Employment & Career Services Committee

Resumes
and
Cover Letters

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 Employment & Career Services Committee

Seminar Overview
• Resume basics • Cover letters
• Resume strategy • References
• Hardcopy resume • Last comments
guidelines & structure • Source materials
• Electronic resumes

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 Employment & Career Services Committee

Resume Basics
• The main purpose is to get you an interview
• The first look at a resume averages 20 seconds
• A resume should not exceed two pages in length
• Spelling must be absolutely correct.
• Things not to include on your resume
– Personal data of any kind
– The words “References available on request”

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– The words “Willing to relocate”
 Employment & Career Services Committee

Resume Strategy

• Tailor the resume to fit each employer

• The chronological format
• The functional format
• Other formats

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Hardcopy Guidelines

• Black ink on white paper

• Standard fonts
• Font size should range from 10 to 14 points
• Minimum use of italics, underlining, etc.
• Use white space to enhance readability
• Sentence fragments are acceptable
• ________________
Use numerals, rather than spelling number
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Chronological Resume

• Objective
• Qualifications or career summary
• Education
• Work experience

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Chronological Resume

OBJECTIVE

A position designing CPU circuits, where

experience with superscalar architectures
will enhance the final value of the product

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 Employment & Career Services Committee

Chronological Resume

• Objective
• Qualifications or career summary
• Education
• Work experience

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Chronological Resume

QUALIFICATIONS

Electrical engineer with 12 years of

printed circuit board (PCB) layout
experience. Has been successful as an
individual contributor and as the manager
of a 10 person PCB layout group.
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Chronological Resume

• Objective
• Qualifications or career summary
• Education
• Work experience

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Chronological Resume

EDUCATION

B.S. Electrical Engineering

University of California
San Diego, CA

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Chronological Resume

• Objective
• Qualifications or career summary
• Education
• Work experience

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Chronological Resume

• Work Experience
– This is the main part of a chronological resume
– List each item in reverse chronological order
– Different job at the same company count as
separate items
– Keep it short

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Chronological Resume
Example – One Short Item
1995 – 1997 Varian Associations, Palo Alto, CA-
Senior Engineer
Designed microwave tubes using computer codes.
Wrote codes to improve the tube design process.
Swept up after everyone else left the building.
– Assisted design of framistat, now a major product.
– Wrote design code decreasing design time by 90%

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Functional Resume

• The emphasis shifts to skills, and away

from specific jobs
• Shrink the work experience section to just
the headers
• Put all duties and accomplishments into
skill categories

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ASCII & HTML Resume

• Space is not as tight

• Use only alphanumeric characters, spaces
and the Enter key.
• Use lots of keywords and buzzwords

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Cover Letters

• No more than one page in length

• First paragraph
• Body
• Final paragraph

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References

• Collected on the job

• Collected from your network
• Perishable!
• Always notify your reference before you
use them

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Last Comments

• Focus, rather than shotgun

• Stay in control of your job search

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 Employment & Career Services Committee

Sources

• “To Boldly Go: A Practical Career Guide

for Scientists” American Geophysical
Union. ISBN #0-87590-889-6

• “Engineer’s Guide to Lifelong

Employability” IEEE Press. ISBN# 0-
87942-314-5
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