Resume Checklist

To help you in your job search, TRS has compiled a resume checklist with important points that should be included on every resume.

1.  Contact Information
   • Is your name, address, and contact information clear and easy to locate?
   • Are the phone numbers home and cell?
   • Do the phone numbers listed have voice mail on them, so that if you are unavailable someone can leave a message?   
   • Are the advanced degrees and/ or industry certifications shown behind name? (i.e. MBA)
   • Is the e-mail address suitable to receive employment related emails? If not, get Hotmail or Yahoo. (Most companies monitor email, so it is probably best to list your personal email address)
2.  Summary
   • Is there a headline which summarizes the type of position desired? (i.e. Software Developer) This should be short and direct
   • Is specific industry experience included? ( i.e. healthcare, manufacturing, semiconductor)
3. Areas of Expertise/ Strengths/ Competencies
   • Are specific skills mentioned(i.e. Project management, software development)
   • Are specific areas of knowledge mentioned? (i.e. SAP, Sarbanes-Oxley)
4. Employer Information
   • Are dates and titles verifiable with past employers?
   • Is the city and state the employer is based (or where you worked) noted with each position?
     It is important to note that some companies use resumes to complete hiring background checks. Please makes sure dates and titles are accurate.
5.  Professional History
   • Are any gaps in dates of employment or time out of the work force accounted for?
     If you are working two positions concurrently (i.e. part time software consulting in additions to another position), it is important to clarify the reason for the overlap in dates.
   • Is career progression at specific companies clear- with dates, time, increased levels of responsibilities, and promotions listed?
   • Is there an accurate description of job duties for each position? (i.e. # of direct reports) For technical resumes when describing projects are specific languages/platforms mentioned? (i.e. developed banking in application in C++/UNIX)
6. Accomplishments/ Achievements
   • Are these included for each position?
     Do they include information such as:
   • Number of people involved, length of time to complete project
   • What you have brought to the company
7. Awards
   1. Do you have any awards listed?
   2. What did you do to earn awards?
   3. Who gave them? (i.e. peers, customer, managers, etc.)
8. Technical / Computer Skills
   1. What skills are listed?
   2. What are the skill levels ( i.e. 3 years of C#, 2 years of .net)
   For technical resumes- # of years with each language/platform is important
9. Education
   • What degrees were completed? Where? Dates?
   • What coursework (without completed degree) was completed?
   • What was your major?
   • GPA (if recent graduate and above 3.5)
   • Any academic awards
10. Professional Training/ Certifications
    • Any certifications from professional associations?
    • Any in-house or off site training given by employers?
11. Professional Affiliations
    • Membership in organizations?
    • Special duties, positions within the organization? (i.e. Chair of Recruiting Committee)
12. Additional Information (anything else pertinent)
    • Multilingual abilities (i.e. fluent in Spanish)
    • Affiliations and volunteer activities within the community
    • Unusual personal activities (i.e. ran marathon)

SUMMARY: What are the 3 main reasons why someone should hire you? (You should know this walking into an interview.)

1. __________________________________________________________________
2. __________________________________________________________________
3. __________________________________________________________________

Additional Tips:

1. It is important that your resume have enough white space (don’t let the words be too crowded).
2. Your resume should be easy to visually scan. Most hiring authorities glance at a resume in less than one minute to determine their level of interest. Use bullets instead of long paragraphs.
3. Keep the format of your resume SIMPLE when transmitting the resume electronically. Most recruiting firms and companies use scanning technology to save your resume to their files. If you are using too many fonts or graphics, the computer will not transfer them properly and your resume will go to hiring authorities formatted incorrectly. You can take the resume that is formatted with fonts and graphics in a hard copy format to your actual interview.