Members Online Mentor

A Resume Development Plan

I would sooner scrub the oven or dust the downstairs closet shelves than write my own resume. But eventually I want to do something different, and I need to get out there into the marketplace to find a new and challenging writing job. This issue and next, I'm going to share some tips and advice on preparing your resume. Some of this comes from my own experience, some from the advice of several hiring managers and HR people I've spoken to recently. To get the most benefit from these steps, set aside some time to think back and remember your work experiences.

Create a comprehensive resume
First create a master resume. From this list you'll extract the final information for your resume. The master resume actually consists of three lists: jobs and responsibilities, companies and contacts, and education and training.

Make a list of all your previous jobs. Write down every paying and non-paying role, responsibility, task, assignment, obligation, project, duty, and vocation you've ever had. Volunteer and non-paying work counts. Give yourself job titles for this pro-bono work.

Then, list every company, person, and institution that you reported to. This includes the name of your supervisor or manager, his/her title, and his/her phone number (if you have it), and the dates you worked there. Check your old tax records for your salary. Add that to the list.

Finally, list any and all of your education and training. Include institutions you attended (dates, location, and class names). Think back to seminars, lectures, workshops, presentations, and conferences you attended. List the speakers and topics if you can remember. (Hint: keep proceedings, handouts, brochures, and notes to jog your memory of these in the future.) It doesn't matter at this point whether the experience is relevant to a specific job or not. Just put down everything.

Here's advice I give to my students. If you have taken a class that is relevant to your professional goal, be sure to add to your list any projects and assignments that you've completed. Experience is anything that you've done. Even class work. If you've taken a Help writing class, be sure to add Help writing to your list of experiences. Remember to put a sample in your portfolio (read my article about portfolios.)

When you've recalled this information, you've got all the elements from which to construct a resume that targets that cool job you want. In the future, add new information (responsibility, accomplishment, award, etc.) to this master resume as it occurs.

Create a list of accomplishments
Now look over your lists. Go through each item on your list and try to pull out every separate accomplishment in it. Did you write, edit, format, design, plan, schedule, or revise documents? Make separate lines for each project.

Then write a few sentences to detail what it was that you wrote, edited, etc (procedure? report?). Where and when did you do it? Who was the audience? Did you propose a new format that made the important information easier to locate? Did you revise technical content? How about interviewing? Did you have to interview someone to get the content?

Focus on what you want to do
You'll have an easier time finding appropriate job openings if you're focused on a specific job function. Your resume will be easier to write too, because you won't be trying to throw everything in to it. You'll know what to leave out. But, figuring out what you want to do is hard. A recent survey on Monster.com showed that 39% of the respondents felt they would be happiest if they could figure out what they wanted to do. That means there are a lot of us who still don't know what to focus on. In a recent resume workshop, Jenny Neill provided some good probing questions to ask yourself about what you want out of a job; check out her handout.

Create your new resume: Capture the relevant experiences
Start a new document. Identify the information from the lists you created above that is relevant to your job hunt. Consolidate and combine items where you see redundancies or repetitions, but keep unique information separate. Refer to the job description in the ad you're responding to make sure you've addressed the skills and experience they need.

You'll use this list as the basis of your new, targeted resume. Copy and paste these lines into a new document and save the new one as your targeted resume. Now you have a master resume from which to take specific information for each job opening. Save the original for future versions.

Choose a new resume format
Now move things around so it's roughly in order. Start with your name and contact data at the top. Create a heading and space for your summary information (you don't need to write this yet).

Then list your experience. I leave it to you to decide whether you need to use the functional or chronological format. Lots of web sites give you examples of each of these (try searching on About.com, or one of the search engines). But my feeling is that if you have recent relevant experience, then you may want to use the chronological format. I keep hearing and seeing indications that it is still the most favored format of hiring managers.

If your most recent experience isn't relevant, or you're transitioning from a different profession, then you may want to use the functional format. Or you may choose to experiment with a resume that combines a functional and chronological approach to ordering your skills and experience. When using the functional format, add your relevant work history after your work experience rather than including every job you've held. I think doing a good job on your resume is probably more important than which format you use. So pick the one you like the most.

Finally, list your education. Some managers only care whether you have a degree or certificate. They feel that a degree or certificate shows that you are serious and focused on your career. It demonstrates that you are willing to put in your own time to increase your proficiency and expertise in your profession. So, be sure to say if you are working toward a degree or certificate. I think the same goes for continuing education classes.

I've also heard from other interviewers that they like to see you keeping up-to-date by attending seminars, workshops, and/or conferences. So, if you attend these functions, list the dates, speakers, and general topic for each of these. I have a section called Professional Development that I use for these events.

List best or most desired experiences first
Go back through your draft and arrange your list so that whatever it is that you want to do most, or whatever you do best, appears first in the list. For instance, if you want to continue to do Web work, put your experience with HTML at the top of your list of experiences. People usually remember whatever they read first or last. You want them to remember the thing that is most important to you.

Geri Frick has worked as a technical communicator for over 15 years. Join her here next month for the next installment of Members Online Mentor. Send Geri your ideas or questions at Gerifrick@yahoo.com