RESUME WRITING

Sunday, August 12, 2007

RESUME WRITING Introduction

A resume is a summary of your professional and personal experiences - education, clinical experience, employment, skills, and interests - designed to introduce you to potential employers, and hopefully interest them in interviewing you. Often your resume is the employer's first of impression of you - don't underestimate its importance.

In order for a resume to be effective, it must be targeted to the employer(s) who are going to read it. A single "catch- all" resume which you expect to use in looking for various types of jobs is much less effective than several well-focused resumes which highlight pertinent elements in your experience. If, for example, you plan to apply to both hospital-based and community health center-based positions, you might be better served by having two resumes, one focusing on your hospital experience, and the other on your community health background. Remember, the purpose of a resume is to obtain an interview, so it must make a strong argument to the reader that you have something to offer them.

Your resume can be no more than two pages, and many professionals feel a one page resume is best. A general rule of thumb is to identify only the most pertinent information and to organize your information in the most concise way possible. If that requires more than one page, use the additional page. The only advantage to using two pages is being able to include essential information which would otherwise be lost. If you have a 2-page resume, be sure to put your name on the top of page 2. Often with good editing it is possible to create a well-focused, powerful one-page resume