Employment Project Step 2: Resume Rough Draft

1. You have a leadership experiences section which shows that you have the potential to guide others. Does the job posting say that you may have the ability to have growth in the company to become a leader or does the Medical Technician position have leadership responsibilities? If the current job posting discusses leadership requirements, than you want to mention something about your leadership abilities in your objective. If the posting does not mention leadership requirements, than you might want to use a different title for that section of information, because if the job has no leadership areas for you, than they might not be influenced by your skills.
2. I would align your leadership experiences with your work experiences. I like the idea of having your main content in the middle of your resume, so moving your leadership skills to the center might be beneficial.
3. Your resume fits comfortably onto a page.
4. I might be mistaken but I believe your resume is in the Times New Roman font. Try using the sans serif and serif like the instructor suggested. Your resume might stand out more.
5. I like the items you have bolded and believe it emphasizes the important titles and information.
6. Your information is laid out well because you have your most important information located at the top.
7. Your job experiences and their duties somewhat support your objective. Maybe you could use the words “detail” and “techniques” from you objective and use them in your job experiences. Also, rather than saying “Provided excellent customer service,” you could replace excellent with “high quality” or another word to emphasize that you did really well in this area.
8. Try using more professional verbs to impress an employer, but don’t over do it.
9. I would think about relisting the tasks under your job at Archer Daniels Midland. I am more impressed with the analytical tests than purchasing items for sellers.
10. You did well with beginning your bullet points with verbs. I would change “Answered phone calls and taking special orders” at Lowe’s to “Answered phone calls and took special orders” or some other verb. “Taking” is in a different verb tense than the other verbs you used.
11. Like mentioned before, maybe try more professional verbs or terms.
12. Quadrant: Fine. Column: Align your leadership experiences with rest of resume. Squint: Fine. Distance: Fine.
13. Make sure to place a period at the end of the sentence “Coordinated practice and ensured integrity of game plan.” I don’t think you need a period at the end of your graduation date. Otherwise, only minor improvements and alterations are needed to your resume. There were areas to your resume that were really well thought out. Good job!

Nicole VanDeLeest

1. What can the writer do to make the resume better tailored to the specific job being applied for?

In your objective statement, the phrase "attention to detail and standardized technique may be used" is odd. "MAY" be used? The word "may" is passive (weak), as if you are saying "maybe it WON'T be used." Also, you should put your best foot forward and indicate that that the "attention to detail and standardized technique" belong to YOU.

2. Is the layout and design pleasing to the eye? Make at least one suggestion for improving it.

No. There is no clear grouping strategy since the bullet points in "Work Experience" are on a different alignment than the bullet points in "Leadership Experience."

3. Does the resume fit comfortably within the page (as opposed to being squished in or stretched out)? What can the writer do to improve it?

No. Due to the strange alignment of the "Work Experience" section, there is too much white space under the words "Work Experience"

4. Is it easily readable (no confusing fonts, clearly marked sections)? What improvements can be made?

No. Font should never be smaller than 11 pt. Also, headings should always be larger than the body text.

5. Does it use typography (including headers and bold and italics) appropriately and effectively?

You might try playing around with italics. Otherwise, your boldfacing strategy is pretty clear.

6. Is the most important information located on the left side of the page and near the top whenever possible? Identify at least one part that could be better placed.

Yes, for the most part this was well done.

7. Does the content of the resume support the objective (if there is one)? Explain.

No. Your resume emphasizes customer service and 'people skills,' but your objective statement makes no mention of this.

8. Is the resume too short? Where can it elaborate? Job skills? Responsibilities? Education?

Your education section is pretty bare. Consider listing relevant courses.

9. Is material sequenced in order of importance and relevance?

For the most part, yes.

10. Do bulleted items begin with action verbs? Are list items ordered in terms of importance?

Your bullets are the weakest part of the resume. I'll go through some errors one by one:

a. "Provided excellent customer service" It is your opinion that your CS was 'excellent,' and your reader will dismiss it as such. Instead, say something specific! What did you DO?

b. "Ran" is not an action verb.

c. In the phrase "Answered phone calls and taking special orders," you have two verbs that are inconsistently structured: "answerED," and "takING." Fix this.

d. "Made" is not an action verb.

e. "wants and needs" is cliche and means almost nothing. What did you DO? Be specific.

f. In the phrase "Coordinated check in and check out to ensure room availability," you have two competing verbs: "coordinated" and "to ensure." Try using only ONE verb. Also, "check-in" and "check-out" should be hyphenated.

g. In the phrase "Maintained truck scales to calculate..." you run into the same competing verb problem as in comment #6 above. Would you say: "I want to jump to leap"? Two verbs in one statement holds back clarity.

h. Is "Leadership conference sponsored by the Student Activities and Organizations area of the Office of the Dean of Students" necessary? Is it impressive to know who sponsored? If not, consider removing this.

i. "Displayed skills in the form of..." is awkward.

j. "Received critiques from others to improve..." is another competing verb error.

k. You should seriously consider removing the first three bullets under the soccer team. You already said you were captain in the description, so there is no need to say it again. The other two items, though you should be very proud of them, are 100% irrelevant to the job. They won't care. The championship item is all right. Personally, I would advise you to remove the Soccer stuff altogether. You should ask yourself if it helps to promote your objective statement, and if it doesn't, then why is it there?

12. Does the resume avoid generalities and focus on specific information and professional terminology?

"Purchased product..." is vague. What exactly did you purchase?

13. Does the resume pass the Quadrant, Column, Squint, and Distance tests (See attached document below for help with these tests)? Explain how the author might make improvements based on your test results.

Quadrant: yes
Column: No. All bullet points should be on the same alignment.
Squint: No. Too much white space under "work experience"
Distance: No, same reason as above.

13. What other observations can you make about the resume?

In your "Education" section, there is a COMMA OVERLOAD. Try to separate your information some other way.

Sometimes in the resume you write "IN" and sometime you write "Indiana." Pick ONE way and go with it.

Your second bullet point is oddly larger than the others under Lowe's.