Resumes 101: How to Write a Resume!

In this blog post, we go over how to write an effective resume, that's sure to catch any organizations attention.

Getting a job as a teenager can be a significant challenge, especially when going at it for the first time. In today’s world, a resume is essential when applying to anything, whether it’s any internship, a college, a service opportunity, or a highly selective program. Every applicant makes their first impression through what they convey on paper. Nevertheless, it is vital that one creates the best resume possible, in order to ensure that they succeed in their pursuits and secure the opportunities they’re hoping for. In this article, YHY Seattle will help lay out the best ways to construct an effective, top-tier resume. We’ll go over the most common mistakes, and what it takes to come out on top.

Tip Outline

· Be Professional

· Always proofread your resume

· Be concise

· Don’t be afraid to flex

· Never use clichés – stand out

The Essential Components of a Resume

When constructing a resume, it is important that you always aim to stand out from the application pool and to prove that you are the best in your field. While it is important that you always meet the requisites for a job, anyone else that applies for the job will meet the same requirements. For this reason, it is important to describe in a resume some places where you are stronger than the given application pool.

Another aspect of any resume to consider, is professionalism. All job offerings will gauge what expertise you have, they will also see who you are as a person. A resume is gives employers their first look into who you are, and what assets you bring to a company. For this reason, it’s important to portray yourself as a leader and a positive person, while maintaining a professional design for the resume that you construct.

How to Format your Resume

To format your resume, you always want to start with your name, contact information, and educational experience. It is always essential that the first qualification that you write down is your highest educational experience, because school is where every person establishes a foundation for knowledge that helps contribute to their future work. In the case that a person writing a resume has gone to a renowned school, it is important that a person makes note of this, because this simple quality allows for an applicant to standout (this may not always be the case, especially if the student had poor performance). Something else that can be noted, when a high school or college student is applying to a workplace, is the Grade Point Average (GPA). Writing down a GPA is extremely important because not only does it help prove that you are smart, but it also shows that you possess great work ethics. This is another quality that allows for applicants to stand out, and employers often look for this within youth workers.

After listing educational experience, list work experience, (or extracurricular experiences in the case of a student). For every type of job or extracurricular, describe what roles or tasks you did. Remember to be as concise as possible, and to describe parts of your job that exemplify your ability to function in a team. Avoid explaining abstract, cliché descriptions for jobs such as “I worked hard” or “I learned to take on responsibility”, because everyone is capable of doing these things at the end of the day, so it does not help make your resume special. In the end, when someone reads your resume, they won’t be impressed, especially considering anyone can “work hard”. What does impress people is if you put significant effort of the work you did, and you can describe the individual tasks you faced.

More importantly, actions speak louder than words. If you can describe an event you helped develop (a seminar, fundraiser, or an enterprise), then this is evidence that you were a leader, and conveys more than “I worked hard”.

Once you’ve listed work and extracurricular experiences, listing abilities or awards from your past are extremely important because they help you stand out. Putting down that you are proficient in a language, able to code, or even just proficient at Microsoft suite programs like Word, Powerpoint, Excel, and OneNote can help give you edge over other resumes, no matter how small.

Formatting Errors

Once you’ve gathered the information for your resume, it’s important for you to format it properly. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP, because simple mistakes in formatting will cost you an opportunity, no matter how absurd they are. Something as small as a grammatical error or an over designed resume, will always come off as unprofessional. Before submitting a resume, always go through the following checklist to make sure that your resume works well:

· There are no typos or grammatical errors

· The resume is not overdesigned and appears professional

· An appropriate, legible, and professional font is used.

· The resume is organized

· The dates of items on the resume go from most recent, to least recent.

· Everything fits on one sheet (a maximum of two pieces of paper).

Final Notes and Tips

When wrapping up your resume, there are some key tips to follow through with getting the job or spot that you are hoping for. One important tip to keep note of is to always save your resume as a Word Document so that you can edit it for future purposes, or to tailor it to certain criteria or requirements. When sending out the resume, always make sure to save a copy of your resume as a PDF, and then send out this new PDF so that the file cannot be altered by the company or anyone that views it.