Black Collegian Career Center

As an African-American college student, you may have come to college with goals of attaining a degree and snaring an exciting and lucrative position 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 today's and tomorrow's 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 de-jobbed, 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 relate3 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.

Format for the Chronological Resume

Name:

Campus Address: Street, City, State, Zip code, (Area code) Phone Number

Permanent Address: Street, City, State, Zip code, (Area code) Phone Number

Use only one address if the campus and permanent address are the same.

Career Objective:

A logical and meaningful statement concisely describing one's immediate and possible long-range career goals. Use as specific a title as possible.

Education:

• Include institutions that granted the degrees (city and state), degrees, graduation dates (in reverse chronological order).

• If applicable or appropriate, identify your major, minor, and formal certificate program or vocational training.

• List GPA if it is favorable. Include academic honors and awards related to your degrees if appropriate.

Work Experiences:

• List position title, where and when (not necessarily in this order).

• Full-time, part-time, cooperative education experiences, internships, practicum's, professional experience, and volunteer work (if related to the job search). Appropriate subheadings for this category include: Professional Experience, Work Experience, Related Work Experience.

• After identifying your skills, use action words to describe your responsibilities and accomplishments for each position. Be thorough in descriptions, but do not overrate your responsibilities.

• List accomplishments in order of importance.

• Emphasize your achievements using titles, numbers, and names. Titles convey responsibility; numbers and names show magnitude of achievement adding credibility to your resume.

• Specify skills related to career objective or job target: computer skills, special licenses, foreign language proficiencies, research discoveries credited to you.

Optional items:

• Areas of academic emphasis (if not an official major or minor), vocational training, and means of financing your education. (If you worked to pay for your college education, by all means say so!)

• Honors: List academic, leadership, athletic awards or recognitions, and memberships in honorary organizations.

Extracurricular Activities & Hobbies:

• Indicate responsibilities, positions of leadership, professional organization, community and campus activities, elected or non-elected offices held.

References:

• (optional).

The Functional Resume

College students, especially non-traditional students such as: adult learners, evening college students, returning students who have had to interrupt their college experiences, students with diverse work experiences or who have been out of the job market for a number of years may find a functional resume more to their advantage. The functional resume allows you to focus on related and transferable skills, abilities and experiences that you acquired in non-professional employment, in volunteer or part-time work or employment in non-traditional settings, but which are applicable to professional work environments.

The functional resume allows more freedom in organizing where the information is placed. If you have relevant work experience, placing work history before degree can emphasize strengths to the potential employer. Categoriz-ing work history by skill areas (administrative, sales, communication) rather than chronologically, may also market you to potential employers. Done well, the functional resume can also minimize any gaps in employment or any time that you may have stopped out of college. Again, the point of the resume is to present the most attractive snapshot of your experiences. Consult with your career center on the resume format that will best showcase your education and experience.

Format for the Functional Resume

Name:

Campus Address: Street, City, State, Zip code, (Area code) Phone Number

Permanent Address: Street, City, State, Zip code, (Area code) Phone Number

Use only one address if the campus and permanent address are the same.

Career Objective:

A logical and meaningful statement concisely describing one's immediate and possible long-range career goals. Use as specific a title as possible.

Summary of Experience/Skills:

• List appropriate areas of skill that demonstrate abilities required for the position.

• Use functional skills (e.g., communication, marketing, planning, managing, computer skills, etc.) that are areas of personal strength as subheadings.

• Use short action phrases to describe and quantify related accomplishments and/or results.

• List subheads and accomplishments in order of importance.

• Identify the employment or non-employment situation where experience was gained will be listed under Work History.

Education:

• Placement will emphasize or de-emphasize education. Education completed less than five years ago appears immediately after career objective

• Include institution granting degree(s), graduation dates, etc.

Work History:

• Brief chronology of employment history.

• Entries listed in reverse chronological order, most recent listed first.

• List position, place of employment, city and state, dates of employment.

Professional Affiliations:

• List and indicate positions of leadership and responsibility held.
  Honors:

• List academic, leadership, athletic awards, and honorary memberships.

References:

• (optional)

The Scannable Resume

Many organizations have turned to computers to help them screen candidates. With dramatic increases in employment applicants, companies use resume scanning to improve efficiency and productivity in screening candidates. The World Wide Web and e-mail also allow you to instantly send your resume to employers via computer. To effectively compete with other job seekers, Black collegians must keep current on job search technology. A scannable resume enhances your marketability and exposure. Companies using automated applicant tracking systems rank candidates based on keywords on your resume that match the key duties or skill sets of this position.

Constantly changing technology requires job seekers to stay current on new trends related to scannable resumes. Always check with the career center for the most up to date methods for developing scannable resumes.

In conclusion, remember that a resume grows as you grow, must be regularly updated, and must tell your story in a way that makes an employer interested in learning more about you through an interview. Whether you are a senior about to graduate or a freshman just entering college, it is never too late or too early to begin developing your resume. The sooner you start, the more time you will have to develop, update, and ultimately produce a truly standout, accomplished, competitive senior resume.

Linda Bates Parker is the director of the Career Development Center at the University of Cincinnati.