Tips to highlight your best skills
By: TAYLOR MENKE
Copy Editor
Contributions by James Claiborne
Staff Writer
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GENERAL INFORMATION
A resume is a document which highlights a person’s skills and experience for a potential job. However, resumes are not limited to college graduates and certified professionals.
“It’s never too early to start developing your resume,” said Jacqueline Meaders-Booth, manager of STLCC-Meramec’s Career and Employment Services. “You need a resume for more than just a job: you need it to join organizations, for scholarship purposes and volunteer experiences.”
Information should be vague, but informative. Design and readability are also important components of a resume.
SKILLS
Begin by assessing skills, activities, past employment, memberships and participation in extracurricular activities. Sometimes an employer may request reputable references in addition to these basics. The organization of the document should be fluid and easy-to-read.
Meaders-Booth suggests simple design. “Some people come in with a resume that has bold, italics, underlining, three or four different types of bullets, or they may have bullets here and then go into paragraph form, You have to stay consistent.” Meaders-Booth said.
Resume development is a constant process requiring self-evaluation and adapting to prospective employer interests. Meaders-Booth said it should not be a one-stop shop. “It’s more like you have to make a resume for every job that you’re applying to,” she said.
EXPERIENCE
“[Employers look for] related experience. It depends on what they’re seeking from the application so you have to make sure you read the application thoroughly, to ensure that your resume is developed toward that information,” Meaders-Booth said.
For example, if a student is applying for a job as an office assistant his/her resume should reflect attributes relevant to that work such as Microsoft Office proficiency, previous experience in the field and references relevant to the job.
There are some simple rules to follow when writing a resume, especially for the first time. Avoid using graphics unless applying for a graphic-specific job (in which case, the applicant might develop not just a resume but a portfolio). The resume should be free of errors or misspellings, be factually correct, and frequently updated to convey current skills.
“If this is your first year in college you can definitely utilize information from high school, because that’s what you have,” Meaders-Booth said. “But when you become a college student we definitely want you to get involved with organizations and activities and public service so you can build your information from your college experience. High school information becomes the first thing you can start removing as you update your document.”
