Taking Your Resume to the Next Level

Want to take your resume to the next level? We will show you how!

Having a great resume is a very valuable resource to help you promote yourself for job opportunities, internships, college and program admissions and scholarships. No matter what your stage of life, having an excellent resume will be beneficial to you in many ways.

When you are just starting out, you may not have the most robust experience for your resume. But I know what you do have….you have potential. At his point, it’s more important to “emphasize your potential” rather than past successes in the hiring process. Before we start, let’s take a look at a little psychology behind what people are perceiving when they are looking at your resume. Remember when you were a kid and you couldn’t wait to find the surprise at the bottom of the cereal box? It was always more fun to eat the cereal, knowing there was a surprise waiting for you. What if we apply that same principle to your resume? The recruiter reading your resume is likely reading at least a dozen more. When they first start reading, it is to weed out the ones they don’t have an interest in. Making it past this first stage is critical. The next step is finding the “good stuff” on the resume that makes the candidate stand out from others. Let’s use our “cereal principle” to fill your resume with hidden surprises that will “Wow” the reader again and again.

At Imagine, we help people find their best future. The process of building a resume, actually starts long before you put pen to paper or fingers to the keyboard. Being intentional with your time and the activities, community service and experiences you participate in are the building blocks of a great resume. If you haven’t done all that you want to add to your resume, it’s ok, it is a lifetime work in progress. My advice is to start where you are today.

What should you include on your resume?

1. Name and Contact Information

2. Education

3. Work Experience

4. Personal Profile or Professional Goals

5. Community Service

6. Skills and Abilities

7. Awards and Recognition

Here are some examples of a simple resume to get you started!

Resume Examples

You might be thinking ….these look great! How do I do that? These are great questions. There are several ways to begin building a resume. Google Docs is a great starting point if you are a google user.

Google Docs has several resume “templates” for you to choose from.

Resume Template

Once you find the template you like, you can begin building your resume, replacing information on the template with your own personal information.

While having a resume like the examples above is a great start, we have created a genius idea to help you take your resume to the next level. ( Remember the cereal principle? ) We like to call it the “living resume.” Sounds cool, huh? It is! It’s a really neat idea that most people either haven’t thought of or haven’t taken the time to do. Therefore, if you build this type of resume, you will most definitely stand apart from your competition. ( this is one of the main goals of a resume ! )

Here is how to build a “Living Resume”

1. Start by building on online portfolio. While this may sound overwhelming, it’s not hard, just a little time consuming. We walk you through each step of the process of building an online portfolio here. Though time consuming, having an online portfolio will benefit you in so many ways and for many opportunities you will seek in your future. It will grow with you and be a walking business card to help you network with others in many areas of life.

2. Once you have your online portfolio up and running, you are ready to link your resume to pages on your online portfolio. For example, you can provide a link in the community service part of your resume that links back to a page on your online portfolio that will allow others to actually see your community service, rather than just reading about it. The same will go for work experience, hobbies etc….. Let’s take a look at an example: Be sure to click on the links to see where they take you! We love this …. really cool stuff!

“Living Resume” Example

Work Experience:

Non- Profit Intern – Assisting department head in carrying out digital marketing campaigns

Works closely with marketing head for digital promotions and other materials

Photographer:

Photographing food at local restaurant, Jack Allens, for marketing purposes

Academic History:

Baylor university

3.8 GPA

Member of Dietician Society

President, Pre Health Organization

Volunteering and Community Service:

Ronald McDonald House

Local Animal Shelter

While the above is a very simplified version of a “living resume’ it will give you an idea of all the things you can do with your resume to make it really “pop” and stand apart from others. Filling your resume with live links that link back to your online portfolio is a brilliant move in our opinion. Does it take some work? Yes, but then again, Rome wasn’t built in a day. When you consider that you’ll need a resume for the rest of your life, taking the time to do it correctly and in a way that differentiates you from others will give you an excellent return on your investment.

Sherri Graf

Imagine Scholarships