Hi, this is Eric with more help for Ex-offenders and felons looking for jobs. Today we are going to talk about how to put together a great résumé. In our prior video, we talked briefly about setting up a basic résumé. Today we are going to talk about this in a little more detail. If your skills are work ethic or your product then the résumé is your sales brochure. The résumé is very powerful self-marketing tool designed to present your skills in qualifications in one neat package.
An effective résumé will give you an advantage over your competition in getting an interview where you can really sell yourself. Your résumé should be a one page summary of your skills, experience and training.
There are many ways to put a résumé together, today we are going to focus on what is known as a chronological résumé which means that we are going to list our work experiences by date. Beginning with the most recent employment and working backwards.
There are different forms of résumés and different ways you can set them up. If you do not have a lot of experience writing résumés, you may want to get help from someone that has done this before and has a little more experience.
A well-prepared résumé will contain certain elements. First, contact information that will include your name, remember we are not going to use nicknames or aliases, we are going to use the name that is on all of your government documents.
Next, we are going to have an address followed by a telephone number. Someone who wants to contact you in reference to your job search we’ll need to have a quick and easy way to get a hold of you. You really need a phone number, if you do not have a phone yourself you need to talk to someone who will be willing to take messages for you but you really need to have a phone number on your résumé.
Also many people are using the internet as a way to get help in the job search, many people prefer to be contacted by email. Sometimes it is easier because the do not have a lot of time to talk to people on the phone and email is a good way to make contact with people. Now if you are going to use an email address, make sure your email address is professional. You are going to be judged on your professionalism.
Next is your objective. Briefly state what you hope to accomplish with the résumé.
Next section will be your work experience. The general rule is, list your 3 most recent jobs or your last ten years which ever comes first. Include jobs you held while you were incarcerated. List them in order with your most recent job listed first. If you have military experience, list it in this section. You will need the title of the position, name of the organization, location meaning city and state; dates of employment and describe your work responsibilities and specific skills used.
Next is education and training. If you are a college graduate, list the name of the institution, city and state where you earned your degree, you do not have to list your high school if you are a college graduate. But if you have high school diploma only please list your high school and the location meaning the city and state. If you earned the GED, please list the institution where you earned the GED. Include any classes or certifications you have earned in this section.
Next are your skills and strength. List your outstanding strengths and skills.
Finally, we are going to have a line for references. Now this line is going to say reference is provided upon request. We never list our references on our résumé but we are going to let everyone know that we have a list of references and you can get them upon request.
Here is a sample résumé. Notice there is a name, address and telephone number. Rather that this person chooses to use an email address; you see it is a professional looking email address.
Next is the objective, this one says to obtain a position within a company that will benefit from my initiative extra interpersonal and organizational skills. Your objective may sound say something similar to this but you really need to stay what you hope to accomplish.
Next is the experience. If you notice this person is listing a job they had while they were incarcerated using the name of the correction or facility—Bordertown CF. Now we abbreviated correctional facility with the abbreviation CF, which is being very honest about what our job was without being blatant it was a prisoner correctional facility. So we just used the abbreviation CF, it looks a lot nicer.
See we listed all of the positions, first by date, then the name of the organization, then we listed where this organization was, meaning city and state. Also the position we held and our basic responsibilities on this job.
Now we did it in two parts just for example sake but we try to do a résumé on one page.
Next is the education. This person lists a graduate equivalency diploma, which they earned at Bordertown correctional facility. Also a building trade’s certificate earned at the same place.
Next space, we took the opportunity just to list some very important skills we thought figure an employee would be interested in. Skills we listed as strengths are hard working punctual, organized, reliable and honest. We just think to use the things that employers will be interested so we just give them a little insight on us.
The last part is references and we stated that references are available upon request. We are going to talk a little more about the final points of doing a résumé in a later video.
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