If you're going after a job in academia, journalism, or publishing, it's a good idea to list publications where your work has appeared. Be selective. You can always submit a complete list at the interview. Make sure to include the names of any co-authors, the title of the article or book, the name of the publication, the name and location of the publisher (for books only), and the date of publication.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
"Literature Adds Up," a chapter within the book Fact or Fiction: Reading and Writing Across the Curriculum. The International Reading Association. 1992. "Falling in Love with the Subject: Romance in Education," The Holistic Education Review, Spring 1991. "incorporating Video into the Curriculum; A Teacher's Perspective," Video and Learning Newsletter. Winter/Spring 1993.
Exhibitions
This category is for fine artists, commercial artists, and craftspeople who have shown work at galleries, festivals, museums, and other exhibition spaces. As with everything else on your resume, lead with your strengths and be selective. You don't have to list your entire exhibition record, just the highlights. Start off with your most impressive solo exhibitions and work back through your group exhibitions. Make sure you list the name and location of the exhibition space. You may also want to list the title of the show, the medium of the work (especially if you work in more than one), and the year of the show. Also indicate under a separate subheading whether any of your work has been purchased for the permanent collection of a museum or private collector.
Military Service
Contrary to popular belief, an employer rarely views military service as a negative. Most people seem to recognize that being in the military has its positive aspects, and if they don't get it, it's your job to persuade them. Talk about your abilities as a leader and decision maker, and stress your drive, determination, self-discipline, and team orientation. If you served as an officer, indicate your most significant accomplishments and responsibilities on your resume.
Visa, Visa, Who's Got the Visa?
If you're an international student hoping to work for an American company in the United States, you face a special challenge. You have to convince employers to hire you instead of an American, even though there's a chance you may not remain permanently in this country. That's a big risk for the employer, considering the amount of time and money they're going to invest to train you. Although this is no easy hurdle to overcome, it can be done. The first thing to do is sit down with your international student advisor and get all the facts about your eligibility for employment. Then you can devise a plan of action.
One approach is to not bring attention to the fact that you're an international student, in order to make employers more receptive to your initial application. The problem with this strategy is that once you're on the interview, at some point or other, you will need to disclose your international student status. This could have an adverse effect on your candidacy, as the employer may wonder why you didn't reveal this fact from the beginning.
A second approach is to be very direct, and in your initial communication make the employer aware of the fact that you are authorized to work in the United States. If you have a green card (permanent residency), or hold a visa which allows you to apply for practical training, this information can be provided at the bottom of your resume. This approach should help to allay any fears the employer might have about the status of your work eligibility. It may, however, hurt your chances of obtaining an interview with employers who have a predisposition not to hire international students.
In Conclusion
You made it through the mother of all resume writing chapters. You should now have in your hand a nearly finished draft of your resume. Pretty exciting, huh? Now you must learn how to make that resume look simply gorgeous.
Skills
Employers will scan this section to see if you possess any "hard" skills that could come in handy. These include: speaking a foreign language; programming a computer; utilizing various software packages; operating a video camera, and so on. Even if you have already mentioned some of these skills in your position descriptions, the Skills section offers a nice neat summary where an employer can see the whole picture at a glance. List your skills in order of their relevancy to your target employer. If a skill has no relevancy, leave it out. Would a local accounting firm really jump for joy because you speak Punjabi?
A Word about Computer Skills
If you're a programmer, systems analyst, or a technically-inclined person you may want to create a special category called "Computer Skills." Depending on your target audience, you may even want to start your resume with this section. To make matters easier for the reader it's a good idea to further categorize your skills according to subheadings such as "Hardware” "Soft ware," and "Programming Languages." Also, try to be as specific as possible. Instead of just listing the skill "word processing," list the names of the applications with which you are familiar. If you're uncertain about your level of proficiency then precede the skill with the phrase "exposure to" or "basic knowledge of." In this way you'll be covering your behind in case someone wants to give you a technical exam, which is not unusual.
