How to Develop an Accomplished Senior-Year Resume to Achieve Your Career Goals

Black Collegian, Oct 2004 by Parker, Linda Bates

As an African-American college student, you may have come to college with goals ol attaining a degree and snaring an exciting and lucrative posilion upon graduation. This article is written to help you look specifically at your resume as a developing marketing tool that must be strengthened each year of college to help you acquire the competitive edge in todays and tomorrows job market. This article provides formats for chronological, functional, and scannable resumes and examples of functional and scannable resumes, all with key elements applicable to most graduating seniors.

Thousands enter the job market annually, including college and high school graduates, professionals changing jobs for advancement, displaced and laid off workers, immigrants and the chronically unemployed. Black college students seeking professional opportunities following graduation must understand today's competitive job search environment. In this dejobbed, global, fluctuating economy, employers receive thousands of resumes from college grads. Some major corporations report receiving over one million resumes a year. From November to April, many large organizations receive over one thousand resumes a week. Amid this torrent of job seekers, Black collegians must become adept in using the most current professional tools for presenting themselves in an accomplished, state-of-the-art resume.

The task of writing an accomplished resume is daunting for anyone. In today's high speed, electronic workplace, a resume can make or break your chances for employment in less than 5 seconds. Therefore, you must learn well the strategies for developing an accomplished, senior resume, to achieve your career goals.

College students often make the mistake of hurriedly putting together a resume only when an opportunity is looming. They fail to seek the expertise of campus career center advisors, who constantly review and critique resumes, who continually study resume literature, who both attend and run resume workshops and who receive valuable, current insights from employers nationwide, on effective resumes for today's college graduates.

According to Greg Hayes, Career Center Executive Director at the University of Dayton, "Once you are in college, you must develop a resume that can promote your growing academic achievements every step of the way. Each year that you are in college, you will learn about exciting internships, summer jobs, community service and career opportunities. Always be prepared. Update your resume every year. Through networking and attendance at career fairs you may be asked for your resume at any time. With so many talented students looking for career opportunities, no employer will want to wait for you to pull your resume together."

By your senior year, your resume must demonstrate increased levels of sophistication in describing your educational, leadership and work accomplishments, but should never be overstated. Specify your job objective and be sure the contents of your resume relates to the objective. Be sure your resume concisely highlights your accomplishments such as: scholarships, internships, academic honors, research, leadership and community service. Be sure to include your computer skills with your other accomplishments. Dr. Jake Kirkland, Assistant Director at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, advises "When constructing your resume, pay careful attention to its appearance (margins, font size, white space) as resume appearance can make the difference in having yours selected for interview consideration. Remember, no one wants to read an over crowded resume that does not have good eye appeal." Prepare to compete with other talented college graduates who are learning that the concise, accomplished, senior resume gets the attention and best results.

Among the many kinds of resume styles, there are two standard resume formats, chronological and functional which are particularly well suited for college students and recent graduates. This article provides an overview of these two most popular formats and offers some current insights on developing the most effective electronic, scannable resume. For further information on resume development, meet with staff in your Career Services office to learn about upcoming resume workshops that they will be conducting and plan to attend. Bookstores and Internet sites can be valuable resources, also. Just remember, there are no perfect resume formats. The format that best sells your accomplishments is the perfect one for you. Use your campus career center to learn more about writing resumes, to learn other resume styles, and, most importantly, to get your resume professionally critiqued before sending it anywhere. The chronological, functional and scannable resume formats are described below, followed by examples of the functional and scannable resume.

The Chronological Resume

The chronological resume is the most widely used resume. This resume organizes your information with your most recent education and work experience listed first. Graduates with limited, related work experience for the position they are seeking, find the chronological resume is most effective for them.