The question of where to place personal data has always been debated among personnel professionals. The most common placement is at the beginning of the resume, although many people choose to include it at the end. It really doesn't make a great deal of difference, so you might as well go with the trend, which seems to be at the beginning. Either place, keep it short and simple, including only, if you wish, your date of birth, your marital status and number of children, your height and weight, and an indication that your health is excellent, assuming that it is. Better than citing "Health excellent," refer to your attendance record on your previous jobs - if it was good. For example, "In the last two years I was absent only once for health reasons." The point about personal data is that it really has very little bearing on whether you'll be called in for an interview. It's your education, training, and, most important, accomplishments in the work field that count.
There is some debate as to where education should be placed on a resume. My advice always is to judge its importance in the overall picture of you, and make your determination based upon that. If you have graduated from college - and a high percentage of DPers have not - and your education was computer-related, it is to your competitive advantage to put the education information up front on your resume.
On the other hand, if you have been working in data processing for many years but are not college-educated in computer-related subjects, your education is less important and I would recommend that it go toward the end of the resume.
Another thought about education: start with your most recent education and work backward, but if you have a college degree, omit your grammar school, junior high school, and high school.
Many recent college graduates preparing a resume assume that because they do not have extensive work experience in data processing, there is nothing to put on their resume except educational background. Not true. Obviously, if you do have experience in the field, you can leave out those part-time jobs you held during school. But if you are fresh out of school, listing part-time work experience is important. It gives the prospective employer a sense of your industriousness. Also, any work experience is valuable.
Now we come to the main thrust of a resume - experience in the workplace that you hope will qualify you for the job, be it your first or your tenth.
I recommend the chronological approach, listing your most recent job first and moving through the rest of your employment history in reverse chronology. Your most recent job should be the one most thoroughly explained on the resume although, depending upon the particular position you are going after, jobs in your past might have even more importance and should be described in some detail. Again, let me stress that what you must get across are your accomplishments, not just dates and titles. What specifically did you contribute to your department's or company's efficiency, profitability, and overall success? You don't have to sound as if you're blowing your own horn. There are ways to show success and accomplishment without seeming egotistical. Tone is very important in a resume and it's something else you might get readings on from other people before committing yourself to the final version.
A surprising number of data processors seeking jobs leave out the essence of their experience - namely, the description of the type of hardware and software, as well as the intensity of that experience. Often, computer people are called in for an interview based exclusively on the fact that they have had hands-on experience with specific equipment and software that are of particular interest to the hiring company. This is so important that I've known some astute job seekers who have solicited those companies in their area that have similar software and hardware, using their experience with it as their selling edge. Why not?
Although I prefer the chronological approach to organizing a resume, there are situations in which it might be more to your benefit to use the functional form, in which you group your experience by categories, not by years. A drawback to the functional approach is that it sometimes leads management to question whether you are hiding something, such as having been out of work for a long while. Perhaps the only time I would recommend using the functional approach is when you have had too many jobs, indicating instability, and wish to soften this. By using the functional approach, you avoid having to list each job with its corresponding dates of employment. Job hopping is particularly prevalent in data processing. I remember interviewing a man who had more than fifty jobs. I asked him about it. His answer was, "It doesn't indicate instability at all. I never quit a job."
"You mean you were fired from all of them?"
"Yes." He was proud of the fact that he did not voluntarily engage in job hopping over the course of his career.
I've met many people like that-professional job jumpers-who have little trouble getting jobs. They get them but can't hold them. You can learn from job jumpers if you stop to think why they get jobs so easily. The reason is simple: they have developed a technique that works for them through years of practice in changing employment. You too can practice, but without changing jobs too often, and I'll be writing about this further on in the book.
The end of your resume can include such topics as professional affiliations, personal interests (keep them short and include only those that truly represent personal interests), and perhaps a closing comment that gives you a chance to editorialize a bit about your strengths. Frankly, I think that sort of material is better handled in a cover letter, but enough people do it on their resume to have allowed it to gain a measure of acceptance.
