Caption
All resumes should begin with the caption. The caption reveals your name, address, and telephone number. Your name should be your formal name. If it's James Frederick McAllister and you go by Fred, then your name should appear as J. Frederick McAllister. Don't include your nickname - employers can learn that in the interview. Generally your name and the rest of the caption should be centered at the top of your resume, although some people effectively put it flush to the far left margin. Try to accentuate your name by putting it in capital letters or in bold type. Finally, you should not put the word Resume at the top of your resume; employers know what they're reading.
Objective
Many career advisors describe this section as optional, but we feel it is critical to the success of the document. If you write a good career objective and then write the resume to support the objective you will stay focused on accomplishments that support your capabilities. This section has many titles, such as Career Objective, Career Goal, Professional Objective, Professional Goal, or simply Objective or Goal. The title is not important, but the content is. The rule here is two-fold: first, stay focused on a single objective; second, don't tell employers what you expect from them, but tell them what you are going to do for their companies.
Obviously the authors of these objectives are sending an interesting message to a future employer. Although all of these objectives describe situations any of us would like to find, the employer is going to get the impression that the job seeker is very self-oriented. A better approach would be to focus on the industry and then tell the company what you will do for them.
One of these days maybe we'll see the truly honest job objective. Somebody out there please try this one and let us know how it works! Style. After all, if you have an objective that says, "To obtain a management position with a large commercial bank in the Northeast," you'd have a hard time submitting that resume to getting a terrific job that opens up with Delta Airlines in Atlanta.
Also, people often haven't really narrowed their chosen careers to a particular position with a particular industry in a particular part of the country. In fact, a resume writer might want a job on the East Coast but be perfectly happy with the same type of job on the West Coast. To give yourself flexibility you can easily have one set resume with multiple objectives. That is, you really have two or more resumes, each bearing a different objective.
A Personal Profile
If you've decided a job objective is not for you, you might consider using a personal profile or summary of qualifications as a substitute. This technique was recently recommended by the National Business Employment Weekly, published by the Wall Street Journal. As the first heading of your resume, this personal profile can immediately grab an employer's attention and in a couple of sentences make a strong case for your resume to end up in the I-like-it pile.
To write this section effectively you must toss all remnants of humility out the window, take a deep breath, and proceed to congratulate yourself. The personal profile should consume just one or two sentences, drive home your strongest talents, and verify these talents by specifically referring to the strongest experience you've had.
By having this personal profile you produce many of the results created by a job objective: you grab the employer's attention, toot your horn, and make him want to read on. Yet you don't hem yourself in as you might with a job objective.
Caption and Objective: A Summary
Every resume regardless of type will begin with a caption. Then some resumes will follow with the objective or personal profile. Other resumes will have no objective and no personal profile. They will just begin with the appropriate heading immediately following the caption.
Headings, Entries, Leads, and Dates
Let's define some terms so you can understand the structure of your resume. You'll divide your resume into headings such as Education, Military Service, Employment, Activities, and others (a fairly complete list of potential headings follows).
Within each heading will appear several entries, which describe an educational degree, a job, an activity, and so on. Each entry will begin with a lead, which you can use very effectively to direct the employment manager's attention to your strongest experiences. Also within an entry, you might have some functional subheadings to draw together the types of experience and ability you've gained. And finally, a date will appear with some entries to state when you held a particular job or received a particular degree.
In the above example, the word Employment is the heading. The words United States Army are the lead. The paragraphs describing the experience are the entry. The words 1967-1990 obviously are the date. And the bulleted words Human Resources, Personnel Management, and Team-Building are functional subheadings enabling you to draw your abilities together in one place.
Here we're only concerned with learning the structure of a resume. Manipulating with headings, entries, leads, functional subheadings, and dates can be done to accomplish your mission of selling yourself in thirty seconds flat.
Potential Headings in a Chronological Resume.
This is not a rigid list. Indeed there's plenty of room for creativity in writing your resume. For example, maybe you've volunteered to do a lot of political work and the Community Service heading just doesn't fit. Instead, you may use Political Work, Political Activity, or some other appropriate heading.
Modifying Headings
You can also modify headings with other words. For example, maybe you're going after a position in personnel and have the word personnel in your objective. Then to show the experience you have in personnel, you ignore the Employment heading and use Personnel Experience instead. You can readily see how modified headings can target your resume to the precise consumer you want.
The list of modified headings could go on and on. For now, just keep in mind that you are in charge of selecting or creating headings that package you and your life most persuasively and effectively. Positioning and sequencing the information in your resume, by intentionally creating headings that pertain specifically to your background or to your overall career goals can be considered.
Potential Headings in a Functional Resume.
Potential headings can be used in a functional or indeed a combination or chrono funk resume. Also keep in mind that you might choose functional subheadings to portray the type of experience you gained in the military:
We should caution you once again to take great care in devising headings for the functional resume. Be sure you dream up the headings or subheadings. Make absolutely certain that you can show strong credentials and experiences in each functional heading. Never, ever copy the functional headings or subheadings from another person's resume.
