What Should Go on a Resume?
When you're putting together a resume, you really have to be judicious in what you write. You want to fit all of your information on one side of one page, and you don't want to cram a lot of text onto that page, either. Human resource managers want to be able to easily skim a resume and glean the most pertinent information about you as a prospective employee, and so there should be a lot of white space on the page to make the text skimmable. On the other hand, you don't want to leave out important credentials or impressive facts about yourself.
The top and bottom of a resume are the easiest to take care of. The heading goes on the top, and this includes your full name, address, phone numbers and email address. The bottom of the pages is a list of three references and their phone numbers and email addresses. Make sure you get permission form your references to include them on your resume. Also, keep in touch with the people you list as references. Don't assume that one of your college professors and an old boss are going to remember you for the rest of their lives. You'd hate for a potential employer to call one of these people up and ask about you, only to have that person respond, "Who?" or "I'm drawing a blank here."
The middle part of your resume, in most cases, is reserved for a list of your past jobs, the schools and colleges you've attended-both of these lists should be arranged in reverse chronological order--and, if you want, a list of skills that make you ideal for a certain position. (Make sure the skills are business-related; no one cares if you can hula hoop with three hoops at the same time.)
Don't forget to list volunteer positions and internships among your professional experiences, so long as they have some bearing on the job you're applying for, or if they were positions in which you took an active role in helping the community. Don't just write the name of the company you worked for, either; include the start and end dates of your employment along with the specific job title you held.
And when it comes to your schools, you'll want to list a few extracurricular activities or honors from each college you attended. You probably wo't want to waste precious space listing what you did in high school, though, unless it's some thing that's really unusual or impressive (for example, a perfect score on the SAT's).
Whenever you're writing a resume, keep the language concise and to the point; don't use pronouns or any unnecessary words. For instance, you should describe a summer job on your resume this way: "walked dogs." Don't write "I walked dogs" or "walked precious and perfectly lovable pooches." Remember, a resume is not your life story; it's a list of verifiable facts.
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What's the proper outline of a resume? If you don't know, then your chances of landing that next job are slim. Learn the proper structure of a resume from http://www.careertoolkits.com
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