How to Make a Simple Resume

This eHow written by Karen Star will show how to make a simple resume to start looking for career opportunities. Everyone who is looking for a new career opportunity needs a resume. As the "Job Doctor," I will show you how to make a resume in under an hour so that you will be well on your way to finding a new career opportunity. This is great for people who have worked at one career for many years or have never written a resume before.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Scratch paper
• A computer with Word
• Your dates of employment

1. Let's start out with talking about the types of resumes that there are. There are chronological, functional and combination resumes. Chronological resumes are the best ones to start with since they list exactly what you have done in chronological descending order. This is usually what employers expect when they request a resume. All of the other types are trendy at best and more often than not confuse the recruiter or hiring manager.
2. Scratch Paper Let's get a scratch paper out and start with writing down every company you have worked for and owned with the titles, the months and the years next to them. Once you have finished that, write down what your responsibilities were at each company in full sentences. (We will modify this later). Write down what community college or university you went to, the city and state of your school, the date you graduated, and your degree. (If you did not graduate, you can write down the years you went to that institution with the courses that you studied).
   
   *Please click on the image to get a sample of what this should look like.*
3. Rough Draft of Your Resume Now you are ready to type your resume. Start by opening up a "Microsoft Word" document on your computer. (If you do not have "Word" on your computer, please find a computer with "Word" on it either at a relative's house or at the library). Many employers are not able to open "Word Perfect" documents.
   
   Make sure the font is either in Arial or Times New Roman. The other fonts seem more difficult to read.
   
   Type your full name, physical address (P.O. Boxes shouldn't be on resumes), your city, state, zip code, e-mail address (if you don't have one, get a free one from yahoo.com, msn.com, netscape.com, or google.com), your mobile phone number, and your home phone number.
   
   Highlight what you have written and press the paragraph center icon with the six lines in the middle.
   
   Highlight your name and put it either 16 or 18 point font.
   
   Draw a line under all of this. The drawing tools is under "Table" and select "Draw Table." This is used as a visual guide to separate your contact information from your competencies.
   
   Type in what you have on your scratch paper onto your word document. (Remember this is a rough draft).
   
   *Please click on the image to make sure you are on track.*
4. Summary of Qualifications Under your contact information should be a summary of your qualifications. This is a summary of what you have done in general detail. Type SUMMARY OF QUALIFICATIONS in the middle of the page. Here is a list of action words that you can use for that: implemented, developed, managed, improved, designed, deployed, analyzed, reduced, standardized, provided, coordinated, championed, negotiated, strengthened, etc. These can also be used for the body of your resume as well. (An example of a sentence is the following: Leveraged cross-functional sales techniques to enhance company profits from $10,000 a month to over $100,000 a month). You can also make bullet points of short two or three word "actions" of your career background. (For instance, this can include the following: owned a business, utilized complex software, saved millions of dollars, negotiated contracts, developed new business, etc. This is optional but helpful in understanding what you have done. It's time to put another line underneath your summary.
5. Professional Experience Now you are ready to start formatting your resume. The font of the body of your resume should be between a 10-12 point font. Type in PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE in the middle of your page and bold it. Underneath this, at the very left of the page, type in the name of the company your are presently at (or the last one you worked for or owned) and bold it. Next to this, type in a regular comma and then the city and state of the company. Tab to the right approximately 4 times and type in the months and years in the form 5/2003-present. Press enter and type in the title of your position and then bold it and italicize it.
6. Responsiblities/Achievements Now, highlight what you have typed in the body and press the bullet point button. Do this under each company. Now it's time to refine your duties and achievements so that you stand out. These bullet point phrases should not be complete sentences. You need an action word to start with and then follow a responsibility that you have at that company. After this, you can put one or two notable achievements that occurred at this company.
7. Education/Certifications One you have finished your professional experience, it is time to move on to your education. This section should include any college or university training. It can also include certifications you have gotten. Type EDUCATION in bold in the middle of the page. Under this, put the degree you obtained and the year with the name of the institution under that. If you received any certifications such as the "CPA," you can type in Certified Public Accountant with the date you received it underneath your university/college.
8. Computer Skills Last, but certainly not least, you definitely want to list your computer skills underneath your education. These skills usually depict computer expertise or programs you have actually worked on. If you do not have computer or database skills, you should not list anything at all.
9. Congratulations! You are well on your way to creating the resume you need to get full attention for what you can do for your next employer. I will have other articles on how to network to expand your chances of finding a great new opportunity!

Tips & Warnings

• Multi-lingual skills can be listed anywhere in the resume.
• Sending your resume through regular mail is usually not a good idea because it is more difficult for employers to input that resume into a database system. (This sometimes applies to faxed resumes as well).
• A cover letter is also necessary but should NOT be generic or list another position that you have applied for. (For instance, if you are applying for a Sales Representative, don't list "applying for a teacher" on the cover letter). I will have another article about how to write a simple cover letter.
• Never have a strange e-mail such as [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]. A neutral e-mail address with some combination of your name is usually the best.
• Also check out http://www.ehow.com/how_2288037_dress-interview-women.html
• Here is what does NOT belong on your resume: your age, your social security number, your marital status or what your spouse does, how many children you have or their ages, your photograph, your height or weight, a P.O. Box (this can seem shady), your sob story about life, your disabilities, your medical treatments, your references (this should be a separate document), your salary history (this should also be a separate document only when requested by a prospective employer), your political views, and your criminal history ("Prison" listed as the employer and "Criminal" listed as the title is a big no-no).