Sample Resumé

Name

userid@vt.edu
http://cslab.cs.vt.edu/~msmith

Local Address
800 Hunt Club Rd, Apt 123
Blacksburg, VA 24060
Ph: (540) 951 1234

Home Address
Home Street
Home Town, State, ZIP
Home Phone

Objective:

 A part-time position in the field of Information Technology.
(What do you want? What speciality? Is there a location?)

Education:

 B.S., Computer Science, degree expected? date?
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech),
Blacksburg, VA
Minor: Mathematics
Overall GPA: 3.6/4.0  Major GPA: 3.8/4.0
Relevant Courses: (relevant to career objectives) Group Projects: (list projects not courses) Independent Research: (include independent study)

Computer Skills:

 Hardware: DEC Alpha, IBM PC
Operating Systems: UNIX, MS-DOS, Windows NT
Languages: C, C++, Pascal, PERL, Java
Applications: MS Office, HTML, VRML
Certifications: MSCE Certified, Kelly Pinpoint certificate

Work Experience:

 Volunteer, Harding Avenue Elementary School, Blacksburg, VA
September 2001 - present
  • Taught computer literacy to second graders

Office Specialist, Acme Hardware, Bristol, VA
Summers 2000, 2001

  • Typed invoices
  • Created a computer program to record inventory (MS Access)
  • Trained sales staff on use of accounting software (MS Excel)

title, company name, city, state
when

  • (what you did using ACTION verbs)

Other Work Experience:

 Busboy, life guard, lawn maintenance

Activities:

 Member, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Secretary, Residence Life Association
(title, organization - should be university activities)

Honors/Awards:

 Mobil Scholarship, Computer Science Resource Consortium, 2001
(name of honor, awardee, date)

Interests:

 Racquetball, reading science fiction (use only if space)

References:

[Note: HR specialists tell us that there is no need to include references at this point. They KNOW that the names and addresses of references will be provided on request.]

Sample Career Objectives

Electronic Resumes

  1. Create 2 resumes - same content.
    1 with nice fonts, underlining, bold print
    1 with 12 pt. courier type, no bold, italics or underlining
    then ask at the career fair - which form is preferred. If preference is unknown, send both and ackowledge that fact in your cover letter.
    • e.g., IBM, Intel use scanners
  2. Use white, off-white, or light beige paper. Blues/greys do not provide good contrast.
  3. Don't fold your resume - words in creases can't be scanned.
  4. No abbreviations.
  5. Spell and grammar check.
  6. No dot-matrix printing.
  7. Use keywords to grab attention - use nouns instead of action verbs. Pick up keywords from company literature, job advertisements:
    Key word summary under your name
    Keywords: Oracle, UNIX, C++, bachelor of science, computer science, IBM PC, DECstation 5000, Windows, X-Windows, software engineer, multi-media, telecommunications, client-server environment
  8. Avoid double/multiple columns - scanners read left to right.
    Prepare a separate ascii version of your resume - text only - no formatting. For on-line services ascii is the most common denominator.
  9. Avoid graphics.
  10. Lines of about 70 characters.
  11. Hard returns at the end of each line to avoid awkward word wraps.

Last updated 2002/01/16
© S. Birch, 1997-2002. Periodically edited by J.A.N. Lee.