What Every Resume Needs: Your Story and The Six Parts

What Every Resume Needs PDF

by Robin Glenn Jones

In Module 4 of LifeLaunch!, Resumes and Cover Letters, our resident career expert, Don Asher, identifies important information about how to structure your resume.

As Don states, “The purpose of the resume is to get an interview.” In this module Don explains the parts of a resume that are essential to land you the interview. I have listed them for you but you will need to refer to Module 4 of LIfeLaunch!, or Don’s highly acclaimed book, The Overnight Resume, in order to get a complete understanding of how best to incorporate these elements into your own resume.

One of the techniques I particularly like is removing the objective because it doesn’t really speak to who you are. A resume should be crafted as your personal story, specifically told for a desired intent.

As I recently told my daughter Madison, think of sitting across the table from someone you have been wanting to meet and now you have their full attention.

What do you want to say to them?

When you finish visiting with them, what impression do you want them to leave with?

Well, the same goes for the resume. Someone is hearing your voice for the first time and they are going to determine if they want to hear more from what you have written.

So, craft your words so that if you were reading what you had written, and comparing that to the hundreds of other resumes you might have seen, you would choose you!

The Six Parts of Your Resume

The Heading–your name, cell phone, and email address. City and state are optional

Your Profile–a list of your skills and interests related to the position

Special Projects–Highlight any experience or special projects related to the position

Education–Include relevant coursework and projects, school activities, honors and awards

Experience–organize this in reverse chronological order, focus experience on the job you are going after, use subheadings for types of experience, start sentences with verbs, highlight accomplishments

Key Words–at the bottom of your resume create a list of key words that might be searched by resume sorting software.

Ask Yourself

Does my resume answer the question, “What can this candidate do for me?”

Have I proofed a hard copy to catch any typos?

Is my formatting consistent and scanable?

LifeLaunch! Can Help

Check out Module 4 of ABF’s LifeLaunch! course to learn more about how to create a winning resume.
Enroll in LifeLaunch!

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What Every Resume Needs PDF