How to Write a Winning Resume

Here is some important points from Peter Fiske’s article “How to Write a Winning Resume“.

Resumes and CVs are different, very different. The differences between the two include structure, content, length, and style.

The purpose of a resume or CV is to get you an interview.

A principal difference between a CV and a resume is that CVs focus on where you’ve been, whereas resumes must also convey where you are going. A resume cannot simply be a list of your past experiences. It must be a selection of those experiences and skills that are best suited to the job to which you are applying.

Resume is a summary of your experience and skills that are most pertinent to the advertised position. It is usually one page only. Multiple pages only for senior-level positions. It is used for every other type of job outside of academia and research science. Even a partial list of publications is rarely included. Style and content are important. Bad style is a real liability. Resumes should be adapted to fit each specific job to which you are applying.

Curriculum Vitae is a full list of your professional and educational history. Usually many pages; length is not important. Used for academic positions and research positions in government and industry. A full list of publications is essential. Style doesn’t matter that much; content is what matters most. CVs do not need much alteration to fit each specific job opening.

There are two general types of resumes: chronological resumes and skills resumes.

Chronological resumes are the ones you are probably most familiar with: They list your work experience in chronological order. Skills resumes categorize your experience under several key skills areas: the skills needed for the job you are seeking. Chronological resumes are useful for demonstrating a pattern of working, especially if you are continuing in a general profession or field. They emphasize progression and a steady history of work.

Skills resumes emphasize marketable skills and can be more useful for people making career changes or for people who have worked off and on for some time.

Name and Address: Your name, address, phone number, fax number, and e-mail address should be centered at the top of the page, big enough to read easily. If your resume is two pages long, be sure to put your name in the header of the second page.

Statement of Professional Objective: Objective statements are a common part of most professional resumes but are rarely if ever found on a CV. As its name suggests, an objective statement is a one-sentence statement of what YOU are looking for. Obviously, this statement may change depending on the type of position you are applying for. The objective statement tells the employer what type of position you are seeking, where you want to work, and what aspect of the field you are interested in. An objective statement must strike the right balance between breadth and specifics. Here are some good examples:

“Challenging position as computer programmer or analyst incorporating skills in numerical analysis, resource management, and land-use policy”

“Desire position in management-consulting organization requiring outstanding verbal, analytical, and teamwork skills”

“Position as analytical chemist in semiconductor manufacturing company, specializing in transmission electron microscopy”

Each of these clearly states the applicant’s goals, and some have even summarized a few of the applicant’s abilities. As you can see, in order to construct a good objective statement, you have to have a specific objective in mind. And that requires researching the jobs for which you are applying.

Summary Statement: Some resumes also have a summary statement, which is another brief (one or two sentences) description of the applicant’s most important qualifications. These usually include the most important skills for the job in question, years of experience in field, credentials, or areas of specialization. “Get a summary statement up front, to describe your area of specialty and a few of your qualifications, and then fill out the detail in the work experience paragraphs below.”

Education: The educational background of research-trained scientists is usually outstanding on paper. It is something that people will really notice. I put the Education section right under the Objective/Summary statements (if any). Put information such as “graduated cum laude” in this section, but put other academic and related awards in a separate section.

Just so everyone is clear on this, you should put the following in the Education section in reverse chronological order: Name of institution (Ph.D., master’s, undergra) Location of institution and Year of graduation (don’t bother with the month) Department or major (or dual majors) and academic honors (i.e., cum laude, etc.) Any professional certificates or accreditations or minors

Do not bother putting in: The titles of your theses (that might go in work experience but only if applicable) The name of your adviser Your GPA (if it is requested, often along with GRE/SAT scores; list it/them separately) Your high school

A Ph.D. or master’s is a liability only if you are unable to show a prospective employer the valuable transferable skills you have acquired along the way. Your challenge is to make clear how your education and/or training are relevant to the job you are applying for.

Experience/Work Experience: This is the place to list three to five experiences/jobs that highlight the set of skills that is most desirable to the employer. Most importantly, you should show how you made a difference. How do you do this? By citing specifics. Use quantifiable measures of what you did: Don’t just say you TA’d a lab section; tell employers that you “taught introductory laboratory chemistry to 23 students.” Whatever you do, do not assume that a simple job title will suffice; most employers don’t really know what jobs in other fields are like in detail.

In describing these experiences, you should use action verbs in an active past or present tense. For example, rather than saying “was responsible for operation, maintenance, student training, and certification of users for x-ray fluorescence spectrometer, 1992-1995,” say “maintained and operated x-ray fluorescence spectrometer; trained and certified 44 students over 3 years.” By using action-rich verbs and numbers, you highlight your accomplishments in quantitative ways.

If you are just emerging from graduate school, your school research experience may be the first and biggest item, but it shouldn’t be the only one. Teaching experience can look good as a separate category, especially if you had real teaching duties as opposed to grading the problem sets from your adviser’s class. Summer work for companies or part-time work done while in school is great, too. If you did something particularly notable in college, that can go in, especially if your work experience is limited. For example, I was the technical director of a theater on campus. With each of these items, you should list the following first as a heading: Job title, Name of the organization, Location (city, state) of organization, and Time of employment (again, use only years–nobody cares about months).

Other sections: You may want to include a list of particular skills if you have not already mentioned them in your description above. Computer skills and foreign-language skills might go in this separate section. Depending on the job, you might want to mention particular software that you are familiar with. Because most of the “real world” uses C or C++, you should mention if you have some experience in these languages. FORTRAN is not widely used in the programming world these days.

What not to include: Personal information is not only extraneous; it can seem unprofessional. Skip the little section at the bottom of the resume that says you love to ski, hike, shoot large animals, and collect spores, molds, and fungus. Also verboten are the following: date of birth, your marital status, the number of children you have, and salary requirements.

References: References, if requested, should be listed on a separate page with their full name, job title, place of employment, relationship to you, full address, phone number, fax number, and e-mail address. Also, don’t bother putting the statement “References available on request.”In general, my impression is that employers are relying more on the written job materials and the interview to make a hiring decision and are using references as a final check. However, references that are known to the prospective employer can be extremely powerful. These people often do get called, and if they are prepared to sing your praises, you have a terrific advantage. Do remember to prepare your references ahead of time for the possibility of inquiries.

Writing a bad resume is easy. Writing a good resume is hard. It will take time and many drafts. Because research scientists are often targeting several very different career paths simultaneously, it is important to have several different resumes that accent different skills. It also goes without saying that resumes should be immaculate-looking and flawless in spelling and punctuation. (Bad spelling is a real kiss of death, so, for God’s sake, proofread it and give it to your friends to read.)