After my job search earlier this year, it became painfully obvious to me that I need to overhaul my resume. I use the traditional style of resume in which I list all of my job experiences from most recent and backwards, along with a list of what I did, my education, etc., etc., etc. We took a class in college before graduation about interviewing, resume writing, and cover letters. We were told not to make our resumes too fancy or frilly, or else they'd get thrown out.
Earlier this week, one of my friends handed me her resume to review.
What I saw has caused me to rethink the way that I write my resume, and has me pondering what I need to do to update this very crucial piece of paper.
Did you know - there are now 2 different styles of resumes? Functional and Chronological? Chronological is the kind of resume that I was taught back in college. Functional is the type of resume that is ideal for people like me - who have had employment gaps and a lot of volunteer experiences over the years. (http://www.bcpl.info/find-info/jobs-careers#resume-cover-letter)
After looking at both types of resumes, I'm going to play around with the Functional format and see how that looks when I'm finished.
I've also been looking at the formatting. No longer are names and addresses written directly down the middle. They are offset, either to the left or the right. You can even play with font size! I don't want to make the font too small... I want people to be able to read my contact information! But, I can also play with the font that I use. No, I'm not thinking of Comic Sans! Maybe I could use Calibri instead of Times New Roman. What about Helvetica? So many choices!!!
You know, I'm very happy where I am now. One of these days, though, I'm going to try to get a promotion and I'm going to need an updated resume. It seems as if now is the time to start working on it. Now, while I have the time to play around with the formatting, the text, and the styles.
What style of resume do you use?
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