sponsored by The First Presbyterian Church of New Canaan and St. Mark’s  Episcopal Church

Clearly illustrate your strengths, skills, and core competencies

Demonstrate how you have added value to organizations

Demonstrate your seriousness and professionalism in approaching the marketplace

Introduce you to hiring managers and others in order to obtain interviews or network

Act as a script for interviews and networking meetings

Serve as a sales promotion piece and a leave-behind

Provide viable documentation for third-party resources such as search firms

As an attachment to a cover letter sent to search firms to get in their database

As support to a cover letter sent in answer to an ad for a position opening

As preparation or follow up for a networking meeting

As a posting on internet job boards like Monster and Career Builder

As a “get acquainted” piece to be provided to anyone who might help your job search

Prepare the document yourself.  The blood, sweat and tears you put into it helps you know yourself better

Present yourself positively and accurately and in no more than two pages.

Consider your Resume a "showcase" for your accomplishments:

	In selecting which accomplishments to “showcase”, go back to your Self Assessment, Exercise # 7--  “Identify and Analyze Your Accomplishments” .
	From this exercise, select the accomplishments that most clearly demonstrate: Your Strengths Your Skills Your Core Competencies Your Ability to Add Value to an Organization
	For each of these accomplishments, prepare a one-sentence PAR Statement, explaining: What was the Problem? What Action did you take? What Results did you get?
	Use this PAR Statement to present the accomplishment in your resume. Click here to see examples of accomplishments re-worded as PAR Statements.

The first page of your resume is critical.  Many readers never go beyond it.  Make sure you showcase your core competencies, skills and how you add value to an organizations.

Start each sentence with an action verb.

Thoroughly quantify as many of your accomplishments as you can.  Specific numbers sell!

Use separate bullets for each accomplishment to make your resume a faster read.

Include specific information (i.e. names of projects, companies, promotions etc). 

Simplify any professional or technical jargon to be understandable to the reader and relevant to the work you seek.

Account for all time from college undergraduate to the present. For jobs over ten years old, simply state the company, the job title, and a brief description of responsibilities.

Do not include salary requirements, references, height, weight, race, religion, or any data that might be sensitive from a job discrimination standpoint. 

However, the CaTS team recommends that you include the date(s) you graduated from relevant educational institutions.  This will allow prospective employers to estimate your age, and save you the time of dealing with them if they are sensitive to the candidate’s age.

You can format your Resume two different ways:

	Chronological Resume--  Lists your career in reverse chronology.
	Functional Resume--  Uses your accomplishments to reinforce your key strengths, skills, or core competencies.

Use the Chronological Resume format for most work searches.

If you are trying to get into an entirely different field or have worked for many different organizations, consider the Functional Resume format.