduce the variable cost by 10%
- Hired, trained and coached 25+ staff members on health and safety standards and customer service skills
- Established customer service program for customer-facing staff members. Boosted customer satisfaction by 15% within a year of program implementation
- Partnered with chefs and introduced signature dishes that doubled the revenue in three months
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Choose The Best Barista Resume Format
Just like a single slurp of coffee can tell you a lot about its quality
A single glance at your barista resume can be pretty revealing.
Heres how to make a good impression with your resume for a barista position:
- Follow the reverse-chronological resume order in your resume. This way your experience and accomplishments will gain prominence.
- Opt for simple and readable resume fonts. The safest range is between 10 and 14pt. Write simple headings. Keep your barista resume nice and cleanuse white space strategically.
- Make it one-page long. Focus on whats relevant, and dont squeeze in too much information. The length of a resume matters.
- Start off with a barista resume objective or summary. Follow it up with the experience and education sections.
- Put your barista skills in a separate resumesection.If you belong to a professional association or hold a barista certificate, do mention them. Add a section on your interests and hobbies and foreign languages.
Expert Hint: The safest format for your barista resume is PDF. Its machine-readable and keeps the formatting intact.
Consider Including Volunteer Work Or Other Experience
Anything youve done thats not work experienceyour side gig, volunteer work, special projectscan be hosted under clearly-labeled sections . Depending on how robust your work experience is, these things may be worth including, particularly if theyve helped you level up your skill set or better align you with your dream job. Plus, they make you look that much more well-rounded, passionate, and hardworking.
If youre a recent grad, you might also build out a section for on-campus activities, such as clubs, organizations, or leadership experience. This can be a great supplement if youre lacking in the jobs department. You can frame these just as you would professional jobsincluding your title, the organizations name, and bullets describing what your role was and what you accomplished.
Read More:This Is Exactly How to List Volunteer Work on Your Resume
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What To Include In Your Customer Service Resume
Include the right information. The most important elements to include in your resume are your contact information, education, and experience. Another optional way to highlight your customer service abilities is to list them in a skills section.
Include optional sections, if you wish. These include a resume objective or resume profile. Use the objective or profile to specify what role you are looking for, along with the talents and abilities you’d bring to the position.
Emphasize your experience. You should be sure to list any previous customer service positions you’ve held.
Use the appropriate keywords. In addition to highlighting strong soft skills, you may also want to include customer service keywords throughout your resume.
Make a match. Match your qualifications to the job listing to be sure your resume accurately reflects your ability to do this particular job.
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.
Read Also: How To Add Education To Resume
Quick Review: How To Know If Your Resume Is Good
The best way to know if you have a good resume is to look at whether youre getting job interviews. This is your resumes main job to get you invited to interviews. So if thats not happening, then something needs to change .
We also discussed some specific factors that make a resume good. These include:
- Data and metrics
- Writing in terms of results, rather than what you were responsible for
- Utilizing spacing and bullets to make everything easy to read
- Tailoring your resume for the job specifications to show employers how youd help them in their exact role
- Including keywords from the job description
- Proofreading and ensuring your resume is error-free
Those are all areas that can help you get more job interviews, so make sure youre doing everything above before applying for a role.
You now know what makes a resume good and how to fix many common problems.
Finally, if you want a free online tool that will tell you how strong your resume is automatically, we recommend this tool from TopResume.
And for more free articles on resume writing and how to get more interviews, visit this page.
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.
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Use Resume Examples And Templates
Use a resume example or template to help you write your resume. An example can help you decide what information to include. Templates can help you format your resume. However, whenever you use a resume example or template, be sure to customize your resume, so it reflects your skills and abilities, and the jobs you are applying for. A simple copy/paste isnt enough.
Choose The Right Work Experience Format
When it comes to formatting your work experience section, you have mainly three options to choose from:
Reverse chronological format
In this format, you will list your work experiences in reverse chronological order. This means that your most recent job will come at the top. This is a common format used by candidates who have a few years of consistent work experience, as it helps them showcase how they progressed through their career.
Functional format
In the functional format, you will only mention the names of your previous employers and durations of employment. Instead of listing each job you performed, you can simply mention your skills and achievements relevant to the position you are applying for. The functional format helps highlight your skills and achievements over the job positions you held. That is why this format is perfect for those who have significant gaps in their employment history.
Combination format
The combination format is flexible and allows you to showcase your work experience to emphasise your strengths. For example, suppose you are currently working in an entry-level software development position. In that case, your skills sections may include soft skills like critical thinking and problem-solving, while your hard skills will include Java and SQL. In the combination resume format, your work experience section should elaborate on how these skills helped you excel in your previous jobs.
Related:Resume Format Guide
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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.
The Purpose Of A Resume
Your resume serves to introduce the relevancy of your skills, experience, qualifications and achievements to a recruiter and potential employer. A recruiter or employer may not spend longer than a few minutes reviewing your resume, so it should succinctly convey your most relevant achievements. If the reader thinks you are a suitable candidate for the role, your resume will have achieved its purpose an offer to attend an interview.
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