Resumes That Please Computers

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 458.

Part 3

Professional associations

Include any professional groups you've joined as a full or student member. Cite your position (treasurer, chapter president), the organization's name and acronym.

Don't include personal information, such as your age, gender, ethnic background, religion or political affiliation. Although it was once common to include these details at the end of a resume, they don't relate to a job's requirements and could bias an employer against you.

Writing a resume can be a struggle, but don't shrink from the challenge. In the current expanding economy, a good resume can give you a powerful advantage in helping to land a great job.

v Comprehension check

o Answer the following questions using information from the article to support your ideas. Remember to use the article vocabulary to the maximum:

1. How do you create your “experience” section? What information do you list?

2. Why should you use action verbs when describing your experience?

3. What do you write in a “professional associations” section?

o Explain what is meant by:

Laundry lists

Writing a resume can be a struggle

v Active vocabulary

o Study the following vocabulary items and collocations:

To look unique

To be computer-friendly

An optical image of the document

To be notoriously fickle

To file an opening

To read between the lines

o Read the text. Do the comprehension check below:

You worked hard on your resume, taking hours to find the perfect words to describe your accomplishments and academic honours. Then, to make sure your document looked unique, you printed it in italic type on a grey paper. Now you are wondering why employers aren't responding.

It may be because your resume isn't computer-friendly. More companies are using computers to manage the stacks of documents that arrive daily from the candidates. Electronic scanners enter resumes into computer databases by making an optical image of each document and digitalizing it into information computers understand.

But scanners are notoriously fickle. They can't “read” resumes that feature ornate or script typefaces, small font sizes, italicized words and shading. Printed on grey bond in italic type, your resume won't scan well. This means any information stored about you in computer databases is probably inaccurate or incomplete.