Resume

These categories are suggested areas. If you do not have information that can fit in a category, skip it!

• Identifying Data: Include your name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address.
• Professional Summary: A summary is a brief pitch about yourself that introduces the reader to you, your values and skills as they relate to the position. If you are applying to a variety of industries and your background supports several career options, use adjectives supporting the job function you wish to obtain. To maximize your options, you may need two or more resumes, EACH with a different objective to effectively "market" yourself to prospective employers. If uncertain about a career direction, just eliminate the objective.
• Education: List the colleges or universities that you have attended. Include the degrees received or anticipated with a date. If you did not receive a degree, you may wish to list the dates of attendance. Your most recent educational institution should appear first. Include any certification that you have received. If you have been awarded academic honors, you may include the information in this area of your resume. If you have a significant number of honors, you may wish to locate it in a separate category on your resume. If your grade point average is 3.0 or above, you may wish to include it.
• Work Experience: Include a brief summary of your previous employment listed in reverse chronological order. Include the title of your position, name, and location of the employer, time frame of employment and a brief description of your accomplishments. Begin sentences with action words that describe what you did, i.e., "Posted and audited bills of original entry". If you were involved in an internship, state the dates, type of internship, organization, geographical location, and position accomplishments.
• Honors: Include honors awarded for sports, leadership, and service. If you received scholastic honors, you may wish to include this information here or in the Education category.
• Extracurricular, Civic and Community Volunteer Work: Include activities in which you have participated, especially positions of leadership within the activities or organizations. Volunteer work or community service may also be listed.
• Professional Affiliations: Include memberships that you hold in organizations related to your career field; e.g., National Education Association, American Management Association.
• Special Skills and/or Abilities: Include fluency in a foreign language, computer knowledge, and experience (if this is your major area, put it under Computer Skills), skills in operating office machinery if supporting job qualifications, certification or license to operate special equipment in this section. If you have written and published articles or papers, bibliographic information should be included.

If you're new to resume writing, we recommend using:

• Generalized Resume

Letters of Recommendation

While many employers no longer request letters of recommendation, they remain a staple in industries such as education. The Career Planning and Networking Center encourages students who need letters of recommendation to use the dossier service available through interfolio.com. lnterfolio is the premier on-line dossier management service and can store any materials you may need for your applications, including confidential letters of recommendation.

Creating an Interfolio account will allow you to receive the many benefits of their services such as:

• Storing an unlimited amount of materials. As an Interfolio user, you can manage and store unlimited amounts of both confidential and non-confidential material including transcripts, letters of recommendation, writing samples and test scores. If some of these materials are stored on SUNY Oneonta Career Planning and Networking Center’s Dragon Link system, they can be uploaded into your account.
• Managing confidential letters of recommendation. You can request confidential letters through your Interfolio account. This gives your writers the ability to electronically upload or mail their letters directly to Interfolio. Writers only have to upload one letter that can be sent to multiple destinations. Although you will not have direct access to the letters, you have complete control over when and where they are sent.
• Using easy application processes. As an Interfolio user, you have complete control over your applications! Once a file is in your account, you can send it electronically or via hard copy.
• Have a service that is safe, secure and reliable. The privacy and security of your information is Interfolio’s highest priority. Robust technological safeguards, including multiple levels of encryption, keep your stored documents protected, secure, and private. A rigorous quality control process ensures the accuracy of all documents, and mailings, and digital backups are stored at a secure, off-site location to further protect your important documents.

To create your Interfolio Account, please visit Interfolio.com.

References

Be prepared to provide employers with a list of references before you submit your application. To accomplish this task:

• Request permission to list the name of each person whom you wish to serve as a reference; ask him or her if they are willing to serve as a positive reference for you. After receiving confirmation that they are willing to serve as a good reference, then:
• Create a separate document that matches the heading on your resume, including your name, address and telephone number. List the name of each reference person; their official title, such as "Office Manager"; the name of the company, street address, city, state, zip code, telephone number, and email address.
• Submit your list of references only when asked to do so by the prospective employer. Discretion on your part will be appreciated by your references. The individuals who are serving as references are busy people and they want to help you, so please be fair to them by not giving out their contact information unless asked to do so.