Mid-South Fair 4-H Career Pursuit Resume Format

Even when you can present yourself in person, you will often need a resume as well. Employers will look to your resume for information on your educational background, work history, interests and community and volunteer activities. The appearance and clarity of your resume will give the reader confidence in your abilities to be professional and communicate well.

Your name and address with phone number is displayed prominently on the top of the first page and is run as a header on any consecutive pages.

Your job objective is listed next with a brief description of the type of position you are seeking. For instance, "I am seeking a summer position that will allow me to gain skills in working with patients. This will help prepare me for my career in nursing."

Your educational background should be listed with your school and years attended. You may add a mention here of your standing, such as, "I graduated with honors in the top 10% of my class."

Your skills will be listed next in bullet format. For example:

*	proficiency in PageMaker and Microsoft Word
*	type 50 wpm
*	writing advertising copy

Your work history will be next. List each previous employer and your position there. Because your experience will be limited, include volunteer work here as well. Later in your career you won't include that information in this section. Under the heading of responsibilities, list each task you performed at that job. You will include the obvious such as:

*	handled processing of customer orders
*	answered customer complaints

It is equally important to add the skills you used which weren't listed in your job description, such as:

*	facilitated conflict management among co-workers
*	coordinated week end staff softball games

Your honors, awards, citations, etc. will be listed next. Any leadership roles you have held or committees you have chaired will be included here as well.

Your strengths should be listed next. These are one or two word bullets such as:

*	organized
*	focused
*	fast learner

Your interests and activities will be listed next. If you like to cook, play soccer, read, act, ski, work on computers, compose music, play an instrument, write poetry, etc. note it here. Employers can learn a lot about a person from their interests.

Finally, list your references. Include at least three names and their positions with addresses and telephone numbers.

All your text must be concise. If you appear organized, professional (there are no typos or grammatical errors), and have a unique and interesting format for your resume, the reader will have good reason to believe you are organized, professional, unique and interesting as well. If that is the case, your resume will have served its purpose.