For the Hokie Horizons Resume Lesson

1. Sell Yourself In Writing:
Fine Tune your Resume

2. What is a resume?
 An individually designed document
 A sales presentation of yourself
• Not a place for modesty
 A marketing tool for opening the doors of
prospective employers
 A screening device for selecting candidates
for interviews

3. Purpose of a resume
 To state the type of employment desired
 To present your academic training
 To describe your work experience
• related and unrelated
 To show involvement in activities
• campus, civic, volunteer, etc.
 To show awards, honors, and/or
special recognition / certifications

4. Goal of writing a resume
To get an
INTERVIEW!

5. Objective statement
 Problem
• Not having a clear, concise objective
 Example
• To gain full-time employment with a growing
company where I can utilize my skills and
educational background.

6. Appropriate objectives
 State your current objective.
• Why are you writing this resume?
• What do you want to do?
 Pharmaceutical Sales Representative
 Public Relations Assistant; particular interest in
copywriting and promoting media events for
nonprofit organizations.

7. Where do you go to school?
 Problem
• Virginia Polytechnical Institute
• Virginia Tech University
• VA Tech
 Solution
• Virginia Tech

8. GPA
 GPA - to list or not to list—
• You don’t have a GPA yet
 Career Services recommends that you list
your GPA on your resume for On-Campus
Interviewing and for Career Fairs.
 List in-major, overall or both.

9. Order of resume sections
 Problem
• Listing items as you think of them
• Listing jobs/experience by order of
importance to you instead of reverse
chronological order
 Solution
• Have all sections in order of priority as they
support your objective.
• Create additional headings if you need to
highlight items out of chronological order.

10. Being unique
 Problem
• Attempting to make your resume stand out
from the rest by using artistic fonts, graphics or
a very unusual format
 Solution
• Make your resume stand out by the incredible
information you include about your experience
and skills

11. Templates
 Problems
• May not provide best set-up
• ex. May find address information at bottom of page
• Tend to be date driven
 Solution
• Create your resume on a blank document using
tables (See sample in Career Planning Guide)

12. One page vs. two pages
 99% of students should have a one-page resume
 Look for places to cut information or be more
concise
 No less than ½ inch margins
 No less than 10 point font size
 Don’t use a tiny font size just to fit more
information on a page
 Remember - your resume only gets an initial 20 second
glance!

13. Scannable resumes
Tips for creating a resume that is pleasing to
the human eye and is scannable
• No italics, no underlining, no shading
• You may use bold or ALL CAPS, but make
sure the individual letters do not touch
• Use a sans serif font like Arial
• Don’t use a serif font like Times New Roman
• No vertical or horizontal lines, graphics, or
boxes

14. Scannable resumes (continued)
• Avoid two-column formats
• Use a laser printer
• When mailing your resume, do not fold or use
staples
 See Career Planning Guide for more information
on scannable resumes.

15. Ethics
 Be honest
 Don’t undersell yourself, but don’t
exaggerate
 Graduation date should be the only
“projected” item on your resume

16. Check and re-check
 Read and re-read all of your job search
correspondence to check for errors
 Have faculty review technical sections of your
resume or letters
 Use Career Services’ walk-in critique service to
have an advisor review your documents
12:00 - 3:00 M-F