Resumes

Writing a resume is the most usual starting point for most job seekers. Before writing a resume, you need to know what it is you want to convey to an employer. You must know what you have done (including when), and what your strengths and achievements are. It is common for students to have two versions of their resume - one for part time or casual employment and one for course related or professional purposes.

You need to be aware of your profession and the skills and experiences sought. An engineer's resume will contain different headings to an artist or academic's resume. Like your covering letter, this document is about marketing your qualifications, knowledge, experience and skills. Try to put yourself into an employer's shoes, ask yourself what you would look for in a resume.

There is no "one size fits all" format for resumes. The type and order of headings will depend on the type of job being applied for and the level of your expertise and experience (a recent graduate would feature their qualifications on the first page, while someone with 10 years experience might not). It is general practice to reverse the chronology of information under each heading - this should bring the most important pieces of information to the top.

Submitting resumes

There are three main ways people will submit their resume:

1. Post
2. Fax
3. Email

If you are not sending your resume through the post, you will need to be aware of how your resume will translate using electronic media. Use a clean white paper (not coloured or textured) version of your resume to fax. When e-mailing, it is best to send your resume as an attachment. Not all documents can be easily read as attachments however, so if you don't know what software the receiver has, save and send your resume as a .rtf, .pdf or html file.