What Are Thumbnail Sketches and Other Sections of Resume?

636 Views
( 2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
What do you think about this article? Rate it using the stars above and let us know what you think in the comments below.
Summary: You may be writing all kinds of resume format for yourself. A chronological / achievement resume is always effective. This is the best format you should follow. You should well before finalizing your resume. Writing it repeatedly makes your resume more and more effective. Also never forget to write about your area of expertise.

What Are Thumbnail Sketches and Other Sections of Resume?

Most of the books on resume writing emphasize the importance of writing good job objectives for your resumes. These are the second item on standard resumes after the name, address and telephone numbers. Job objectives are fine for young applicants looking for their first positions. However, for the older executive or professional, including the term ''job objective" doesn't do justice to that person's status, background and experience.



Instead, head the first section after your name and address with the job title that you are pursuing. Then under that heading, write a "thumbnail sketch" or word picture that illustrates the strengths and abilities you bring to that job title. The sketch could also give some idea of the background, industry or areas in which you have already performed. The thumbnail is more powerful than a Job objective. By describing what you can do, you are essentially describing the kind of job you want. The thumbnail sketch is both a good advertisement and a superb job-objective statement.

How do you write a thumbnail? Don't begin writing your resume by writing the thumbnail sketch. Choose the job title first, or at least the general area (say marketing) toward which you're going to pitch your resume. Then write the entire body of the resume. After you've written that in a draft form that you can live with, write your thumbnail.

Guidelines for Writing the Thumbnail Sketch
 
  1. Choose an accurate job title for the position you're pursuing.
  2. Tie each statement in the thumbnail to the job title. The statement should describe some ability or characteristic that would enable you to do that job better.
  3. Keep the thumbnail sketch short (somewhere between 30 and 55 words, with an ideal length being around 40 words). You don't have to write complete sentences. Use descriptive phrases or telegraphed sentences.
  4. Use highly descriptive verbs or nouns to describe what you can do. Use modifiers only when they add to the concrete impression. Don't use any of the weak modifiers.

Remember that you're writing an ''ad" when you're preparing a thumbnail. Does what you've written sell? This is a case where the sizzle sells the steak.

The people who wrote these sweat blood over them. These few words are probably the most important part of your resume. This is the one thing that people screening resumes will read. If your thumbnail grabs them, they will read the rest of your resume, and you'll at least have had an initial chance.

Advertising Director/Manager: Originator of proven creative advertising and marketing concepts. Manages, directs and motivates team in fast-turnaround environment. Plans and implements successful direct-mail campaigns, sales promotions, public relations programs and trade shows. Experienced in estimating, creating deadlines and overseeing vendors throughout production process.

Healthcare Professional: Experienced professional with comprehensive background in healthcare administration. Proven record of reducing operational costs, improving profit margin, controlling finances and increasing staff productivity. Strong leader, communicator and problem-solver. Accomplished in operational analysis, strategic planning, budgeting, contract negotiations, project development, medical-office leasing and marketing.

General Manager: A results-oriented General Manager with exceptional business skills in marketing, manufacturing and financial control. Demonstrated ability in managing manufacturing companies and subsidiaries for publicly owned corporations. Successful record of improving profits, increasing market share, reducing costs and managing assets. An action-oriented and creative problem-solver with excellent people skills.

Project Engineer: Hands-on engineer skilled in designing and installing electro-mechanical products and systems. Practical troubleshooter.

Knows how to design a product that can be manufactured efficiently and cost-effectively. Builds good working relationships with vendors and outside contractors. Innovative user of technology to solve problems. Experienced planner. Superior motivator with strong interpersonal skills.

Other Sections of the Resume

You can include a number of different sections in your resume. Several of them are almost mandatory; your education and your business affiliations. You'll include a personal section only when it provides personal skills or achievements which can be related to the job.

Education: In every resume, you should include a section on your education. Young people are advised to include their dates of attendance or the date they received their degrees. You'll have to give this information when you make a formal application so that the potential employer can check on your credentials. But you don't have to put dates on a resume, and you shouldn't. Unless you earned some spectacular kind of honor in college, say Phi Beta Kappa, simply list the universities and colleges you attended, in most recent to most distant order, along with any certificates or degrees you earned. If you've had short courses and seminars, list them if they're important to the job title shown on your resume. Otherwise, omit them entirely or provide a summary statement, as in the example below.

Business Affiliations: This section is included when you write an achievement or professional resume. It is placed immediately after the education section. In it, you simply list the companies you worked for and your job title. (In the professional resume, if you have been working as a consultant, you may head this section "Clients.") Don't state the dates worked. You can include some identifier, such as "a division of-" when you worked for a subsidiary of a major corporation, and give some idea about the line of business and its location.

Professional Affiliations: For jobs in which professional certification or membership in professional or trade organizations is a must, this heading should be included. Or you can use a heading called "Other Affiliations," and include business and community organization memberships that show your competence-for instance, president of the chamber of commerce, chairperson of fund raising for the alumni association of your college chairperson of a major committee. The following example shows how these might be listed.

Military Experience: You may choose to include this or not, depending upon your rank and whether or not the experience your military service provided is transferable to civilian life. Ability to bomb the enemy is not necessarily a transferable skill. Ability to fly might be.

Honors, Publications, Presentations, Patents: This heading (or it can be more than one heading) should be included in any resume if it adds to your hire-ability. If you're listed in any of the Who's Who books, it's nice to include it. Briefly identify any other honors. Published papers and books also add to stature as do patents granted. Use a telegraphed format for these. List only the names of articles or books, not the dates, the publications or the publisher. (Note: If you include publications, you should also prepare a complete list of these in standard bibliographic form to leave behind with the interviewer if you are asked to do so.) Describe patents in some way (but don't give them esoteric titles). List the organizations before which you made major presentations and include a brief title of your topic.

Technical Expertise or Area of Specialization: This section is always included in a Professional resume. In it are listed the skills and knowledge areas in which you are an expert; you may also include areas in which you have a working knowledge, if you think that would be advantageous.

You'll write different resumes for different purposes. For some of you, the only resume you'll ever need is either the Chronological or the combination Chronological/Achievement resume. In fact, if you're only going to write one resume, the best format is probably the Achievement/Chronological Resume. However, to write that one correctly, you'd have to do all of the work it would take to write both an Achievement and a Chronological resume first, so you can't do that one resume just to save time and effort.
If this article has helped you in some way, will you say thanks by sharing it through a share, like, a link, or an email to someone you think would appreciate the reference.



EmploymentCrossing was helpful in getting me a job. Interview calls started flowing in from day one and I got my dream offer soon after.
Jeremy E - Greenville, NC
  • All we do is research jobs.
  • Our team of researchers, programmers, and analysts find you jobs from over 1,000 career pages and other sources
  • Our members get more interviews and jobs than people who use "public job boards"
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it, you will land among the stars.
EmploymentCrossing - #1 Job Aggregation and Private Job-Opening Research Service — The Most Quality Jobs Anywhere
EmploymentCrossing is the first job consolidation service in the employment industry to seek to include every job that exists in the world.
Copyright © 2024 EmploymentCrossing - All rights reserved. 169