I’m feeling rather uninspired today, so decided my post would be on the practical side. I have been reviewing resumes for over a year now as part of Re:Generations
Resume Review Service, and it’s absolutely my favourite duty as Re:Gen member. I love that it’s such practical help we can provide new librarians, and I’m also keenly curious to see how people present themselves professionally, and what choices they’ve made thus far in their schooling & career. Not to mention it often gives me great ideas for my own CV! All that to introduce some of the most common comments I make to people about their resumes.
First, the caveat. This is only my opinion! It’s natural that people have different ideas about resume content, organization & presentation. I usually suggest to people that they seek out a couple of different opinions before making changes. As well, only make those changes you are comfortable with.
- Point form, please. Generally, the more information you can give about your credentials, the better, but resumes are normally scanned, not read. Be brief and succinct, use bullets, headers and white space (in other words, do the opposite of this post). I often think that if you can’t put something in point form, it belongs on your cover letter, not your resume.
- Education comes first. As a frequent reviewer of resumes in search committees, the first thing I want to see is your education. And give details: did you win scholarships? Awards? What was your undergrad major?
- Objective: to get a job. Okay, I know there are several schools of thought on this, but I can’t say this enough – beginning your resume with Objectives/Key Competencies/Etc. is generally a waste of space. Vague phrases like “keen and eager to learn” simply don’t tell me anything valuable. Instead, make sure you have skills section in your resume (after experience) to point out specific technology & other skills you have, or courses you have taken. Save the “keen go-getter” phrases for your cover letter.
- The interview is in the details. Especially when you are beginning your career, your resume doesn’t have a whole lot of meat on it. Flush it out by providing as much detail as you can on what you have done. This applies both to jobs (list all your duties, projects and responsibilities) and to professional association work. Don’t just tell me you convened an interest group; tell me what the IG accomplished while you led it. If nothing else, this will be great practice for your first tenure review file.
- Tailor made. Most people know that you that you should tailor your cover letter to each position, but less well known is that it’s a good idea to do the same with your resume. Generally this means things like: Making sure that if a technology or an interface is mentioned in an ad, that you incorporate in your skills section (assuming you are familiar with it, that is) and highlighting the duties you performed in a job that match what they are looking for. If you are applying to a reference librarian position, and you’ve done some reference work as part of a position, list that first, and maybe provide more detail.
As this is now officially an article instead of as blog post, I will stop at five. Is there anything else anyone would like to suggest? Anyone have a different opinion? Newbies (sorry if this term offends, but I simply can’t be typing out “students and new professionals” every time), do you find this helpful?
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