How to Write a Résumé

Sample Lesson - Introduction

Lesson 1.01: Info Dump

    Gulp. (Source)

You're staring at your computer screen, and you swear—swear—it has started staring back at you. It knows you're about a write a résumé, and it wants to make you as uncomfortable as possible:

You have nothing to fill this blank page with…
You're not going to get the job anyway…
Maybe you should just go watch TV instead…

Yeah, our computer screen can be a little nasty.

But there's a silver lining, Shmoopers: you can write a résumé while watching TV. Believe us, we've done it.

So before that blank page comes at you with a weapon and a vengeance, let's start spilling some ink. You have to start somewhere, and we here at Shmoop are all about non-judgmental brainstorming, so let's get to it.

Sample Lesson - Activity

Activity 1.01a: Spill Your Brains, Part 1

First things first: we want you to list everything you've ever done. 

 Okay, not everything. That time you cried on stage while singing "On My Own" at the school talent show? Leave that part out. 

But anything that someone else might want to know about you if they met you at a semi-professional dinner party—those are the things we want you to write down. 

 Here are some things you can consider including in your list, but don't get too picky on what you include. Remember, you can always delete later. (In fact, you'll be doing a lot of deleting). 

•  Jobs 
• Volunteer positions 
•  Education (that includes regular school and any other extra classes you've taken, like at the community center during the summer)
• Interests (Love to cook? Write that down.) 
•  Skills (Are you an Excel guru? Perfect. Speak French? Jot it down.) 
•  Awards you've won (Maybe not MVP of your 2nd grade soccer team, but Best Sportsmanship award for Varsity Soccer, sure.)
• Major achievements 
•  Anything you've published (including blogs and the sort) 

P.S. Have fun with this one. We're asking you to talk about yourself, for crying out loud.

Upload your progress below so your teacher can make sure you're on the right track. If you're going through this course independently (way to go, you little self-starter!), you can just upload any document you'd like in order to continue. Preferably cute_puppies.docx.

Sample Lesson - Activity

Activity 1.01b: Split It Up

Okay, now that you've taken care of the brain dump, it's time to get organized.

Step 1: Take your list and break it up into sections, choosing from the following headers:

• Education 
• Employment (or Experience) 
• Awards and Achievements 
• Activities, Interests, and Skills

Go on, we'll wait.

Step 2: What's that? You have some stuff leftover that didn't fit into one of those categories? Don't sweat it. In addition to the categories we suggested, you might consider adding your own. Before you do, we have two questions for you:

1. Do a lot of the items on your list fall into one super-specific category? Like, say, "Research Experience" or "Writing Experience"?
    
2. Are you applying for a job that's really focused on one super-specific skill? Like teaching, website design, or sales?

If you answered yes to either of those questions, you probably want to add your own category heading so you have a space for those things. Here are some examples:

• Teaching Experience 
• Research Experience 
• Writing Experience 
• Design Experience 
• Volunteer Experience 
• Management Experience 
• Performance History 
• Publications

Go ahead and make any additions you think you might need.

Done? Awesome. You should now have a brain dump organized into categories.

Upload your progress below so your teacher can make sure you're on the right track. If you're going through this course independently (way to go, you little self-starter!), you can just upload any document you'd like in order to continue. Preferably cute_puppies.docx.

Sample Lesson - Activity

Activity 1.01c: Spill Your Brains, Part 2

Feeling pretty good about yourself? We thought so. And we're not gonna lie—we're pretty impressed, too. Here's the thing, though: as cool as some of the stuff on your list is, it's not all résumé worthy. That means you're going to need to cut it down.

Step 1: Go through your list and cross out or delete anything that you know in your heart of hearts shouldn't be on a résumé. That would be things like "Won that chess game against Grandpa" and "Scored the winning run in Game 4 of the Little League series." We know Mom's proud, but a future employer won't be.

Step 2: Now go through your list again and cross out anything that the employer you're applying to work for won't care about. So while it might be awesome that you used to volunteer at a homeless shelter (seriously, that's awesome), the person deciding if they should give you a web design position probably won't be all that moved. Now, unless, you have ESP, it might be difficult to predict what you're potential employer might want to know. So, ask yourself this question: has x activity given me any knowledge or skills that would help me excel in this job? If the answer is a definite no, cross it out.

Step 3: Okay, this is the part people have the most trouble with: cutting the stuff that happened so long ago that no one (and we're including your mom on that list) cares.

There's a different cut-off depending on where in life you are, so we're going to break it down for you:

• If you're in high school (junior or senior), nothing before 7th grade gets to make it on the résumé. No matter how many Girl Scout cookies you sold that one year.
   
• If you're in college, nothing before 9th grade makes the cut. Seriously. We know it's super cool that you won the student-athlete award, but that was in Junior High, and you're a college kid now.
   
• If you're more than one year out of college, only college and beyond gets to show its face on your résumé. No exceptions. We don't care if you were valedictorian of your 32-person high school class. (Sorry.)

And that's that. Once you're more than one year out of college, the lines are a bit blurrier, but just use your judgment. If the job you had 26 years ago is super relevant, leave it on, but if you just want to prove you were alive in the 80s…not so much.

P.S. If you still have more than 10 or 15 items on your list, you're doing it wrong. Try again.

Upload your progress below so your teacher can make sure you're on the right track. If you're going through this course independently (way to go, you little self-starter!), you can just upload any document you'd like in order to continue. Preferably cute_puppies.docx.

Sample Lesson - Activity

Activity 1.01d: Get Specific

Congratulations, Shmooper. You've made it past the ego-stroking phase and onto the make-it-count phase.

The next step? Get specific. Here are the things we want to know about each of the finalists who made it on your list:

• Where it all went down (name of the company, school, district, whatever) 
• When you did it/won it/achieved it, etc. (Month and year is plenty of information; and make sure you indicate the range. If you're still doing it, just say "to present" at the end.) 
• If it was a position, what your title was (Although if your title was "The Sausage Haus Master of Wieners," you might want to shorten that to "Restaurant Manager" or "Restaurant Associate.")

You'll write all that information out next to or underneath the finalists. Don't worry about making it look pretty—we'll get to that later.

Upload your progress below so your teacher can make sure you're on the right track. If you're going through this course independently (way to go, you little self-starter!), you can just upload any document you'd like in order to continue. Preferably cute_puppies.docx.