UNIVERSIDAD DE MANILA

One Mehan Gardens Manila, Metro Manila

Structure of English

Ericka Mae L. Lor

Articles on do’s and don’ts in Resume Writing

Article 1: Do’s in Resume Writing

Make sure the resume has the following parts, heading, career

objectives or job summary, experience, education, and a list of special

skills or references.

a. Make sure the address and contact number are updated, and e-

mail address sounds professional.

b. Make sure the ability in the objective matches the requirements

of the job applied for.

The information in the resume should be updated and true.

Choose an appropriate format for the resume.

Check the word choice, grammar, and mechanics of the resume. Always

use short phrases instead of complete sentences. Begin the phrase with

strong verbs.

Article 2: Don’ts in Resume Writing

Falsification of information will show distrust and might result to legal

and ethical problems in the future.

Do not use personal pronoun “I”

Use bullets and listings, be generous with the use of spacing, also keep

the type of font formal.

Article 3: A resume is different from any other text in the sense it is

personal, it must still appear professional. In writing a resume, you must

consider the following areas as its distinguishing features:

a. Format – There is a certain format that you can use, but you may

deviate from it depending on how you design your resume. This

 happens when you wish to highlight a particular area in your

qualifications wherein you are strong, and you would place it near

the beginning, Thus, the order of the headings would have to be

changed

b. Components – The important components of a resume are your

name, contact details, information about your work experience,

education, and achievements.

Article 4:

Other significant considerations in writing a resume are the

accuracy, organization, conciseness, relevance, and recency of the

information you will include. In addition, information on your resume

must be carefully checked for errors in spelling, grammar and mechanics

because such errors will compromise your reputation and credibility or

worse they may be grounds for changing you will falsifying information.

You should also be concerned about how you organize the information

in your resume. Making decisions as to whatever to place in your

education in the beginning or not can affect your clearance of being

hired for the position you desire. Another consideration is the

conciseness of your resume.

Article 5:

Do not write in long sentences. Instead, try to use typographical

devices such as bullet and grammatical devices such as parallelism to

highlight key information. As already mentioned, you need to highlight

key information which means only relevant details should be included.

You do not need to go through the details of your experiences, or you

will be violating the rule on conciseness. One more consideration is the

recency of information that you put in your resume. Since dates are

important details in your resume, the prospective employer will be able

to track the outdated information or notice if there is any information

you did not include.

Article 6:

A resume summarizes your qualifications, skills and

achievements and it aims to convince your prospective employer that

you are the best candidate for the position you are applying for. In a

manner of speaking a resume sells you.

Some companies may not require a resume. Some would only require

an applicant to submit an application letter or to fill out a bio data form.

Most, however, would require applications letter to fill out a a bio data

form summazizes one’s qualification, After all a resume carries added

information in one’s application. Thus, it could create a more positive

impression on the prospective imployer.

Article 7:

Although a resume may not be the same in terms of composition,

all resumes share a few basic features. These include, Heading,

Education Experience and skills. Traditionally a section presenting a list

of character reference is provided at the end of the resume. You msy,

however, choose to just write ‘References Available Upon Request.’ At

the very end of the resume. In some cases applicants also insert

additional sections in their resume especially if the information they

want to add are very specially related to the job they are applying for.

Among the these are Conference/Seminars/Trainings attended,

Research Publications, and Community Engagement.

Acticle 9:

Your resume will speak for you- not only it’s content, but the

manner with which resume was made. If there are errors, then your

employers would think negatively of you. They might think “If you make

mistakes even when you are just applying, how much more if you are

already in the job?”

Here are some common rules for resume writing

1. 8 ½ x 11 (letter) bond paper

2. 1 ½ inches formal bust photo on the upper right corner of the

resume

3. 1inch margin on all sides

4. Font size 12

5. Formal font style (Arial, Century Gothic, Times New Roman,

Bookman OLD style)

6. Black font

7. Conspicuous section headings (font style for section headings

should be bigger than the rest)

8. Maximum of two pages.

Article 10:

The arrangement or sequencing of the sections will depend on

the type of resume that you are making. Make sure that each section is

separated from each other and that the readers of the resume will not

have a hard time distinguishing the different parts. You can capitalize

all the word in your heading, you may bold and underline the headings,

or you may use differently colored font. For the last make sure your

resume is not multicolored. There must only be one color, preferably

blue, other than black. The content in your headings should contain the

necessary information your employer or interviewer will need. In work

history, for instances, you include the name of the company, dates of

employment, position title, and very brief description of designated

responsibilities.

Article 11:

There are two types of skills you may put in your resume. They

are the soft skills and hard skills. Soft skills are general skills that apply

to every job. They are also skills where rules changes from company or

culture to another. Communication skills are an example. Worker A may

be good at communicating with his colleagues about certain topics or

areas about his work, but he cannot talk as much when talking with

professionals from other fields. On the first instance, Worker A is an

effective communicator. One the second hand, he is ineffective. Hard

skills are more job-specific. Here, the rules stay the same wherever you

may go. Marketing, Microsoft access, content strategy, quick books, e-

mail correspondence, welding, and others are examples of hard skills.

For example, Worker A is an excellent welder in ABC company, if he

transfers to another company, his skills will still be considered topnotch.

Article 12:

You may have had several trainings and seminars already, but

you need not put all in your resume. Put only those seminars that are

relevant to the position you are applying for. Include up to three

references for the employers to contact fir verification. Their respective

positions and organizations are included. You may add or may not

include the contact details of said references, that depends on whether

the person will allow you to display such details in your resume. You put

a note “Contact details to be provided upon request” but this has a

danger of putting the employers and interviewers at an inconvenience.

Article 13:

Is an objective necessary in your resume? If you ask your friends

and people who have applied for work, they may say yes. This may

largely be due to the fact that they have included an objective in your

resumes. But do they have a positive effect on the marketability of your

resumes? The general answer is NO, The reason is that the employers

do not really care about what you want to be or to have in as much as

they care about what you can do and what you can give to the company.

When they look at your resume, they look for your qualifications and

experiences, In fact, putting an objective might even a turn-off since it

might be seen as a filler, or as a means to simple cover your lack of

good credentials.

Article 14:

A resume can vary a length. If you have multifarious experience

at a previous work, have earned several degrees or have taken more

than a college degree, then your resume may be longer than two pages.

But if you have just graduated from college and have no experience yet,

then your resume can be just a page of two. A one-page resume is

better than padding your qualifications- meaning putting a lot of

information that are not true and are only meant to impress the

prospective employer.

Article 15

The usual question in preparing a resume is on how to arrange

the information to be included. Some people prefer to begin with their

educational background or information. Some people prefer to show

their educational qualifications after their work experience. Of course, if

you are just a fresh graduate, you would not have anything to write in

the work experience, expect for some on-the-job trainings or part time

jobs you had. Other begin with their objective, their technical skills, or

the best information that would catch the attention of the employer or

the interviewer. One thing to keep in mind is to enumerate the more

important information that will best benefit you and will please the

employer. A guiding principle of writing a resume is that there is no hard

and fast rules.

Reference

Majul, Mary Ann (2015) Eng-counters , : Saint Bernadette Publishing

House.

Barret, Ph.D (2012) Reading and Writing Skills , : First Asia

Venture Capital

Dr. Janet Pascual, Janet C. Pascual, Clarence Ella D. Alipio, Rosemarie

F. Domino, Cenon Edsel G. Gaytos. (2016) Purposive

Communication , : City Books Publishing Corp., c2016..

Maria Edna R. Iñigo (2016) Reading and Writing Skills , : Mutya

Publishing corp..

Craig M, Ross J. Young (2016) Career Planning, : Bates Publishing

corp.