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Resume 101: Your Employment History Section

Your employment history is simply a compilation of jobs that you have held with a brief explanation of duties. This is not the place to go into great detail, which is a common mistake. All that does is make your resume a chore to read. Remember that hiring authorities have a ton of resumes to get through. Make yours a stand out because it’s complete and concise, not because it’s a diary of everything you’ve ever done.

Remember, each employment history should contain no more than:
1. Your title in the job
2. The name and location of the company
3. A brief description of what you did
4. The years of employment

Examples:
Press Operator, ABC Printing Company, Kansas City, MO
Responsible for running high-speed color offset printing equipment. (2002 – Present)

Gaffer, Thunder Video Studios, Oakland, CA
Responsible for studio lighting and equipment for film and video productions. (2011 – 2015)

Project Manager, Acme Chemical Co., Beaumont, TX
Responsible for managing construction and startup of several major facilities brought on line at this chemical plant between 2002 and 2014

Note:
If you have held a number of different jobs for one employer, it is permissible to “group” similar positions. In this case, use the title of the last job you held as the title of the position.

Example:
Lab Technician, ABC Research Co., Boston, MA
Held a variety of positions with increasing responsibilities in the areas of research, production, and product development. (1998 – Present)

If you have questions about your resume, or about your career in general, be sure to Ask The Counselor!

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Resume 101: Writing Your Employment History

This is the third piece in our “Resume 101” series. Check out the post on writing your accomplishment stories along with the post on how to perfect your introductory objective statement so your resume gets noticed.

Your employment history is simply a list of jobs you have held combined with a brief explanation of the duties you performed.

Your employment history should contain:

  1. Your title in the job
  2. The name and location of the company
  3. A brief description of what you did
  4. The years of employment

Examples:
Press Operator, ABC Printing Company, Kansas City, MO
Responsible for running high-speed color offset printing equipment. (2007 – Present)

Gaffer, Thunder Video Studios, Oakland, CA
Responsible for selecting and setting up all studio lighting and equipment for film and video productions. (2011 – 2015)

Project Manager, Acme Chemical Co., Beaumont, TX
Responsible for managing construction and startup of several major facilities brought on line at this chemical plant. Analyzed tasks and directed personnel. (2001 and 2016)

Remember – If you have held a number of different jobs for one employer, it is permissible to group similar positions. In this case, use the title of the last job you held as the title of the position.

Example:
Lab Technician, ABC Research Co., Boston, MA
Held a variety of positions with increasing responsibilities in the areas of research, production, and product development. (1998 – Present)

Remember – Keep your summary of job duties very brief. These are only highlights of your employment history, not complete job descriptions.

If you have questions about your resume, or about your career in general, be sure to Ask The Counselor!

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Resume 101: Writing Your Objective Statement

Like our first Resume 101, we’ll cover a section of your resume in this post.

The objective statement of your resume is at the top, just under your contact information, so it’s the first thing most people will read. It consists of three elements:

  1. A career area or “headline”
  2. Your three major strengths
  3. A statement of what you can do for an employer

One. The career area looks something like one of these:

  • Project management
  • Special event coordination
  • Process accounting supervision
  • Plant maintenance
  • Systems planning

Two. Your three major strengths can be things like:

  • Communications
  • Efficiency
  • Empathy
  • Problem solving

Three. Write what you can do for an employer, such as:

  • Save time
  • Create new products
  • Motivate others
  • Maintain production levels
  • Expand sales
  • Develop new customers

Your objective statement allows you make it clear that you will contribute positively to the bottom line.

Here are a few examples of complete objective statements:

Contribute to a printing company’s increased profitability through effective use of human resources.

Contribute to a more rapid and profitable turnaround of varied manufacturing projects through efficient use of existing staff and equipment.

Contribute to increased recovery of assets and reduced losses through the use of proven accounting techniques and methods.

Putting it all together.

Now, combine all three parts into your career objective which is a single, clear statement of what you intend to do in the workplace. Here are a few examples, but make sure that what you write is yours alone!

Objective: Cost estimator, where proven strengths in the areas of perception, problem solving and planning will significantly contribute to a transportation company’s increased profitability through more accurate pricing.

Objective: Construction project management, where proven strengths in the areas of organization, leadership and communication will contribute to a construction company’s increased profitability through effective coordination of people and materials.

Objective: Financial management, where proven strengths in the areas of system design, project planning and cost recovery will improve asset recovery and reduce losses through the use of proven accounting techniques and methods.

We’re here for you. If you have any questions about your resume or other career related issues, Ask The Counselor!

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Resume 101: How To Make Your Resume Even Better Than It Is

Thinking about brushing up your resume? Read this first.

All accomplishment-based resumes should contain:

  1. Contact information
  2. Objective Statement
  3. Specific skills
  4. Measurable achievements and accomplishments
  5. Employment history
  6. Educational background

Communicating well-defined and transferrable accomplishments is where you have the chance to set yourself apart. Writing down your professional accomplishments becomes the answer to, ‘Tell me a few good things you’ve done that would make me want to hire you.’

Each of your professional accomplishments should consist of four parts:

  1. A description of the event
  2. What made it important
  3. What you did to make it happen
  4. The measurable results

Examples:
Created a volunteer group to organize a viable thrift store operation. Scheduled a team of volunteers to better organize donation intake, sorting, pricing, and staging of merchandise for resale. This initiative ensured consistent workflow among 15 trained volunteers and contributed $6,000.00 quarterly to support a variety of beneficial community projects.

Recommended process and updated procedures for quarterly review of a document control database. Discovered omissions and corrected serious duplication errors in original database, thru improving the accuracy and efficiency of the database. As a result, the company improved its customer service reporting capability by 100%.

Remember:
Avoid vague or windy statements such as “resulted in a large savings of time and money,” or “led to increased sales.” If you can claim that sales increased, you must estimate the amount of the increase and make sure it is reasonably accurate and could bear investigation. Sometimes there is simply no way to put a figure on your results. But you can still demonstrate the value of your work to the employer:

Example:
Served as the Treasurer for the local school’s Parent-Teacher Advisory Board. Established a formal accounting system for expenditure records and created a new process for tracking petty cash and receipts. This effort improved the integrity and efficiency of the bookkeeping function and led to 100% accuracy in reconciliation of funds.

Be sure to include as many specific action verbs, such as the ones listed below, in your statements. This will make your writing more descriptive and efficient.

Action verbs:

achieved                       analyzed                      built
conducted                     created                       designated
established                   finalized                     increased
motivated                     negotiated                 obtained
resolved                        tested                         trained
wrote

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Founded in 1976, Career Management International, Inc. is a certified Woman Owned Small Business. CMI is a leader in the fields of outplacement, career development, and special purpose training. CMI is headquartered in Houston, with offices throughout the United States and affiliates worldwide.

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