The Resume.Com Guide to Writing Unbeatable Resumes by Warren Simons, Rose Curtis Read Free Book Online Page A

the following:
    ✓ Years of experience:
Ten-year career in office management, including experience in environmental administration and government regulations. (Avoid age discrimination by never going back farther than 25 years.)
    ✓ Day-to-day responsibilities and tasks:
Responsible for overseeing all data entry for northwest regional sales group.
    ✓ Innovations or improvements for which you were responsible:
Spearheaded use of electronic record keeping, enabling real-time data storage program.
    ✓ People you interacted with and supported:
Provided administrative support for telemarketing group and sales associates as well as product manufacturer representatives and third-party vendors.
    ✓ Any awards based on performance:
Received “Employee of the Year Award,” 1995.
    Writing in the correct tense is a vital part of making a clear presentation of your employment history to potential employers. Ongoing responsibilities, such as current job duties or skills that you are using currently, are written in the present tense. Promotions, accomplishments, and past results should be written in the past tense.
    “Manage,” “guide,” “direct,” and “oversee” are all present-tense verbs that might apply to current responsibility statements and skills currently being used. “Managed,” “guided,” “directed,” and “oversaw” are all past-tense verbs and would apply to previous positions.
    You might have a mix of present and past tense action verbs in your current position; that is acceptable in resume writing. However, be sure that all action verbs for previous positions are written in the past tense.
Current Position (Present Tense)
     

     
Previous Position (Past Tense)
     

     
The Professional Experience Section: The Chronological Resume
     
    If you are using the chronological format, break your professional experience section into separate job descriptions, starting with your most recent employer, job title, and dates of employment. Under that information list three to eight bullets for every position.
    As we discussed above, prioritizing your strongest selling points is a key to the chronological resume. For example, if you are a sales manager applying for a sales director job, your quota-shattering results and your team’s performance should be listed at the top, whereas a description of your communications skills should be listed toward the bottom. As a rule, hirers find hard statistics extremely alluring (such as sales revenue numbers), and this will maximize your resume’s success.
The Professional Experience Section: The Functional Resume
     
    If you are using the functional format, your professional experience section will be divided into two to four subheadings of skill sets labeled and prioritized to target an opening. For example, “Management,” “Administration,” “Communications,” and “Customer Service” are all great umbrellas for a store manager. Regardless of your targeted profession, if you are using the functional format, remember that a hirer will look first for solutions to his or her needs. That’s why targeting these subheadings to a specific job ad is the best approach.
Rules for Creating Effective Skill Sets for Functional Resumes
     
    ■ List three to five subsections in the resume, highlighting your key skills or abilities. Under each of those subsections list your achievements, duties, and successes.
    ■ Each subsection should be relevant to the position for which you are applying. Although this type of resume allows you to apply to numerous fields, an effective approach is to target each opening specifically.
    ■ An excellent way to strengthen bullets is to demonstrate how you’ve applied your talents to leverage results. This is called a “cause-and-effect” relationship and is used to create effective accomplishment statements. Here is an example: “Used extensive research skills to identify and purchase less expensive equipment, saving company $2000 per