—By Rana Shami
On Wednesday, September 30th at 3 p.m. PCCC’s Career & Professional Readiness held a workshop on Resume/CV building for students. The workshop was attended by approximately 15 students who participated in games to better their skills in Resume/CVs.
At the beginning of the workshop Thomas Moore, Coordinator of Career and Professional Readiness, spoke on the needs to have perfect resume before they began the game. There were questions, multiple choice, true and false questions.
According to Mr. Moore, the official name of career services is “The Office of Career and Professional Readiness.” He continued; CVs are not the same as a resume. The resume is used more for job experience—CVs have more information about clubs and organizations. CVs are used for academic purposes.
Mr. Moore stated, “Resume and CVs are the professional legal document that represents you.
We have to be sure to have current information on these documents. It was not true that Resumes and CV’s were only used when you apply for a job. We could use them for a variety of different things like scholarships and college acceptance. The best time to begin thinking about creating a resume /CVs are now, and they were more than welcome to help the students with it.”
He stated references were the only exception that should not be on the resume/CVs. We put our references in a separate reference list until the company chooses to hire the person. The resume doesn’t have to always fit one page; it depends on your experience.
According to Mr. Moore, “6-10 seconds is the time a talent evaluator reviews your resume before they make a decision on the person candidacy. It is called a first-pass review.” He asserted, “All Resume/CVs should include memberships you belong to, work experience and awards or extracurricular achievements except your high school education. You need to customize your resume for each job you are applying for because every time you will need to add experiences that you recently had. A resume is a living document you will add more information on or off. You will need to update it only.”
Mr. Moore said, “A cover letter is a letter that accompanies a resume and explains why you are interested in the job; it is like a narrative of your resume. You will not always need a cover letter when applying because some positions do not require a cover letter— it depends on the employer.”
A student asked what the purpose of a career objective on your resume meant. Mr. Moore answered, “The purpose of a career objective on your resume is to introduce you to the talent evaluator and the goal you are trying to obtain.” “Also, you need to have your name, email, address, and your phone number in the contact information section of your resume/CVs. In addition, in your education section, you need your institution name, town /state, major, graduation date,” Mr. Moore said.
Another student asked what a soft skill was and if it’s important for companies. Mr. Moore answered, “The ability to perform an action is what is called a skill. Soft skills are the skills that characterize a person’s relationships with other people. For instance, communication, public speaking, and interpersonal. Companies are not only interested in your hard skills because some companies choose people with soft skills, so they can train their employees for the hard skills to what they need.”
At the end of the event, Mr. Moore said, “It’s important to be descriptive and specific when describing the duties, tasks, and responsibilities you performed. Is not a waste of time to add job or work-related experiences from another country to your resume. It’s really important to have all your experience in your resume.”
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