Preparing a Professional Resume

Soon you will be graduating, and you want to get a good job.
Employers ask for a resume to get a first look at your qualifications.
Keep in mind their objective is to solve their problems, not to give you a cushy salary and a hot computer.
Write your resume accordingly, and be as specific as you can.
Your goal in preparing and presenting your resume is to "put your best foot forward", to present in concise written form your experience and education pertaining to the position you seek.
Ideally a resume should fit on one sheet of paper, with wide margins on the sides, top and bottom.
It should be concise without being terse, and it is never overly wordy.
A few sample resumes will follow.

I - General Resume Structure

- Name and other identifying information
- Your employment objective
- Specific skills appropriate for your desired position
- Education
- Experience
- Other interests
- Information about references

Name and other identifying information

Bruce Wayne
33 Batcave Walk
San Francisco, CA 94555
(415) 987-6543
Email: batman@sfsu.edu

It is common that people submit resumes and neglect to include their phone number.
Obviously, these people are not called back.

Your employment objective
You may have no idea, but this is not the time to be philosophical and write:
"I want an interesting job for about 20 hours/week, high pay, a new BMer, and a massage chair."
Do not be flip. This is not the time to be cute and say "I have more megabytes than megabucks."

Companies want you to state an objective.
If you don't state one, they may have several jobs you're qualified to do, but they won't know which one to select for you.
Companies prefer to hire well-organized, directed, people.
Self-starters who require minimal supervision are a company's dream.

If you have various interests, it is smart to write different versions of your resume that will appeal to different jobs.
That's not so hard to do on your computer.
The more specifically your objective fits the description of the job you're applying for, the better your chances of being hired.

Sample objectives:
- Database applications programmer
- Systems programmer
- Graphics, Java programmer, etc.

This may be a good place to use "keywords."
Some companies have software to hunt for the best applicants.
You want to mention the words that they might be looking for.
See the accompanying topic: Digital (scanning) Resumes

The best plan is to look at the company's employment ads, and see what they are looking for.
Read the description carefully.
If that job title feels right to you it becomes your objective.

· Specific skills appropriate for your desired position
Describe briefly specific skills you have in that area.
This may include hardware and software that is familiar to you, especially specific languages, operating systems, and software packages previously used.

· Education
Describe your education in reverse chronological order, with your most recent studies and degrees first.
You can leave out the two weeks of accordion lessons you took at camp one summer.

· Experience
List the relevant positions in reverse chronological order.
You may include in this category any professional-quality projects you have completed at school or in a volunteer or coop program.
Don't bother listing that summer job at MacDonalds.

· Hobbies and other interests (optional, but often important)
You may find that the company has a computer music department.

· Information about references.
It is smart to take a separate sheet listing references along with you to any interview.
Contact your references very early in your search for a position.
Your professors and former employers are good references.

An example follows.

William Batson
312 Mission Drive, Apt. 10G
San Francisco, CA 94132
(415) 123-8456
http://thecity.sfsu.edu/~batson
batboy@thecity.sfsu.edu

Objective

Computer Game Design and applications programming

Technical Qualifications and Keywords

Languages - C/C++, Java, MIPS Assembly, BASIC, HTML,
OS - DOS/Win 3.1/95/NT, UNIX, Mac, LAN
Interfaces - Visual C++, MFC, OpenGL, Watcom IDE, gdb
DTP Tools - Photoshop, FreeHand, PageMaker, Quark, Word

Education

8/2000 B.S., Computer Science
San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
* Cumulative GPA in major: 3.55
* Member of Golden Key National Honor Society
* 1998. Excelled in ACM Student Programming Competition
* 1997. Awarded Cal Grant A merit scholarship

Project Experience

Graphics - Current team development of 3-D modeler.
GUI/Multimedia - Ported a 3-D ray-cast walkthrough from C to Java.
See http://thecity.sfsu.edu/~chrism/DEATH/Death.html
Web Design - Website team for City of Richmond, CA.
See http://dai.sfsu.edu/richmond
Data Structures - Team distributed C++ development.
OS - Developed a simple multi-process virtual OS in C++.
AI - Programmed a neural network

Career History

7/97-present Software Engineer Intern
Electronic Arts, Inc., San Mateo, CA
Sports game development for Win95 platform.
Program tools GUI layout, run-time image processing for 3dfx chipset

3/96-2/97 Desktop Publisher Kinko's, Computer Services Dept., San Francisco, CA
Graphic design, page layout, photo editing, customer service

Personal Profile

Hands-on experience in laboratory experimentation and documentation, and in on-line, literary, and demographic research
Spent 13 years overseas and speak German, Italian, and French.

II - TIPS

Things to include

* Basic Information (i.e. name, address, phone number)
* Objectives
* Education
* Projects
* Honors and Awards
* Certifications
* Clinical Experiences
* Interests and Hobbies
* Volunteer Work
* Language(s) spoken

Things not to include

* References
* Reasons for leaving previous jobs
* Salary Information
* Marital Status
* Age
* Religion
* Date of Birth
* Race
* Social Security Number
* Children and Family Planning

No typos or grammar errors. Spelling must be perfect!
Use a spellchecker and have a friend with good English skills look your resume over.
Then triple-check your spelling and format. Use a laser writer and high quality paper.
Include everything that will make you look good, and leave out those details that make you look not so good.
Don't be shy here. List any honors and awards you may have won.
If you have a good grade point average and made the Dean's List, include this.
If interviewers later want to know your very average GPA, you can tell them matter-of-factly.

Never lie.
Prospective employers will ask you questions about included or omitted topics.
Don't be like the man whose former employer gave him this reference.
The best thing about Richard was his resume. Include your expected graduation date.

Include your expected graduation date.
Include your citizenship/visa status if you are not a US citizen.
Do not send a resume as an email attachment that must be unpacked on a specific platform or a specific computer application.
You must not assume that the personnel office uses Microsoft Word.
Omit the deadwood. Headings such as Resume are unnecessary.
Don't include references, marital status, age, ethnicity, or reasons for leaving other jobs.

Style and Quality
Your resume is the first thing a prospective employer is going to see in connection with your interest in a position.
Therefore, it should be a very high quality piece of work.
Not only should it accurately and truthfully represent your qualifications for a position, but it should look good too.
Make it perfect so that it won't wind up in the circular file.
Keep it simple. Write clearly, using as few words as possible.
Design is about clarity and readability, not fonts!

III - EXAMPLES

If you're still not sure which direction to follow, or if you're feeling unsure of how your resume looks,
get The Resume Catalog - 200 Damn Good Examples, by Yana Parker (ISBN: 0898158915).
· Good advice on resumes at http://www.kaplan/career/Resume.html
· The Resume Doctor is at http://www1.mhv.net/~acorn/Acorn.html
· WinWay and Damn Good Resume are computerized resume development programs that help you write and print out a professional quality resume.
The Career Center has these programs.

IV - COVER LETTER

A resume never travels alone, even an electronic one.
If you do not personally hand it to the employer, then it must be joined by a cover letter.
This simple letter introduces you to the employer. It should be polite and persuasive.
Send this with your resume to a specific individual by name.
Use the same address header and fine cotton bond as in your resume for a clean packaged look.
The letter should have a few short paragraphs.

1) Purpose you are writing (referral, position listed, etc.): I am applying to the position of Java programmer advertised in the San Jose Mercury (2/5/99). I am graduating this June from San Francisco State University with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science with an emphasis in graphics. (Refer to materials you are sending.) I am enclosing my resume.

2) Why this company: Sun's leadership in the development of Java makes it the foremost company to fulfill my interests in this new OOP language. My friend, Mark McCall, who works for you, speaks highly of his working environment.

3) Why you should hire me: I have written four original Java apps and therefore I will hit the ground running.
(Highlight how you make the difference.)

4) Ask for an interview and follow with a phone call to arrange it. I look forward to hearing from you.
Please call me at xxx-xxxx if I may answer any questions or provide references.

An example follows:

Address

Date

Mr. Ray Blakeney
Technical Recruiter
M icrosoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-6399

Dear Mr. Blakeney:

Last week I had the pleasure of talking to Colleen Wheeler, your College Recruiter, at the Computer Science Job Faire at San Francisco State University. She suggested I write to you as a preliminary step toward applying for your company's position as a WebTV developer at your new site in San Francisco.

For the past two years, I have worked as a consultant in the Computer Science Time Share Laboratory.
From the enclosed resume you can see that I helped students with their coding in C++, Mips Assembly language, and Java.
This past semester I have been the PC manager, supervising 2 volunteers and a system administrator.
I will be in touch with your office next Tuesday to arrange a time to further discuss my qualifications with you.

Sincerely,

Joe Javanut (sign above your typed name)

V - Digital Resumes

Hewlett-Packard, one of the largest employers in Silicon Valley, receives more than a quarter million resumes per year.
How do they handle them?
OCR (Optical Character Recognition programs) turns these resumes into machine-readable forms for indexing.
The indexed resumes make it easy for managers to track down the employees they need.

IBM had a job fair last year on campus, advertising they had 4,000 jobs.
They announced they were going paperless and asked candidates to bring their resumes on disks.

Current thinking is that one benefits from having two resumes: a People's resume and a Digital resume. Internet job banks & electronic employment databases are changing the face of technical recruiting, and your current resume's layout may not do.
You need to make it scannable, clean, and searchable.
Expect your resume to be scanned into a computer as an image and then processed with an optical-character recognition program. It will read the file for keywords and place your resume in a database according to the words it finds.
The optimal resume will be ready for all forms of electronic submission, including email, HTML, and scanning.
Here is a request I received:

NEWS FROM ZIFF-DAVIS 10/16/97
As an information technology professional, we want you to be the first to know about a new Ziff-Davis service
that could, literally, change your life. You are in demand.
Hundreds of companies with lucrative and challenging positions to fill are avidly looking for people with your skills and knowledge.
But how do they find you?
And how do you find the right match for your unique talents and career objectives?
Now Ziff-Davis and I-Search, the leading provider of Internet recruitment databases, have set up a high tech
job search Web site on ZDNet called jobEngine: http://www.zdnet.com/chkpt/zdna971016001/www.jobengine.com

Post your resume online. Powerful, proprietary software will scan & mine it for key information & ask you a few questions.
In moments, employers worldwide looking to fill a position you fit are able to spot you.
It works the other way, too.
If you're looking for a particular kind of job
-- by how close it is to where you live, by job title, by adrenaline index, whatever
-- jobEngine will find your likely matches within moments. And it's confidential.
Post your resume now and find your perfect match.

DIGITAL STYLE NOTES:

Create a one-column document on plain white paper without lines, graphics, or bullets.
Print on one side only.
Do not use buff or colored paper.
Do not send photocopies.
Do provide a typed or laser-quality original of your document.
Do not staple your materials.
Use a single font size between 10-14 points throughout the document.
Use fonts in the sans serif family (Helvetica, Times Roman, Geneva, or Futura).
No bolds, underlines or italics, shadows, borders, boxes, or graphics.
Your name should be the first thing the computer sees.
Computers look for white space and words with all capital letters to distinguish section headings and your name.

Prepare your scannable resume in ASCII text.
Make it lean and mean, with no special fonts.
Completely left-justify it, even the heading.

E-MAIL RESUMES are smart since they are digital.
They totally bypass the errors that are introduced by an OCR scanner.

HTML RESUMES
Don't use photographs.
If you do choose to use a graphic on your resume, make sure that it is simple, tasteful, and appropriate.
Remember that a graphic takes time to download. Don't overuse links to other sites.
You should think twice before adding a link to your personal home page, particularly if it includes photos of you at last year's New Year's Eve party,
trivia about your dog, and your poetry. Include a counter.
You can then keep track of the number of potential employers that reviewed your resume.
Existing forms for HTML resumes are already on the Web.

A good online recruiting service for college students and alumni is BridgePath:
http://www.bridgepath.com
BridgePath does not collect resumes.
Instead you are notified of an employer's interest in you, and you then send your resume via e-mail directly to the employer.

A GUIDE TO A DIGITAL RESUME

CHRIS JONES Name in caps. Always list your name at the top, followed by your address on a separate line.
1234 Main Street
San Francisco, CA 91234
Phone: 415-555-1234
Fax: 415-555-4321 Keep phone & fax numbers on separate lines.
E-mail: chrisj@tech.com

Section headings in caps
KEYWORD SUMMARY
Keyword summary should lead your scannable resume.
This is a short collection of nouns & phrases of your qualifications, including job titles, specific responsibilities, and tech terms associated with your work.
Two Years of Experience with Client/Server Architecture.
Jr Consultant. Systems Engineer.
Systems Analyst. Enterprise Networking. TCP/IP. OSI. Windows NT, Windows 98.
Unix, SunOS. Database Programming. Microsoft SQL Server. Sybase. Oracle.
Certified Systems Engineer. MacOS, BS, Computer Science.

Your professional experience should follow the keyword summary.
Start with your most recent position, making sure the job title, employer, & job period stand out.
When listing responsibilities and achievements, use nouns that describe your experience.
This will maximize the database keyword content of your resume.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Junior Consultant Client/Server Consulting, Techtown, CA. 1995 to present.
Assist client management and information systems staff of enterprise-scale companies in designing and implementing client/server applications.
Specialize in systems development and relational database development.
Consulting jobs have included the design and implementation of a relational system for a major insurance company.

EDUCATION
Make sure your degree, school name and location, & graduation dates are listed. List relevant coursework.
Graduate Courses in Software Engineering, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
GPA: 3.8.

BS, Computer Science San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
GPA: 3.3; Major 3.6.

Spell out acronyms that will be meaningless to an electronic search.
CERTIFICATION MCSE, Certified Systems Engineer

KEYWORDS.
List every conceivable skill and guess what words the computer is likely to be looking for.
Use NOUNS and keywords to describe yourself.
Besides technical words (specifying the skills to do the job) employers appreciate the following:
"languages," "computer," "experience," "achievement," "hard-working," "overseas experience," "flexible," and "task-oriented."
To show your skills, the words "Internet experience" will not be enough. Include Java, Perl, HTML, CGI, PPP, SLIP if you have used them.

RESUME LENGTH:
Some job hunting experts advise you to limit your resume to a page.
When a computer does the screening, more may be better.
For a digital resume, up to 3 pages is acceptable for people who have a lot of relevant experience.
This does not apply to most new graduates.
If you want to make sure everything in your ASCII resume looks good and has the correct spacing, here are some suggestions:
1) Paste it into an e-mail, and send it to yourself; or
2) Go to www.jobengine.com and click Post Resume.
Then follow the directions and cut and paste your resume into the database.
You can quickly see what you need to correct, and you'll also get a feeling for how information is extracted from your document to become a standardized record.
The following site provides several different online tutorials on ASCII, scannable, and HTML resumes and on using keywords.
The step-by-step instructions are clear and easy to understand: www.eresumes.com/tut_eresume.html
If you're interested in a free, downloadable browser plug-in that helps you prepare your resume in the format desired by employers, check out www.resumail.com
There's lots of guidance here for job seekers who want to apply to companies that are signed up with the Resumail service.
Finally, look at www.damngood.com/jobseekers/ScanGuide.html for tips on what key words and fonts to use and how to package things.