Resume Format
Written by admin on October 1st, 2007 in Information, Tips.
Choosing the format of your resume is a good place to start. There are three most common formats which will be discussed…Chronological, Functional, and Targeted/Combination.
Basic Resume Format
Our experience has found that interviewers prefer a reverse chronological format resume over a functional or other formats. What is a chronological format resume? Don’t worry, in the following information we will tell you exactly what your resume should contain and provide you with an example resume to use as a guide.
When selecting paper, pick something white or ivory, these are standard and acceptable colors. Pages should be 8 1/2 inches by 11 inches. It is very acceptable for your resume to be over one page. However, your resume should never exceed two pages.
At the top of the page, put your name. On the next line place your mailing address followed by city, state, and zip. To the right of your name and address, place your home phone number. On the next line place your work phone number. Now you are ready to begin the body of your resume.
In the first section of information, list your educational background. This section should be titled “EDUCATION”. List the Degree and the year you received your degree on the first line. Second line should list the University your degree was received from and the city and state in which the University is located. If you received a Graduate Degree, you should list this prior to undergraduate work on one full line and list it in the same manner. If you have not fully completed your graduate work, list the amount you have completed.
The second section on your resume should be your military history. The grouping should be listed as “EXPERIENCE”. Under experience you should list all military positions in reverse chronological order.
First you should list, on one line, the date you began active duty to “present” (If you have already left active duty then list that date in the place of the word “present”.) On that same line, place that branch of the service and location. Then, skip one full line.
Now, we want to explain the positions you have held. On the first line, list he dates when the positions were held and the title of the position. Then, in paragraph form, list the responsibilities of the position you held, the number of people you supervised and the type and amount of equipment for which you were responsible. After you have briefly covered the data, you must then cover the most important part of the paragraph. List the accomplishments, in a bullet format.
Listing your accomplishments and the positive impact these accomplishments made is important for an interviewer. An interviewer must know more about you than accomplishments you attain and the results and impact of those accomplishments. It is the results of you accomplishments, on which an interviewer will judge your job performance and effectiveness. I’ll stress this again, you must list your accomplishments, the results, and the impact of those accomplishments.
Repeat the above section for each position you held in military.
The third grouping on your resume should be special classes or training you received. This section should be titled “SPECIAL TRAINING”. To the right of the group title, list the name of the class / course and the date attended.
The fourth grouping on your resume should be involved honors / activities. This section should be titled “HONORS”. You should list all honors, organizations, community service, offices held, etc.
The fifth grouping on your resume should be any military awards you received. This section should be titled “AWARDS”. After the title, skip one line and list all awards you received.
The sixth grouping should list additional information. This section should be titled “ADDITIONAL INFORMATION”. In this section you should list any important information that did not get mentioned in the previous sections of the resume. Such as: computer skills, foreign language skills, college expenses earned, etc.
