2 of 8

What is a resume?

Throughout your professional lives, you will have a resume.
A resume is the standard way of presenting yourself to potential employers. It’s a summary of your experience and accomplishments.

3 of 8

Resume Pro Tips Part I

Stick to the basics. On a printed resume, you’ll want to use a simple font and white or cream-colored paper, on a single side of the page.
Focus on the positive. What accomplishments are you most proud of? Even if you haven’t had a paid job, you have skills, knowledge, and achievements that will help employers understand why they should hire you.
Be specific. Often, your resume will be scanned by software that’s looking for specific words. If you have sales experience, for example, put your employer, job title, and a description that makes it clear you know how to sell to customers.
Be accurate. Don’t guess about when you had a certain job or the name of the award you won two years ago. Make sure you get it right, or you could lose an employer’s trust.

4 of 8

Resume Pro Tips Part 2

Keep it professional. Don’t include your height and weight, religion, or other personal information. Only include activities and hobbies with work relevance, such as being a team captain (to show leadership ability) or on the chess team (to emphasize strategic thinking skills).
Proofread! Nothing turns off an employer as much as carelessness. Look over your resume several times for typos and consistency of presentation. Ask a friend or family member to help.

5 of 8

What needs to be included on a resume?

In a resume, usually your name and your contact information are centered at the top, with key information in bold.
A GPA of 3.5 or above is worth noting on your resume.
Work experience can be both paid and volunteer. Work experience should be presented from most recent to oldest and includes start and end dates.
Under the categories of Key Skills and Activities, you should only include things that are relevant to the kind of job you’re applying for. Don’t just list any hobby or activity---make sure that it helps paint a picture of you as a great potential employee.
You may want to consider dividing your skillset in the following categories:

Basic skills: teamwork, communication, time management, leadership, flexibility/adaptability, punctuality, dependability
STEM skills: statistics, data-driven decision making, problem solving, computer literacy, electronics, coding
Technical skills: writing, research, salesmanship. Technical skills are those used in a profession. For example, a graphic designer’s technical skills relate to fonts, creating graphics, planning for printing, etc.

6 of 8

Resume Resources: Power Verbs

Try to use power verbs when writing your resume.

What is a power verb? Power verbs are action words that have positive meanings in English. When you use a power verb, you can communicate your message more strongly and confidently than when using other verbs. ... Power verbs can also make your writing more interesting and help prevent you from using the same words too many times.

Click here for a list of power verbs:https://www.umsl.edu/depts/career/Students/Action%20Verbs%20for%20Resumes.pdf

7 of 8

Sample Resume and Resources

Click here to see resume resources and sample from MU-Columbia: https://cdn.uconnectlabs.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/62/2020/06/Guide-to-Resumes-2020-3.pdf

Click here to see resume resources from Purdue OWL (online writing lab):https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/job_search_writing/resumes_and_vitas/resume_workshop/index.html

8 of 8

Resume Assignment

Complete and submit this resume template to our Google Classroom: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gBT5DxydGsFp_My10gjZjZ1k-DpLPPJv0okkH1wdzYk/edit?usp=sharing
Then use the template to create a usable one page resume. Feel free to consult the resources on the previous slides. Submit your completed resume in Google Classroom.