转业论坛:英文求职简历的书写的11个要求

　　1. What IS a resume anyway?

　　Remember: a Resume is a self-promotional document that presents youin the best possible light, for the purpose of getting invited to a jobinterview. It''s not an official personnel document. It''s not a jobapplication. It''s not a "career obituary"! And it''s not aconfessional.

　　2. What should the resume content be about?

　　It''s not just about past jobs! It''s about YOU, and how youperformed and what you accomplished in those past jobs--especially thoseaccomplishments that are most relevant to the work you want to do next.A good resume predicts how you might perform in that desired futurejob.

　　3. What''s the fastest way to improve a resume?

　　Remove everything that starts with "responsibilities included" andreplace it with on-the-job accomplishments. (See Tip 11 for one way towrite them.)

　　4. What is the most common resume mistake made by job hunters?

　　Leaving out their Job Objective! If you don''t show a sense ofdirection, employers won''t be interested. Having a clearly stated goaldoesn''t have to confine you if it''s stated well.

　　5. What''s the first step in writing a resume?

　　Decide on a job target (or "job objective") that can be stated inabout 5 or 6 words. Anything beyond that is probably "fluff" andindicates a lack of clarity and direction.

　　6. How do you decide whether to use a Chronological resume or a Functional one?

　　The Chronological format is widely preferred by employers, andworks well if you''re staying in the same field (especially if you''vebeen upwardly-mobile). Only use a Functional format if you''re changingfields, and you''re sure a skills-oriented format would show off yourtransferable skills to better advantage; and be sure to include a clearchronological work history!

　　7. What if you don''t have any experience in the kind of work you want to do?

　　Get some! Find a place that will let you do some volunteer workright away. You only need a brief, concentrated period of volunteertraining (for example, 1 day a week for a month) to have at least SOMEexperience to put on your resume. Also, look at some of the volunteerwork you''ve done in the past and see if any of THAT helps document someskills you''ll need for your new job.

　　8. What do you do if you have gaps in your work experience?

　　You could start by looking at it differently. General Rule: Tellwhat you WERE doing, as gracefully as possible--rather than leave a gap.If you were doing anything valuable (even if unpaid) during thoseso-called "gaps" you could just insert THAT into the work-historysection of your resume to fill the hole. Here are some examples:

　　1993-95 Full-time parent -- or

　　1992-94 Maternity leave and family management -- or

　　Travel and study -- or Full-time student -- or

　　Parenting plus community service

　　9. What if you have several different job objectivesyou''re working on at the same time? Or you haven''t narrowed it downyet to just one job target?

　　Then write a different resume for each different job target. A targeted resume is MUCH, much stronger than a generic resume.

　　10. What if you have a fragmented, scrambled-up work history, with lots of short-term jobs?

　　To minimize the job-hopper image, combine several similar jobs into one "chunk," for example:

　　1993-1995 Secretary/Receptionist; Jones Bakery, Micro Corp., Carter Jewelers -- or

　　1993-95 Waiter/Busboy; McDougal''s Restaurant, Burger King, Traders Coffee Shop.

　　Also you can just drop some of the less important, briefest jobs.But don''t drop a job, even when it lasted a short time, if that waswhere you acquired important skills or experience.

　　11. What''s the best way to impress an employer?

　　Fill your resume with "PAR" statements. PAR stands forProblem-Action-Results; in other words, first you state the problem thatexisted in your workplace, then you describe what you did about it, andfinally you point out the beneficial results.

　　Here''s an example: "Transformed a disorganized, inefficientwarehouse into a smooth-running operation by totally redesigning thelayout; this saved the company thousands of dollars in recovered stock."

　　Another example: "Improved an engineering company''s obsoletefiling system by developing a simple but sophisticated functional-codingsystem. This saved time and money by recovering valuable, previouslylost, project records."