Résumé Help: Strategies for Recent Grads with Limited Experience
Today’s candidate, Don, is a recent graduate with limited experience. If you have very little experience, you must make the most of the experience you do have.
It appears that Don copied and pasted the job descriptions onto his résumé. We only see the minimal requirements and skills. Also, Don duplicated the information from one job to the other. Often when readers see that the entire job shown is a duplication of the first job, they stop reading. Lastly, Don’s résumé is missing a major section - the summary. The summary is very important to give the reader an overview of the value you offer. It also puts your history into context. This section is where the candidate can show the requisite career skills. Don could list his areas of expertise or interest for his journalism career (sports and as specific as the sports he has covered) in the summary.
Three quick steps to repair Don’s résumé:
1.) Craft a summary that is three to four lines in length. It should contain major skills, overview of experience (including areas of sports journalism Don covered), and characteristics vital to a successful journalist.
2.) Remove skills and knowledge from the job descriptions. He can place those in a “Special Skills” section. Sub-categories in that section could be “Computer Skills” and Journalism Skills.” For example, AP style knowledge would fit in the journalism area.
3.) Boost the job descriptions in the “Professional Experience” section with concrete accomplishments. Examples could be the number of stories published, awards won, nominations for awards, titles of most acclaimed or popular stories, and names of VIPs interviewed.
For more information on how to improve your résumé, check out these links:
Recent Grad Résumés: What’s Hot and What’s Not
Professional Experience Revamp
To see additional résumé suggestions that will help you as you create your own résumé, please click on the image below.
If you would like a résumé critique, please contact Debra Wheatman at debra@careersdonewrite.com or visit us at http://careersdonewrite.com. The Résumé Help blog appears weekly on Mondays.
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