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Employment & Career Services Committee

Resumes
and
Cover Letters
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Employment & Career Services Committee
Seminar Overview
Resume basics
Resume strategy
Hardcopy resume
guidelines & structure
Electronic resumes
Cover letters
References
Last comments
Source materials
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Employment & Career Services Committee
Resume Basics
The main purpose is to get you an interview
The first look at a resume averages 20 seconds
A resume should not exceed two pages in length
Spelling must be absolutely correct.
Things not to include on your resume
Personal data of any kind
The words References available on request
The words Willing to relocate

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Employment & Career Services Committee
Resume Strategy
Tailor the resume to fit each employer
The chronological format
The functional format
Other formats
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Employment & Career Services Committee
Hardcopy Guidelines
Black ink on white paper
Standard fonts
Font size should range from 10 to 14 points
Minimum use of italics, underlining, etc.
Use white space to enhance readability
Sentence fragments are acceptable
Use numerals, rather than spelling number
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Employment & Career Services Committee
Chronological Resume
Objective
Qualifications or career summary
Education
Work experience
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Employment & Career Services Committee
Chronological Resume

OBJECTIVE

A position designing CPU circuits, where
experience with superscalar architectures
will enhance the final value of the product
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Employment & Career Services Committee
Chronological Resume
Objective
Qualifications or career summary
Education
Work experience
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Employment & Career Services Committee
Chronological Resume
QUALIFICATIONS

Electrical engineer with 12 years of
printed circuit board (PCB) layout
experience. Has been successful as an
individual contributor and as the manager
of a 10 person PCB layout group.

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Employment & Career Services Committee
Chronological Resume
Objective
Qualifications or career summary
Education
Work experience
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Employment & Career Services Committee
Chronological Resume
EDUCATION

B.S. Electrical Engineering
University of California
San Diego, CA
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Employment & Career Services Committee
Chronological Resume
Objective
Qualifications or career summary
Education
Work experience
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Employment & Career Services Committee
Chronological Resume
Work Experience
This is the main part of a chronological resume
List each item in reverse chronological order
Different job at the same company count as
separate items
Keep it short

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Employment & Career Services Committee
Chronological Resume
Example One Short Item
1995 1997 Varian Associations, Palo Alto, CA-
Senior Engineer
Designed microwave tubes using computer codes.
Wrote codes to improve the tube design process.
Swept up after everyone else left the building.
Assisted design of framistat, now a major product.
Wrote design code decreasing design time by 90%
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Employment & Career Services Committee
Functional Resume
The emphasis shifts to skills, and away
from specific jobs
Shrink the work experience section to just
the headers
Put all duties and accomplishments into
skill categories
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Employment & Career Services Committee
ASCII & HTML Resume
Space is not as tight
Use only alphanumeric characters, spaces
and the Enter key.
Use lots of keywords and buzzwords
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Employment & Career Services Committee
Cover Letters
No more than one page in length
First paragraph
Body
Final paragraph
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Employment & Career Services Committee
References
Collected on the job
Collected from your network
Perishable!
Always notify your reference before you
use them
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Employment & Career Services Committee
Last Comments
Focus, rather than shotgun
Stay in control of your job search
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Employment & Career Services Committee
Sources
To Boldly Go: A Practical Career Guide
for Scientists American Geophysical
Union. ISBN #0-87590-889-6

Engineers Guide to Lifelong
Employability IEEE Press. ISBN# 0-
87942-314-5