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RÉSUMÉ WRITING

Updated 5-12-2006

Sample Résumés

A well-designed, carefully written résumé serves two purposes: it enables you to get “in the door” for an interview, and it provides the basis for discussion in the interview. Do not be discouraged if you have had little or no full-time teaching experience. For people just graduating, it is common to use your junior and senior field experiences to portray your skills as an educator.

Remember, your résumé may be one of hundreds reviewed by the employer, and is an addition to the regular day’s work. Your résumé must stand out by relating who you are as an educator to the position for which you are applying. Most employers seek some of the following qualities:

• Self-motivation

• Good speaking ability

• Ability to get along with others

• Ability to get things done

• Strong writing skills

• Willingness to take responsibility

• Interest in learning and teaching

• High energy

• Positive attitude

• Professionalism

• Problem-solving and creativity

• Persistence

Elements of a Résumé

Heading, Identifying Information: Include your full name centered at the top of the page, complete address (present and permanent if applicable) and phone number (polite message on your answering machine), with the area code. Include your email address.
Objective (optional): Useful so the reader can quickly identify your area of interest. An objective should state in 1-2 lines what type of position you seek and should be employer-focused rather than self-serving or philosophical. Whether or not you choose not to include an objective, you need to very clearly provide that information in the first paragraph of your cover letter.

Qualifications Statement/Summary/Profile/Skills/Keywords (optional): possible alternative to an objective, becoming used more often. This is a concise statement of your qualifications for this position. This statement can be longer than an objective. Skills can be listed as simply as “conversational Spanish, C++, fluent French, html,” etc. If you suspect that the employer may scan résumés into a database (urban districts), then this can also list keywords. Keywords are those things required and/or preferred for employees.

Education: List degrees awarded, schools attended, graduation dates, majors, minors, GPA (usually not necessary for education majors and graduate students) if 3.0 or higher, and perhaps honors. Begin with your most recent degree or current degree sought, then work backwards. It is not necessary to list institutions from which you did not earn a degree or certification. High school information is usually not included. Exceptions are those seeking summer, part-time, or junior field positions. In education, high school information may be helpful to document your involvement in after-school activities you now wish to coach or supervise.

Experience: Include student teaching, junior field experience, paid, volunteer, part-time, summer, leadership, and other experiences. Start with the most recent, working back. List your title, employer, location, dates (either month and year, years, months, or academic terms), and an explanation of your duties or accomplishments. Be consistent. Many times, it is helpful to separate your relevant experience from your other college or high school jobs that do not pertain to your chosen occupation. Those relevant experiences need to be explained in some detail, while mere jobs may be de-emphasized by simply listing them without explanation. When explaining, do not start each entry with “Duties included:” or similar, redundant wording.

Awards/Honors/Achievements: If you have at least three achievements to mention, you can use this as a separate category; otherwise, state academic distinctions under the Education heading.

Activities: Include the name of the organization and any leadership roles you held. Quantify any results of your participation if applicable (years, membership increase, etc.)
It is not good form to state “member” for each item—that is assumed if the organization is listed. Use abbreviations only if you are sure the reader understands them.
Interests (optional): Include strong interests only if they are truly significant to your lifestyle and/or to your work, and will enhance your candidacy. Playing golf might be significant for some coaching positions, but mere interest in an activity (Monday night football) or involvement in unrelated activities is usually not included 

Do NOT Include the Following on Your Résumé: Personal data such as age, height, weight, health, disabilities, religion, marital status, dependents, appearance.
Reference data—this is placed on a second, parallel document. If you have space to fill, you may mention the availability of a reference list or credentials file. See the example of a reference page, near the end of this document.  Photographs, unless you are applying for a job as a model or actor. Employers may be found guilty of discrimination if photographs are found in their files of candidates. Only those few occupations such as model or actor can justify use of pre-employment photographs.  Salary history or requirements: Even if they ask for it, be as vague as you can. Salaries for public school positions are a matter of public record, and are not usually negotiable. If you are applying to teach in a private school, you should be prepared to know a reasonable starting salary, or an acceptable range such as $18,000 to $25,000 for many entry level positions. Do some research by networking, talking with private school teachers you know, or checking state and district web sites. 
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If your résumé is too short: Consider adding a well written, exciting qualification statement. Rethink the duties and requirements of your student teaching experiences. You may be able to elaborate on some significant responsibilities, especially if you enhanced learning, developed units or special activities, or other creative endeavors.
Include special projects (academic or civic), committees and task forces, community involvement, special events, etc. Consider changing to another format.
Come to Career Development & Placement, 217 Student Center, for assistance. See or call the receptionist for a critique appointment.

If your résumé is too long (more than two pages, usually): Reevaluate the relevance of the information you provide. Some things can be assumed or understood by the nature of a position such as “wait staff” or “receptionist.”

Instead of listing every job, limit yourself to “Professional Experience” or “Relevant Experience.” Additional jobs can be merely listed without explanation in another category such as “Additional Employment.”

Come in and ask for assistance. It is entirely possible that you will end up with two pages of relevant information, especially if you have significant experience and leadership. Just avoid a few lines that spill over like a mistake—make the second page count and look good with your name and “page 2” at the top.

Format: A chronological résumé is by far the most common and preferred in most fields. It is easily read and understood, so your readers appreciate the quick read. Start with your most recent or current position (include title, employer, location, dates, and usually an explanation) or educational achievement. In subsequent items, be consistent by listing those same pieces of information in the same order as in the first item.
 

A functional résumé is sometimes used by people with either little traditional experience to list or so much experience that is takes too much space to document all of it. In these cases, the candidate emphasizes skills and abilities rather than employers and tasks. Functional résumés are more difficult to write, requiring much more creativity and thought.

Combination résumés can also be written, utilizing the best of both of the above formats.

Examples of résumés and reference page are provided. Please note that these are only simple examples and are NOT to be used as templates. Instead, demonstrate your good thinking, writing, and creativity by producing documents that truly reflect your strengths and individuality.

General Guidelines:

1. In education, two-page résumés are not unusual. Be concise, use phrases rather than sentences, and eliminate unnecessary verbiage.

2. Use no personal pronouns (I, me, my, they, etc.).

3. Maximize visual appeal and ease of reading/scanning, without clutter. One-inch margins are best; minimize punctuation; simple font styles, size 11 or 12.

4. Organize clearly. Be consistent in the use of bolding, capitalization, bullets, etc. Place the most vital information at the top and work your way down. Make this document easy to read and comprehend.

5. Verbs start your job explanations, and past tense works best for most people. However, if the employer uses optical scanning, you will also need keywords, which are nouns or acronyms.

6. Punctuation should be logical and consistent, though not necessarily correct (because you are not using sentences). Periods are not necessary at the ends of lines.

7. Proofread, proofread, proofread! Use spell-check after each revision, remembering that you may have used the wrong word, spelled correctly. Read slowly, aloud, including the address and phone numbers. Read in reverse, too, so you don’t anticipate what is coming next. Finally, get at least three sets of eyes to read your work. Call on the pickiest people you know, ask them to hatchet your résumé, and offer to do the same for others.

8. Laser print on plain, 8.5”x11” bond paper, 20 pound or heavier. Double-check for errors.

9. If mailed, include a personalized cover letter that is written with similar care. Be positive, enthusiastic, and honest. This is where you use perfect English, and you demonstrate your written communication skills.
    

Verbs you might consider using:

accommodated	decided	inspected	promoted
accomplished	decreased	interviewed	published
achieved	delegated	invented	purchased
administered	determined	investigated	qualified
advised	demonstrated	instructed	ranked
analyzed	designed	involved	raised
applied	developed	installed	recommended
arranged	devised	judged	recruited
assessed	directed	led	reduced
assigned	documented	listened	reported
assisted	drafted	marked	researched
attended	edited	managed	reviewed
authorized	engineered	manufactured	satisfied
bought	established	marketed	scheduled
budgeted	evaluated	motivated	selected
built	exercised	met	served
catalogued	exhibited	mobilized	sold
charted	expressed	operated	solved
clarified	explained	ordered	sorted
communicated	formulated	organized	spoke
compiled	furnished	originated	staffed
completed	gained	paraphrased	started
composed	graduated	participated	submitted
conducted	guided	performed	supervised
constructed	handled	planned	supplied
contributed	hired	predicted	synthesized
controlled	improved	prepared	taught
coordinated	implemented	presented	trained
corrected	increased	provided	utilized
created	initiated	produced	wrote

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Keywords:

Keywords are used by employers to search databases of scanned résumés in applicant tracking systems now used by many large school districts.  Some districts, cooperatives, and groups of districts use staffing companies with similar systems.  If your résumé does not contain the keywords selected by the employer, then it will never be retrieved from the database and you will never be considered for employment in that district.  More and more employers use this method of résumé management, so use of keywords is increasingly important.  Keywords can be embedded in the text of your cover letter and résumé, and they can be listed in a separate section of your résumé. To maximize your chances of being selected by the searcher, use as many synonyms as possible. 

Typical keywords are items mentioned as required or preferred for candidates: degree, major, GPA, years of experience, computer languages/software/hardware, modern languages, certifications, licenses, specific skills in a given field, geographic area, etc.  See the résumé samples for an example of keywords used in a résumé.

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Electronic Portfolios (very important information):

The technical rules for producing a visual document are different than those for creating a paper document.  You might have to or even prefer to either (a) produce your résumé using Netscape Composer or other software, or (b) begin by producing a high-quality paper résumé in Word and then rekey your original information using html (two separate files).  For example, if you write your paper résumé in Word and have it critiqued and finalized, then you can use Composer to write the same information and have it correctly formatted for use in your electronic portfolio.  Sometimes, Word can be converted to html, but you might lose your nice formatting (tabs will disappear, for example).  In all cases, DO NOT USE WORD RÉSUMÉ WIZARDS OR TEMPLATES for electronic purposes.  I recommend that you do not use them at all, not even on paper, because they look obvious, they are inflexible, and they do not lend themselves to 2-page formats that education students often use.

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Résumés for Email and Internet Transmission:

Just as with keyword résumés, electronically transmitted résumés are used more often each year.  Although high tech industries use them most often, any large corporation could be expected to use them.  On-line application procedures are being implemented to save districts the expense of on-campus recruiting, to better standardize their application procedures, and to reduce paper.  Electronic résumés are functional, but not pretty!  To create a document that transmits well and accomplishes your goals, remember the following points:

If possible, use ASCII to create your résumé.  It works best because there are no automatic codes or graphics as are used in standard word-processing programs.  For example, Microsoft Word will automatically underline and make blue your email address.  However, that coding will not survive email and Internet transmission, so you need to use the "undo" button to get rid of the hot link when you key it in.  If using Word to write your résumé, use the “Save As” command, go to the bottom left corner of the box and in the “Save as Type” box, select “Rich Text Format” or “Unicode Text,” and then OK the save.

Write everything left aligned or left flush (not fully aligned), including your name and address.  This is done because it will be left aligned when received.  The final product will both look better and be much better organized if you write it left aligned.

1. Use no columns or tabs.

2. Use one line for each item, regardless of length of the document.  Internet résumés are typically stored electronically, so length is not important.

3. 65 characters per line maximum.

4. No parentheses or brackets (watch the phone number area code).

5. No underlining or italics.

6. No bullets.  Instead, use an asterisk* (or a hyphen-) followed by a blank space.

7. No graphics, lines, shading, or boxes.

8. No Social Security number, personal information, or reference information.

9. Clear, easily read fonts with no characters touching each other.

10. Font size of 12-14.

11. No bolding, as it will likely disappear in transmission.

12. For emphasis, use capital letters consistently (all headings or all job titles, for example), not occasionally.

13. To separate ideas, use empty lines, but not indentations (they aren’t left flush).

14. USE KEYWORDS, especially if part of an on-line application.

15. Use education jargon.

16. Abbreviate only commonly understood items such as BSEd, SD, and acronyms in your field of study or work. Do not compress space, if using a Mac computer.

Now that the résumé is written, save it on a disk.  To send:

1. Be sure your résumé goes in the text of your email message, not as an attachment.  The only exception to this is if the employer specifies that you attach the document.

2. In the subject line, title your résumé in 45 characters or fewer.  For example, “Music Teacher/SD cert. applied” or “Elementary/Special Education”

3. The first few lines of your email message can serve as a cover letter, quickly followed by the actual résumé.

4. Open your saved résumé.

5. Block the résumé and copy it (Edit menu).

6. Return to the email message or on-line application form and paste the résumé in the appropriate space.

7. View the entire message for accuracy, clean up as necessary.

8. Send.

9. Phone the next day, use your best smiling phone voice, and ask if your résumé was received clearly.  If it wasn’t, ask for suggestions for your next attempt. Thank the person for the assistance and information.

To apply on-line and send your résumé, READ the on-line instructions for each district very carefully.  Each web page has its own procedures you must follow.  Complete all sections of the on-line application form, review for accuracy, and follow steps 5-10 above.

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