Task 3. Write your own resume taking into account pieces of advice given below

GET ON THE RIGHT TRACK

Resume Writing from the very beginning can be enormously tiring and even worse, very wrong! Many people are experiencing this and it can happen to you as well. How?

You will not know what you are doing! You will definitely persuade yourself you are making the right thing, but at the same time you will be wasting a lot of energy and personal time! Why? Because, most people are making a common mistake when they try to improvise in resume writing. Up to 92% of the people who will “take things into their own hands” will never get the interview! We believe you don’t want to be in this group.

We have selected 25 Tips and Tricks to write a Winning Resume! The word “winning” explains that your resume will be spotted!!! And when it is spotted, you achieve your half way through towards a scheduled appointment with the hiring manager. And this is the most important outcome of your resume!

TIPS TO CREATE A WINNING RESUME

TIP 1: Leave good first impression! This is the most important! Most hiring managers have in average less than 30 seconds to see who you are, what is your objective and first couple of achievements. In general all of them are more concerned about career achievements than education. In order to leave good first impression write the most interesting and persuasive facts about you right at the beginning in order of relevance.

TIP 2: Make your opening statement strong and effective. Write a clear and powerful opening statement summarising your skills and pointing out your strengths. This summary will carry a focused message throughout the resume helping you to stay on the right track.

TIP 3: Point out your skills. To write a list of your capabilities first revise the job position that you are applying for. When you seize all required tasks, make a list of specific abilities and skills you have or that are at least easy for you to accomplish. Writing an excellent statement of this kind is gathering experience and skills into phrases that demonstrate your qualifications for the new job position.

TIP 4: Concentrate on bringing benefit to the employer. Write how you have used your abilities and your skills making positive results and achieving success highlighting accomplishments, which will arouse the interest of employers who read your resume. Keep these statements concise, result-oriented and measurable.

TIP 5: Emphasise your experience using numerology. Use numbers to qualify your experience. Include percentages, values and other terms to evaluate success. Numbers are very powerful. They will give precise measurement of your achievements. Numbers will represent your experience in the best possible light.

TIP 6: Make your recent information as priority. Your working experience sections should be generally focused on the last 10 to 15 years. Apart from writing them in chronological order, try to focus on placing them according to the experience you gained and summarise older with less experience. Use experience that is relevant to the position you are seeking.

TIP 7: Watch over your strengths. Apart of having two different types of skills, there are two different groups of strengths such as professional and private. When you are writing about your strengths and experience, remember: do not underemphasise them. Always describe yourself in relevant and the best possible light.

TIP 8: Review your information. Do not waste a lot of space to present your qualifications. You should always focus on writing your resume, being the one who is concise, succinct and clear.

TIP 9: Always use key words. Key words are very important to emphasise your punch lines. Describe your skills and experience, using words such as analyzed, approved, built, completed, composed, conceived, defined, delivered, demonstrated, established, estimated, evaluated, instituted, launched, managed, performed, planned or tested.

TIP 10: Emphasise sections using key phrases. Describe yourself as “active with ability to manage, increase and develop” and “specialising in…”, “…business background with extensive knowledge”, “highly motivated…”, “results-focused…”, “bring quick resolutions to challenging situations…” etc.

TIP 11: Do not forget jargons from your industry. All the companies are using their specific jargon from that particular industry. Use that jargon to mirror your familiarity with the employer’s business. Try not to overdo it by making your resume hard to read or understand. Do not use acronyms if they are not obvious. Try to spell them out in the brackets.

TIP 12: Emphasise key points highlighting them.When marking the most relevant information on your resume always use bold, italics and underlining to highlight specific key points. Do not overdo it! You may also use quotation marks, capital letters and even asterisks to emphasise important parts in section titles.

TIP 13: Use ordinary headings. General section headings are: Personal Information, Objectives, Summary, Accomplishments, Capabilities, Employment, Education, Skills, Training, Licenses, Honours, Publications, Talent, Affiliations, Personal, Volunteer Work, Other, References.

TIP 14: Combine sections when possible. This is widely accepted tip to make your resume even more powerful and compact. Summarise two similar sections, like “Affiliations and Volunteer Work” or “Education and Training.”

TIP 15: Do not use personal pronouns. Avoid using personal pronouns in your resume such as “me” or “I”. Your resume should always be written in the third person. Use short action-result statements instead of writing long and complicated essays. Use sentences like: “Managed and coordinated between production departments which resulted in 37% increase in sales.”

TIP 16: Avoid information about salary. Information about past or future income sometimes can give impression of being not flexible, cheap or expensive for future company. Better save this information for the interview dealing directly with facts about employer’s intentions and budget.

TIP 17: Omit debatable subjects. Do not use personal information such as age, marital status, race, religion or political party. Try not to dispose your personal views. On the other hand, it is illegal for the employer to judge such issues. If it’s not required do not use humour in your resume.

TIP 18: Personal qualities. Try to include personal qualities in your resume. Rather than just listing qualities, demonstrate your individuality using examples from your personal experience. In reality, instead of “Responsible”, “Self-motivated” or “Highly-organised” use the following sentence “As an Executive Director organised different production departments, never missed an important deadline and consecutively improved company’s budget.”

TIP 19: Be personal and professional. Try to build the resume that mirrors your positive attitude and your best personal characteristics. A level of professionalism should always be present as well.

TIP 20: Present yourself as the best possible candidate. To achieve this try to decrease the importance of any possible gaps in your working history. If this is the case you should focus more on your skills and accomplishments rather than progression of your experience. This format of resume is usually called Functional Resume.

TIP 21: Always be honest. Do not exaggerate! If you are lying about your abilities, this may come back to haunt you. Do not forget that most of employers usually check serious candidates. Try to check each and every detail before including it in your resume.

TIP 22: Be methodical, rational and succinct. Employers usually go through your resume to feel whether you are methodical, rational and succinct. Looking at your experience, make sure your resume is unprejudiced, tidy, stands out visually and runs fluently.

TIP 23: Be clear in your vocabulary. Do not use extraordinary, exorbitant or exquisite vocabulary. Try not to impress employers with the complexity of your vocabulary. Instead use words and sentences everyone can understand.

TIP 24: Be optimistic showing incentive. Do not use pessimistic comments or negative feelings in your resume. Try to avoid previous unconstructive employment experiences. Present yourself in a positive, can-do attitude.

TIP 25: Avoid grammar errors and low quality paper. Before you send your resume make sure some of your family, friends or colleagues proofread it. The best proofreaders are people who are attentive to details. Make sure to avoid all typing mistakes, because even the smallest error could make your resume not acceptable. When you are printing your resume, always use best quality paper. Do not use glossy paper! Use only mat paper. Keep your printed version away from damages.

Task 4. Read the text “A Psychological Contract” and translate it.

Task 5. Find answers to the following questions in the text and write them down:

1. What does a psychological contract represent?

2. What was the main reason for emerging of trade unions?

3. Why do employers consider it better for them to respect equal opportunities and employment rights?

4. What kinds of contracts does Feldhiem talk about?

5. What does the psychological contract determine?

6. What can a negative psychological contract result into:

a) for employers;

b) for employees?