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5 Steps to Build a Better Resume

May 13, 2021

Resumes are a business tool that you’re going to put in front of someone who will decide whether you will be an asset to their company. Employers spend between six and twenty seconds looking at a resume, so keep it short and sweet. Also, make sure it’s directly relevant to the job description of the role for which you’re applying. It’s always good to have several versions on hand. For instance, if you’re applying for healthcare positions, you might have one version for a hospital position, one version for a clinic position, and one version for a home healthcare position.

Your resume should have the following standard sections: the profile summary, the education section, the work and experience section, and any honors, awards, and affiliations.

1. The Profile Summary

The profile summary has replaced the resume’s objective section and is your billboard to highlight the skills you have to offer to prospective employers. This summary should use keywords and adjectives in the job posting to demonstrate your attention to detail. Profiles can be three to five bulleted phrases or a two to three sentence paragraph. There’s no right or wrong way, but using bullet points makes it easier for an employer to read.

2. Education Section

After the profile summary, you want to list your most recent related degree first. You do not need to include a high school diploma because employers assume you have one if you’re attending college. In the education section, you can also include training certificates and any completed coursework. You should also include your GPA if it is above a 3.0. As a note: always round your GPA down to the nearest 10th if needed. So if it’s 3.062, you’re going to say 3.0. If you haven’t graduated yet, list an “anticipated graduation date,” the GPA, the degree title, and relevant courses.

3. Professional Experience

Instead of saying work history, you want to use the term professional experience. Professional experiences can include volunteer work, clinicals, and internships. For each of your paid or unpaid experiences, you’ll want to have the business name, city, state, job title, month and year you started, and the month and year you stopped working there.

List bullet points about what you did or accomplished using action verbs. Words like managed, maintained, increased, sold, made, developed, etc. If you are still at the job, use present tense verbs. If you are no longer in the position, use past tense verbs. Highlight your impact as much as you can for your past work. Provide numbers – how much time did you save? How many dollars did you sell? How many new clients did you recruit?

4. Honors, Awards, and Affiliations

Include any honors and awards that you’ve received. Make sure you order the honors by reverse chronological order and rank them in order of importance to the career objective. If an award has nothing to do with the job you’re pursuing, you may not want to include it.

You may want to include professional affiliations and activities you are part of. Emphasize any leadership roles you’ve had and spell out the organization’s name because employers might not know the abbreviations or acronyms.

Alicia Acker, pictured in a pink oxford shirt, assists a femal student with her resume

5. Resume Wrap-Up

A resume is your first introduction to a prospective employer. Make sure you take the time to do it professionally and effectively. Blackhawk students and alumni who would like help crafting the perfect resume can check out the Career Services page at https://blackhawk.edu/Student-Resources/Career-Services or set up an appointment with the resume experts at (608) 757-7603.

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