How To Write a Good Great Resume Using InDesign

Hello Students,

ROP stresses a strong foundation in the basics of career development skills. We will introduce that foundation today by learning how to write a resume. This is just the first part to your career skills portfolio. In this class you will develop:

• A Portfolio containing three or more of your best work samples and a written explanation of each piece
• Letter of Introduction
• Resume
• List of References
• Letter of Recommendation

Creating Your Resume:

Having a solid resume is the cornerstone to your job future. A well written and well designed resume is what sets you apart from other job applicants. A perfectly written job application, a quality resume and a list of positive references is the job seekers trifecta. In this class we will teach you these skills and more. Below is a list of writing tips, read over it before finalizing your resume.

It should describe:

• Who you are
• Your job objective
• How you can be contacted
• Your level of education
• Your work history or experience
• Your special skills and abilities

Make you resume well written, without typo's, mistakes or incorrect or misleading information. You resume's appearance will reflect your ability to organize. Use bold text and clean formatting to highlight the different sections of your resume. Make it easy to search out the information that your potential employer wants to see...

A resume is meant to convey an impression of your skills and experience, it's appearance also says a lot about your organizational skills and attention to detail. Note the difference in layout styles above.

You should use a document layout program, such as Indesign, so you can control the appearance of your resume. Additionally you should save your resume in a format that can travel over the internet or email easily, such as a PDF file.

Download the ROP Portfolio Handbook and begin working on your resume. The handbook has an example of a resume and a good list of information to include in yours. This is your model to follow when creating your own resume.

If you have advanced skills, use this tutorial to create a grid-based layout for your resume: Grid Based Resume Layout Tutorial

Resume Writing Tips:

Have an objective:

Know the purpose of your resume and edit it for different job scenarios. Having a focused job objective listed on your resume will help you with attaining an interview and getting hired.

Back up your special skills with job experience:

List your skills but make sure your listed job experience, training or education reflects those skills. Are you really good at making websites? Let them know how and where you learned that skill.

Research and use the right keywords:

Every industry has its own language, research job offerings and pay attention to the keywords that are used. If you put your resume online with a job placement service they will often use certain keywords to search their database for potential hires.

Be descriptive with job experience:

A job title will communicate your role, but not the details of your work experience. List the duties, tasks, activities, skills and achievements that were part of your job.

Format your text:

Use bold text to start each section. Use bullets for lists. Make the document easy to quickly scan and read. Clarity of format is crucial, you have ten seconds before the employer will move on to another applicant.

List most recent job experience first:

This also goes for education, list the most recent first. If your still in High School you can say "future class of 2012", or "Currently attending HS".

List most important skills first:

When writing out your skill list make the most important skills the first ones on the list. If you are applying for a web design job, list your web skills first. Change and edit this for different industries/jobs.

Leave out the obvious:

It is not necessary to add "available for interview" or "references available upon request". References are standard and expected, and of course you are available for an interview. Thats the whole point!

Avoid negativity:

Don't trash talk past employers or state that you didn't like a past job. Simply state that you were looking for future opportunities, or that the job wasn't a good fit for you or a good fit for your schedule.

Go with what you got:

If you haven't had work experience yet, just list any summer jobs, volunteer experience etc. If you have hobbies that are relevant to the job you can list those. If you don't have a diploma or degree then just list your estimated date for completion.

Proofread your resume:

Have your neighbor or classmate read your resume. Sometimes the spellchecker doesn't catch typos. The more eyeballs that see your resume before it gets in the hands of the employer the better

Introduction to Indesign:

Indesign is a powerful document layout and creation software. You can create everything from simple 1 page documents to tri-fold brochures and even entire books. We will learn the basics of Indesign and use it to create our resumes. Watch the screencasts below and work through the tasks in each video, I will play these for the class as well.

Link to Introduction to Indesign Screencasts:  http://www.wwu.edu/techcenter/webresources/video/indesign/indesign_intro.shtml

Resume's are due Wednesday

Have fun!

 - Mr.W