How to Write a First Resume

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Pat Goodwin with Pat Goodwin Associates dot com. And today we are going to talk about how to write your first resume. You know when I think about a first resume, does that mean a first resume with zero experience or does that mean your first resume that you've ever written because you've just never had one. But there's some basic components that would go with any resume based on putting a resume or building a resume. At the top of the sheet you would have an eight by ten sheet, you would have your name and contact information. I would encourage you to center in the top of the first page, your name, in about ten font, ten point font. Your name in bold in all caps then underneath that to the left side you would have your cell number to the right side you would have your email address. Make sure your email address is not a funky email address that it's a professional email address. Underneath that you would have an objective. If it's your very , very first job, then there probably is an objective that you want to have. I would just have the word objective centered, all caps and bolded. And then it would say seeking an opportunity in the field of or seeking an opportunity or seeking a position as a, and then you name the title. If you find that there, you can be more open minded about the type of job then you want to add two or three types of jobs that you may be looking for. Underneath that you would have the word summary which would be all caps, centered and bold, about ten font again. Then you would have two or three sentences of who you are as a person. If this is your very first resume and you've not had a job before, or are composing a resume based on very limited experience, you would want to say something about your self. People want to know what you've done, when you've done it and where. But when they meet you they want to know how you think. So this is an opportunity for you to demonstrate who you are as a person, that you are highly responsible, you're self motivated and you might want to mention a couple of other things that you've done. But then also talk about that you are responsible, you are motivated, that you have transferable skills in the areas of. Underneath the summary, which would be sharp crisp words about who you are as a person, you would have then centered in bold, all caps, professional experience. If you have any professional experience then you would begin with the name of the company and your title. The dates would go to the far right. If you have not had any experience, then you are not going to be able to put any experience. If you've done anything in your field of work, maybe you mowed yards, maybe you did babysitting, maybe you worked in retail or in fast food, you could put various positions. Sol if you put various positions, instead of professional experience, you would list the types of jobs that you have. The types of jobs that you had with a brief job description. The 'job description is going to talk about the work itself. And you want to be creative in what you say because you want to say things that you were highly responsible for. Underneath that you would have your education. If you are continuing in your education ,you would put the current school that you are with and when you would expect your degree or if you graduated from college you would put graduate, the name of the college, the high school, city, state. Underneath that if you have any technical skills or office skills such as Word,Excel you would have computer skills or technical skills beneath that. And that's how you write your first resume."