Today, I presented the Public Relations campaign I have been working on for the last four months to my client. My group and I have worked our butts off all semester to create this 90 page plan book, a logo, a brochure, a flier, a t-shirt design, an advertising concept and an event plan. We passed along all of our hard work and I must say, we did a dang good job of it. That was one stress reliever I can wipe off my shoulders. I also have a 90 page PR campaign to show future employers my super hard, excellent work. Go me.
Also today, I completed (with the exception of a few minor adjustments) the final client website I had to make for my digital communications class. Please check it out HERE. Please ignore the few errors that are still there, I should have those fixed by tomorrow afternoon. It is a website for my father’s future photography business.
A friend asked me today about what a resume should look like. Yes, I was a little surprised/frightened that this friend had made it ALL the way up to 4 days before graduation and wasn’t sure what a resume should look it, but I told her and helped her out and I hope my expertise will help her get a job soon. So, I started thinking that she might not be the only one lacking the knowledge of how to create a good resume. So here are a few tips I have picked up along the way.
1. Your name should be the largest thing on the page. You want people to remember your name and making it stand out is a must. Now, that doesn’t mean you need to make it 60 point and everything else 12 point font. Make it a few sizes bigger than everything else and that will make it jump out enough.
2. Contact information. Your contact information needs to be right under your name. The potential employer needs to know how to get in touch with you without having to look very hard. Just think, if he/ she picks up your resume and wants to schedule an interview with you but can’t find your phone number right away, they might decide it isn’t worth the trouble.
3. Font and appearance. I for one am a journalist (you know this) and fonts are a big deal to me. When applying for a journalism job, quit trying to make it look fancy. Use a normal serif font that is easy to read. Make sure it is easy to read and a large enough font that employers (who might have forgotten their reading glasses) can read. Also, watermarks, colored paper, colored text, etc. is difficult to read when in a hurry. If an employee gets hundreds of resumes for one position, they will be going through them quickly and you don’t want your resume trashed just because you were trying to make it “look pretty.” Appearance is everything.
4. Job experience. Your work experience in the field of choice (mine being journalism) is the most important thing on your resume. I have heard conflicting opinions from multiple sources about what should be the first thing on your resume under your name/contact info between experience and education. I decided on experience. Let me tell you why: employers don’t care where you received your degree or what your grade point average was or when you graduated, they want to know WHY you are qualified for that particular job and that is in your experience. Make sure your future employer knows you are what they are looking for.
5. References should ALWAYS be on your resume. No matter what. No one wants to go through the trouble of contacting you to ask for references and then having to contact the references when they could easily have looked at your resume and had them off hand. Seriously. I have heard multiple times that “references available upon request” is the best way to go, but think about: do you really want to make someone go an extra step when you are asking them for a job? I didn’t think so.
6. You resume should only be one page. Now, the more experience you get might push your resume to two pages, but it is going to depend on the employer whether or not they are OK with that. Right now, getting your first job means you don’t have a whole lot experience and you should be able to fit everything on one page. If you can’t, delete something.
7. High school information is useless to employers. They don’t care if you were on your high school yearbook staff or worked at McDonald’s all through high school, I promise. Take off everything you have from high school: activities, honors, education. everything.
8. Education: put your education under your experience. While employers could care less about your GPA or when you graduated, they do want to know that you did earn a degree. So make sure it is visible.
9. Skills, activities and honors need to be listed on your resume, at least at first. Put your skills first. If you have experience when AP style or computer programs like InDesign or Photoshop, make sure that is one of the first things listed. While employers care that you were involved on campus and in the community, they want to know what you can do that other applicants can’t.
10. When it comes to objectives, I think they are somewhat pointless. If you are submitting your resume it is obvious you are asking for a job, so what are you going to put in the objective spot that is going to say more than “I am applying for this job at your company because..” You want a job and you want to get paid. We know that.
Hope this helps, it sure helped me. Any questions?
UPDATE: I still do not have an official location of where I will be moving at the end of the month. Keep waiting, because that’s what I am doing.
AW.
