Complete the following sections for each period in your life to help review this part of your experience.
High School: List any clubs, societies, athletic or other organizations you were involved in and any awards or accomplishments for them.
Choose Your Most Impressive Results
Now, from all these, choose the most impressive results and accomplishments you have had in your extracurricular, community, and social life.
Choose significant items, just as you did when you listed accomplishments from your work experiences.
Place #1, alongside the most impressive or the significant item. Do the same for #2, #3, and so forth.
Now, in order, list the extracurricular statements in the following spaces. Again, use the action language you used when you wrote about your work accomplishments.
Here are some examples for you to follow:
- Elected President of Student Council for 1700-student high school by widest margin in school history
- Developed and chaired project to raise $4,500 for school veterans' memorial
- Elected Captain, swim team; won four varsity letters; set two team speed records
- Elected Secretary-Treasurer of Girls' Athletic Association 2 consecutive years
- Represented church youth group at national delegate convention; served on Credentials Committee
- Worked at several restaurants part-time during high school and college; earned 75 percent of college expenses
- Selected as female romantic lead for three high school musicals; received excellent reviews from local papers
- Received Regional Musical Awards for piano; studied piano privately for nine years; choir accompanist
- Elected Honored Queen, Bethel #6, Job's Daughters; increased membership 27 percent during term of office 1986-87.
- Selected for membership, Rotary Club of Downtown Phoenix, 1987. Plan to serve on education and scholarship committees.
- President, Scottsdale Jaycees, 1985-86; raised $8,000 for Special Olympics.
- Elected Lieutenant Governor, Arizona Boys State, 1968; led legislative session.
If a potential employer is in doubt about a possible candidate, these achievements might be the very thing that would tilt the odds in your favor.
Indeed, a study of corporate personnel representatives who recruit graduating seniors on college campuses showed that participation in activities, offices, and organizations indicated that leadership potential was the #1 reason for choosing final candidates.
Now, in order, list the honors, awards, and achievements you want to include in your resume.
Think Again
If you don't have any activities, honors, awards, or extracurricular accomplishments, don't feel left out.
First, you probably do have some. Think again. Think about how you may have spent your free time. Think about a boss who may have paid you a special compliment about your work, your effort, or your dependability.
You might include this in a section rarely used, but possibly useful.
What Others Say
A short, swift compliment may be just the thing to compensate for your lack of "honors." If your boss once said that you were her best employee, use the words she said.
If you use quotes, be sure they are accurate! And keep quotations short. One phrase or sentence is usually enough! You want employers to read it, absorb it, and then generalize from it.
What you want them to remember is: He seems like a good person, and other people seem to think so, too.
Special Skills
This is the place to list any special skills not already covered in your Work Experience or Education sections. Such skills might include typing, operating specific machinery and equipment, and so on.
Make a list of any special skills you might have that would interest an employer. And mark the ones that you want to use in a job.
Maybe you can type, but would rather not let employers know this (for fear of being labeled a secretary-when you really want to be a management trainee).
There's no law that says you must use all your skills in a job. Or admit to them on a resume.
List any of these skills in the following spaces.
Personal Information
In years past, this information was expected. People who were reading resumes looked for it. But times change, and so do resume customs.
Omit information such as date of birth or age, place of birth, family information, marital status, health, height, and weight.
Put in anything here that might help you, and leave out anything that could hurt you. Although this section can be left off your resume completely, it might be helpful to include some things that do support your ability to do the job but don't fit anywhere else on your resume.
Have you had any special training, professional schooling, attended intensive seminars, gone to service/military schools which are applicable to the civilian job you're hoping to land?
List them here, including the length of each course.
What are your hobbies? Interests? List them here. (Some ideas: playing baseball, composing classical music for piano, collecting first day stamp issues, reading about current business trends, making your own clothes, working on cars, skydiving, parasailing, writing movie reviews for local paper, eating out, seeing foreign films, volunteering at local nursing home, assisting Sunday School teachers, 35mm photography, scripting and videotaping original variety shows, building bookcases, making needlepoint pictures, etc.)
Now, start looking at, and thinking about, which ones of the above you would like to have a prospective employer know about? Which ones might make you look more attractive to an employer? Which ones would not?
Some kinds of personal information can cause problems. In most cases, your resume should be free of references to your political, religious, or philosophical beliefs.
An exception to this general rule might be when you are applying to a religious, political, or philosophical organization. Degrees from religious colleges or universities, therefore, might be helpful if you are applying to work at a hospital run by that religion. People of all religions may work there, of course, but you might have a slight advantage.
Political preferences are no reason for selecting one applicant over another. Your beliefs are your own business as long as you don't try to force them on other employees in the organization.
But listing that you were a member of the Young Democrats when the chances are 50-50 that the reader will be a Republican, wouldn't seem to be a smart idea. You'd be better off to eliminate the reference entirely. Or, you might say "Elected President of political organization with membership of 80" rather than identifying the Young Democrats specifically.
Use this as a guideline: if you feel any of this personal information is to your advantage in the job hunt, you may use it if you wish.
I recommend a short statement, under a category titled "PERSONAL INFORMATION," very close to the end of your resume, if you use it at all. Here are some examples:
- Excellent health, no serious illnesses
- Middle child of five children; father is airline sales representative; mother is office manager for plumbing firm
- Married to Ralph, computer engineer, for 27 years; raised five children
- Have traveled widely throughout United States, Canada and Europe; enjoy travel photography
- Enjoy sewing clothes, church committees, volunteer work at nursing home
