Developing a professional resume and cover letter that work

Black Collegian, Oct 2001 by Shakoor, A Tariq

Organize

Assist

Manage

Develop

Implement

Create

Initiate

Supervise

Coordinate

These are just samples of the types of verbs you should include in your resume when describing what you did. Verbs should introduce what you've done in a creative and meaningful way. Another thing you should be mindful of, is to quantify your work whenever possible. Here are some examples of how this might look on a resume.

* Managed quality control that resulted in an 85% reduction in returned merchandise over a three-month period.

* Assisted in creating an ad campaign that produced a 105% increase in sales worth $1.2 million.

By quantifying your activities wherever possible, you enhance your chances for an interview. Finally, the most important thing to consider about your work or volunteer experience is that this is an opportunity to provide evidence of the skills you have developed. Remember the list of skills you checked earlier? You should be able to assign the skills you claim to some work activity or some academic exposure. Simply go down the list of your skills and determine where the skill is represented on your resume. This little exercise will help prepare you for the interview. The other thing you did in the exercise was to place a circle around those things that are not particular strengths for you. If any of these skills are critical to success, you should develop a plan of action that will help you improve in these areas. Be realistic by setting reasonable goals. You may even use this in the interview when asked about weaknesses or challenges you have. Always put a positive spin on areas you need to improve on. An example would be, " I have trouble staying motivated when the work is too routine. I realize that I'm not always going to have exciting work to do, so I'm working on staying motivated by creating excitement with routine tasks." It will impress the recruiter that you are able to recognize a weakness and have a plan to remedy it.

Honors and Activities, a Critical Part of the Resume

There are two places where information about honors and activities can be placed. Many experts say it is more appropriate to place honors and activities as a sub-category of education, while others prefer to separate them under their own headings at the end of the resume. Wherever you decide to place them is purely optional. The key to resume construction is consistency and a clean professional look. When listing your honors and activities, be sure to only include those you were involved in while in college. Unless you are a first or second year student, it is inappropriate to include high school honors and activities. Recruiters want to know what you were involved in during your college years, not that you were president of the Beta Honor Society in high school.

Your honors and activities are examples of your academic ability and social maturity. Recruiters like to see students involved in on-campus and community activities. "A student involved in activities is an indication to us of social maturity and leadership," says Nichols. "Students learn so many things that can be applied to the workplace in the service of others and involvement in extracurricular activities. We pay close attention to a student's involvement in activities outside the classroom. A student with a 4.0 grade point average, but no evidence of being involved in activities or the community, would inspire little interest for us."