Get Ready to Write Your Resume

If you are feeling a bit anxious about being able to write an effective resume—relax, you have a lot of company. Writing a resume is something most people find difficult to do. You may have seen bright, well-educated, articulate corporate executives struggle when it came time to reduce their experience and credentials to a two-page resume document. Despite all their education and qualifications, many find it a difficult thing to do. This is an absolutely normal reaction at this stage, but you are about to find out that writing a resume is going to be much easier than you thought.

When trying to quell your doubts and uneasiness about resume writing, a little common sense and reasoning can go a long way. Generally speaking, most people fear what they don't know. Therefore, if you have never written a resume, this may seem like the equivalent of attempting to climb Mount Everest. You just don't know what to expect.

When it comes to writing a resume, much of the uneasiness is caused by lack of knowledge in one or more of the following categories:

• Resume content (What do I say or not say?)

• Resume format (How should I organise it? What do I say first, second, etc.?)

• Resume style (How do I best say it?)

If you know what to say, in what order it should be said, and how you should say it, there's not much else to be concerned about. In addition, the more you have prepared, organised, and rehearsed, the more comfortable you will be in your ability to write a really good resume.

Resume Facts

As with most complex tasks, the need for planning and good organisation is essential. Resume writing is no exception.

Before you can proceed to actually write your resume, you first need to collect and systematically organise the basic facts that you will need to have at your fingertips when you begin to actually write. Moreover, these facts need to be organised in the proper sequence so that they will be available in the order that you will need them.

Experience

In this section, starting with your current job or most recent position, list all of the employers for whom you have worked during your career. Record dates of employment, employer's name, name of the department or function in which you worked, title of the job you held, title of the person to whom you reported, and your principal job duties.

In those cases where you have held more than one position with the same employer, write the word "same" in the space provided for the employer's name.

In the case where multiple jobs were held with the same employer, continue to list them in reverse chronological order (starting with the most recently held position first) and list the dates you held these jobs in the "Dates Employed" section. These then become the dates you were employed in each specific position.

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