If you are a student seeking a first full-time job, the recipient of
your resume will expect your resume to be mostly focused on formal ed-
ucation, school activities, and work experience acquired through stu-
dent types of work, which could include jobs held while at school, in-
ternships, and summer jobs.
On the other hand, if it has been a while since you have been in
school, the recipient of your resume is likely to be more interested in
what you have done since you were in school. If there have been long
periods of time when you haven’t held a job or been otherwise engaged
in paid work, you should be sure to include your volunteer activities,
and present them in a way that demonstrates desired P.E.A.K.S.
As we will see in the next section, you can also divert attention
from gaps in your employment history by using a “functional”format
for the overall plan of your resume.
Consider portfolio documents you would like to present.In addi-
tion to reviewing your master resume for useful material, you would do
well to also review the key documents in your Can-Do Portfolio so that
you can be sure to include in your targeted resume activities associat-
ed with documents you would like to present during an interview.Step 5: Deciding on an Overall Plan for Your Resume
There is no one best way to organize a targeted resume. The major
headings that you decide to use, such as “Professional Experience”and
“Community Service,”and the decision as to whether the overall plan
will be chronological or functional will depend upon a number of fac-
tors, including your objectives, the material you would like to present,
and your personal preferences. Here are some things to consider as you
make these decisions.Name and address information should go first, followed by the
overview. A standard practice is to place name and address informa-
tion right at the top of a resume, followed by some form of overview. You
would be wise to follow this practice.
The reader of your resume needs to know within a couple of sec-
onds the basics of who you are, what you are seeking, and the essence
of why you may be well qualified for the job or position. These are the
things that recipients of resumes typically want to know first, so that
they can decide whether or not it’s worth their time to read the rest.
And if they can’t find this basic information quickly, they very well may
not read the rest.
Consider whether a chronological or functional overall plan works
best for you. The material in most resumes is organized according to a
chronological or functional overall plan, or some combination of the
two. Since P.E.A.K.S. subheadings can be used within either organiza-
tional scheme, you can use either approach and still have a P.E.A.K.S.
resume. But it is important, nevertheless, to consider the relative mer-
its of these two organizational plans for your own situation.
A chronological resumetypically lists jobs and other work experi-
ence you’ve had in reverse chronological order, beginning with the mostChapter 5: Creating Resumes That Work with Your Portfolio 73