Career Resources

Writing Your Resume

A Resume is a document depicting your academic qualifications, work experiences and competencies to what you can offer in a job. It is also used as a form of marketing tool to market yourself as a potential employee to your prospective employer.

Note that a Resume may not land you a job offer but certainly in getting an interview with your prospective employer.

Resume should be customized based on the job you are applying for and not having a master copy to apply for all jobs.

Pointers in writing a resume:

Keep in short. Restrict it to maximum 2 pages.
  • Be truthful in what is written.
  • Use short sentences and paragraphs in writing.
  • Use correct grammar and spelling, avoid abbreviations and jargon.
  • Use Roman Times or Arial typeface and a font size of 12. 
  • Keep the resume clean. No fanciful borders or tables.

General Guidelines in writing a resume:

Personal Particulars
  • State your name, phone and email contacts (avoid using school email addresses).
  • Insert a digital self photograph (preferably to be in business shirt and tie).

Career Objective
  • A summary to state your qualities, abilities and what you can offer to the prospective organization.

Education
  • List your academic qualifications. 

Work Experience
  • This is the most important section of your resume.
  • State the skills you possessed for the desired position you are applying for.
  • List employer, designation, dates of employment and a brief description of your contributions.
  • Highlight achievements and recognitions if any.
  • Be specific in stating job description.

Co-curricular Activities
  • List the activities you have actively organized and participated.
  • Highlight those in particular that showcased your leadership and organizing skills.

Language and other skills
  • State your specific language capabilities that are essential to the position you are applying for.  More so if you are applying for a position that requires other languages.
  • Relevant computer skills and knowledge if any. 

Writing of a Cover Letter

A cover letter expresses your interest in working for your prospective organization, highlights your qualifications and work experiences and how they could contribute to the organization and requests for an interview. 

A cover letter should be written short and simple. Approximately 3 short paragraphs should be sufficient to state your point.

Pointers in writing a cover letter:

Paragraph 1
  • State the position you are applying for.
  • Reference the job posting. If the posting is from online or newspaper, specify the day, the source (or URL) and the position.

Paragraph 2
  • State what you can offer in the job based on your qualifications, work experiences and competencies.

Paragraph 3
  • End the letter by re-affirming your interest in the job opening. 
  • Request for an interview and state how you can be contacted.