Resume

3RD Resume category or 2ND depending on EDUCATION category location:

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE category:

Except for a soon-to-be graduate, or a recent graduate (who is not expected to have extensive professional experience), this category is, for obvious reasons, THE MOST IMPORTANT CATEGORY and should be well thought out, every word made to count, simple yet thorough and DIRECT, and easy to read.

As mentioned previously, there are three basic resume styles / formats: Chronological; Functional; Targeted. At this point you want to determine which style you will be using. Let's discuss the uses and differences:

• CHRONOLOGICAL RESUME - is widely favored by executive recruiters and most corporate employers, i.e., most prospective employers, because it is easy to read, gives a job-by-job description of your employment history, spotlights current results, and illustrates employment specifics. Sometimes this format does not show-off your transferable skills to there best advantage and this is extremely important to do when making a major career change. However, through effective use of the QUALIFICATIONS and EXPERTISE categories, you can overcome this disadvantage. For example, this may be how to set up your CHRONOLOGICAL resume categories:
• Identification Information
• Objective
• Experience Summary
• Strengths
• Education
• Professional Experience
• Additional Experience
• Softward/System Skills
• Language Skills
• Professional Affiliations
• Publications
• Salary Negotiable
• References Available Upon Request

• FUNCTIONAL RESUME - this is the perfect resume tool for career changes. It spotlights applicable skills or functions or accomplishments gained over your entire career (rather than listing job-history details). You focus on transferable skills and experiences relevant to the job for which you are striving. You will omit or play-down past jobs that have little or no connection to your present goal. However, the FUNCTIONAL resume makes it difficult for the employer to track your career history and increased responsibilities. This situation can be solved by listing the company you were employed by, the position you held, dates and address - following the Accomplishment category. FUNCTIONAL RESUME categories:
• Identification Information
• Objective
• Accomplishments
• Employers and Positions / Dates
• Professional Experience
• Education
• Computer Skills
• Language Skills
• Professional Affiliations
• Salary Negotiable
• References Available Upon Request

TARGETED RESUME - this resume format would be used for a specific job, with a specific employer and this resume would have to be reworked for each position you apply for. The Qualifications category would include the skills you have developed or could develop for the position you have targeted. The Experience Summary category and / or the Achievements / Accomplishments categories would use action statements, as in the chronological and functional formats, in a list standing on its own, but selected and arranged according to their importance for the job target. The Professional Experience category will contain the name of the organization / company, town and state, dates of employment and your title or position. Categories for the TARGETED RESUME:

• Identification Information
• Objective (specifically state occupation / title and targeted industry / field.
• Qualifications (only those applicable to target job)
• Experience Summary / Language/Computer Skills / Strengths
• Education (limit to marketable / added dimension academic achievement)
• Professional Experience
• Professional Affiliations
• Salary Negotiable
• Willing to Relocate
• References Available Upon Request

Decide which resume format you will use ... decide which categories you will use ... and the next post will show you how to format your PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE category for each format. We also need to discuss the Objective category, later.