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Resumes are the calling cards of today's job applicants
And should be personally tailored and targeted towards the desired position
Through brainstorming your past activities, jobs, training and/or past achievements
You can carefully select the type of resume that best suits your needs
None of which should exceed 1 - 2 pages in length
There are four different types of resumes
Chronological, functional, targeted and cobmination resumes
Each type has a different focus to highlight your individual strengths
Firstly, chronological resumes focus on outlining your work history
Funtional resumes focus more on your acquired skills and experience
While targeted resumes centre on what you can do for the specific position
Combination resumes are used to combine functional and targeted formats
in order to display your skills and experience
in a clear, chronological way through demonstrating your work history
Chronological resumes are generally used within the same field
Whereas function resumes are used during career changes or for breaks in employment history
Let us take a closer look at chronological resumes
This will be further demonstrated through a sample resume shortly
This type of resume outlines your past work history, organized by dates
You will start with your present or more recent positions
Focusing on long term positions which are most relevant
List a maximum of four positions and include the place and time of employment
Along with a short description of the activities that were involved and the various tasks that you completed
You want to make sure you limit the amount of repetition in terms of similarities between jobs and/or positions
If there are degrees to be listed, then include them briefly at the top under the title "education"
It is important to remember that the writing style for resumes should be short and concise
We will now take a look at an example of a chronological resume
As you can see in this example of a chronological resume,
the name and contact information of the applicant is clearly located at the top
Education information immediately follows the summary, and the work experience comes after
organized chronologically
The work experience begins with this applicant's present position, which is stated
Following a brief description of tasks and accomplishments,
a second job experience example follows
The dates indicating that it was immediately prior to the present position
Both positions were long term and the applicant does not exceed more than 4 examples
some other aspects to note are the clear headings
the organization and neatness of the resume
and the bullet points, which make the resume short and concise
Now, lets take a look at functional resumes
For this type of resume, job experience information should be brief
and kept to titles, dates and employers
There is no need for a description
The focus should therefore be on your aquired skills and experience
Your skills and experience should be divided into three categories
Some examples of what these categories could be are:
Supervisory, consulting and/or writing skills and achievements
These categories should be aimed directly at the targeted position
Beginning with the most relevant category and followed by a job experience section
Again, education should be listed as its own section, briefly at the top
You may also list volunteer activities or community service if desired
following the section on job experience
Next, we will take a look at a functional resume example
Once again, we can see in this example of a functional resume
that the name and contact information of the applicant is stated clearly at the top
Followed by a profile and then education
The main focus of this resume is the experience and skills acquired, which is the next heading
It is divided into three categories
Promotion and publicity
Artist management
and accounting
The employment history is then mentioned briefly with only titles, dates and employers
and no description
This again focuses the attention on what the applicant got out of the experience in terms of acquired skills
Finally, it is important to mention at the bottom of your resume that references are available upon request
Now, onto targeted resumes
Targeted resumes are best suited for very particular positions
as this tells the employer what the job applicant can do specifially for the position being applied to
This in turn offers the employer future results
rather than focusing on past experience and skills
This is done by demonstrating your abilities and the results that have been achieved, through brief descriptions
Once again, past job experience and education should be listed briefly
Lastly, we will look at the combination type of resume
This combines the function and chronological resume formats
To display skills and experience with a clear chronological work history
Education again should be included briefly under its own title
We will now move on to focus on cover letters
Being a first impression the cover letter is an opportunity
to stand out from other applicants through being interesting and captivating
as cover letters tell a hiring manager why you should be hired over other applicants
The aim is to highlight major achievements from your resume that are directly related to the position
However, you do not want to be repetetive
The focus should be on elaborating the relevant aspects of your resume
Showing your qualifications and interests in the specific position
Cover letters are a good opportunity to tell about the skills you may be missing
and how you plan to address that lacked skill
and also are used to request opinion and direction
Note that you should avoid general flattery as it is usually ignored and does not work
The structure of a cover letter should follow the standard letter writing practices for professional letters
Beginning with an interesting angle on the advertised position
and an explaination of why you are sending your resume to HR
you can capture the readers attention and state your case,
i.e. why you are the right person to hire for the specific job posting
and through a bit of research, you can tailor your cover letter even more to the specific employer
this helps make your cover letter unique and memorable
The cover letter should always be addressed to a person, avoiding the use of titles where possible
It is very easy to call you HR advisor and find out who the cover letter should be addressed to
Cover letters should be kept positive and upbeat, avoiding anything negative
and in particular the last paragraph should be kept positive and should indicate your follow up contact information
Basic resume information should not be repeated in the cover letter
and there should not be any metion of salary and be sure not to over use "I"
It is important that your cover letter is kept to one page in length
and they should be unique for each position you are applying to
We will now go over some of the most important points to take away from this tutorial
First of all, make sure you pick a resume type and stick to it
It is hard to emphasize just how important the cover letter is
Check for spelling and gramatical errors thoroughly
Don't give too much imformation
You want to keep the reader engaged in order to encourage an interview
Finally, dont exaggerate your skills and be sure to keep them relevant to the job
Good luck on your upcoming job searches
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact a human resources advisor
at hr_advisory@carleton.ca
And to further your chances of successfully acquiring a job
We recommend that you watch the complimentary interview tutorial that can be found on our website
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