How to Compose Work Experience for a Resume

Experience needed

A resume is primarily a compilation of your work experience to include present and prior employers, job titles held, dates of employment, and bulleted phrases depicting work performed. The easy part of composing a resume is entering your education and applicable training. It's the primary section on work experience that gives us writer's block. Below are pointers to get you started.

Instructions

1. Through a news ad or other source, you may have found a job opening that appeals to you and you want to submit your resume for consideration. Use the position description to compose the work experience area of your resume. If you are not aware of an opening at a company to which you want to apply, compose your resume based on a job category, like administrative assistant, financial analyst, hair stylist, computer repair, etc.

2. You need to show that you have the skills and knowledge to fill the vacancy. Look at the ad's position description (or presumed duties of a desired position if no description is available). As an example, if the description reads, "supervises" (or you want to be a supervisor), include experience you have had as a supervisor. The more items in the description that you can write about in your resume in regards to your own work experience, the greater the possibility you will be contacted for an interview.

3. Use bullets to phrase your applicable experience as action events, leaving off "I". For example, write, "Compiled monthly statistical reports for upper management." This makes reading your resume easier for the employer and gives you more space. Try to keep your resume to one page, emphasizing your skills that would be of value to the employer. You do not need to tell everything you ever did, just the highlights that brought value to the employer for whom you performed the tasks. For example, you do not need to write that you attended meetings or took notes. Instead, if those activities were of value to a project you were working on or were a part of your job on a regular basis, expound on them: "Compiled notes from weekly project meetings for distribution and historical records."

4. As you write the highlights of your applicable experience, highlight any areas that match the position description by bolding the text. If the description says the job requires that you oversee multiple projects, indicate how many projects you have worked on simultaneously rather than just saying you have overseen multiple projects. The objective is to quantify your experience by giving percents, durations, dollar amounts, whatever quantity is applicable, to show your success.

5. Show you know your stuff. Pepper your resume with acronyms suitable to the business area. It's okay to write "TCP/IP in LAN environment" rather than spelling out what those acronyms mean. Also, include skills you have using tools or software, like C++, MS Access, etc.

Tips & Warnings

• Resumes must be typed. Run spell check and grammar check. After finishing your resume, before sending it out, set it aside for a few hours or a day, and then re-read your resume. Now, with a fresh view, you may discover incorrectly used words or see a benefit to rewording an area for better flow.

• When compiling your history of prior employment, 15 years back is all the further you need to go if you have been employed for a long time.