Resume Template That Works

by | Nov 13, 2012 | Coaching Skills | 2 comments

What’s a Resume/CV?

If you want to find a job, you are going to need a resume or curriculum vitae (CV). Both documents outline your professional skills and experience in a few pages.

The basic resume and CV is pretty much the same thing. The main difference is that a resume is shorter, being 2 pages or less and a CV is longer, being 2 pages or more. A CV basically includes a bit more detail in each of the main sections.

 

What should be in your resume?

Here’s a list of the main sections you should include in your Resume or CV (in this order):

  1. Personal Profile
  2. Skills
  3. Professional Experience
  4. Education
  5. Interests
  6. References

This article explains each of the main sections you should cover in your resume or CV and gives some ideas on how to do it. At the end of the document I’ve also provided a few tips on general formatting.

 

Personal Profile

  • Brief summary of the professional ‘you’.
  • This must grab the reader’s attention, capture what makes you unique and make the reader want to read more.
  • This section should only be a short paragraph. 3-4 sentences are good.

 

EXAMPLE

Personal Profile

Sue Smith has ten years experience in the ITC Industry as a consultant specializing in requirements gathering and user-centered design. She excels in facilitation and stakeholder engagement and is a skilled conduit between business stakeholders and developers. These skills combined with her strong interpersonal communication and project management abilities make her an invaluable asset to web application development projects.

 

 

Skills

  • Bullet point list of your most important and essenial skills.
  • Format this into two columns with one column being interpersonal skills and the other being tools and software you can use.

 

EXAMPLE

Skills

Interpersonal

  • Strategic thinking
  • Strong influencing and negotiation
  • Excellent presenter and facilitator
  • Exceptional in building rapport with stakeholders
  • Logical problem solver
  • Excellent written and verbal communication
  • Organized
  • Self-motivated, team player, able to assimilate and drive forward multiple initiatives simultaneously
  • Works well under pressure
Tools and Software

  • Axure (interactive prototyping tool)
  • Balsamic (wireframing tool)
  • Project management
  • Process modeling
  • MS Office Suite
  • MS Visio
  • MS Project
  • Adobe Photoshop

 

Professional Experience

  • List each of the jobs you’ve had. Your most recent job should be first.
  • For each job, include the job title, the organization you worked for and the date range that you worked in that job. Date ranges can be approximate. It’s just to give your potential future employer an idea of your staying power.
  • Each job should be formatted so that it’s clear where a job starts and where the next job starts. See example below.
  • For each job you also need a sentence briefly explaining the role. One sentence is sufficient.
  • Then list your key responsibilities and important achievements as a bullet point list

 

EXAMPLE

Professional Experience

ABC Organization – Website redevelopment (2012)

ABC Organization had 10 websites which they wanted to consolidated into a single website. Sue was asked to provide business and user requirements for the website and to deliver a single information architecture for the new consolidated website.

  • Interviewed senior management to understand strategic requirements of the website
  • Facilitated requirements gathering workshops with internal staff
  • Facilitated requirements gathering workshops with external users
  • Conducted card short activities with users and developed a high level information architecture for the new website
  • Delivered presentations to internal mangers and staff to assist them to understand the new information architecture

 

Education

  • List out any relevant degrees, certifications, you have as well as any courses or conferences you’ve attended.
  • Sort by date with the most recent at the top.

 

EXAMPLE

Education

 

2012 <Name of Training or Course>, <Name of School>
2011 <Name of Conference>
2010 <Certification/Degree>, <Name of School>

 

 

Interests

  • Write a few sentences about your personal interests and hobbies.
  • This section is there to give you a personal touch and show that there is more to you than just your work.

 

EXAMPLE

Interests

Outside of work I enjoy, volleyball, photographing flowers, sculpting, healthy living, meditation, and spending time with my friends and family.

 

 

References

  • References are the last section of you resume/CV.
  • You can list them out including a name and contact info (phone number, Skype name or email address). Make sure you’ve asked for permission from your referees first.
  • Alternatively, you can write, ‘Available upon request’. I suggest this approach unless detailed references were specifically asked for at the pre interview stage.

 

EXAMPLE

References

Available upon request

 

 

General Formatting

 

  • Make sure the document is formatted with lots of space so that it is easy on the eye and is easy to read. This will make potential future employers more likely to read it!
  • Make sure your pages are numbered.
  • Include your name and contact details (email and/or mobile number) on every page. This can be quite small and displayed in the header of the document.
  • You don’t need to put your photo, gender, birthday, age, location or anything else on your resume/CV unless the job you are applying for has specifically asked for this information (it may be relevant in some occupations – fashion model for example). A lot of detailed personal information is just too much too quick. Besides, you want your future boss to be interviewing you because your skills and experience fit the role. Nothing more. Nothing less.

 

Putting it All Together

Once you’ve got all of this compiled into one document, you will be amazed at how professional it looks. It will be easy to read and make you come across as a clear an organized written communicator. If your skills and experience are anything near what the employer is looking for, you will most likely get asked for an interview.

I have used this template countless times and it works wonders!

2 Comments

  1. Joe Agnello

    Thank you. I managed nursing homes for over 20 years. Now I will be coaching people at the end of life. I am truly blessed but wealth isn’t one of my blessings. Thanks for your email. Joe

    • Benay

      Hi Joe. Thank you for your message. Have you considered writing an information product for helping people at the end of life? – Benay

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