Your resume is your first impression and often determines whether or not a potential employer is interested in interviewing or employing you. Time spent on creating and maintaining a good resume is time well invested. Our resume guidelines (MS Word format) can provide guidance on how to prepare your resume or how to present your personal profile in a resume.
We hope that the information below is of benefit and the template helps you progress your career.
Layout/Presentation
Presentation and layout is very important and is how potential employers are enticed to you over another individual.
Your resume should be clearly and neatly laid out. Keep it simple, to the point and avoid embellishments. Your resume should roughly contain 5-7 pages depending on your years of experience. If it is larger then you may need to condense the information regarding older positions.
If you require a template to work from please download the sample resume template (MS Word format).
If you are having difficulty in preparing your resume, please consider using a professional service. Alternatively, most word processing packages come with preformatted templates.
Personal Information
Your resume should contain your contact details including full name, address and contact numbers. Any other personal information such as date of birth, marital status, religion and gender are not essential and should only be included if you feel they are important.
Education
A chronological listing of qualifications achieved, beginning with the most recent, should be included in your resume. Title of the qualifications, year of completion, and institute where the qualification was achieved should be clearly identified. You can include a brief summation of coursework covered if it?s relevant. If you are required to or wish to include academic results they should be added as an appendix at the end of your resume.
Hobbies/Interests
Potential employers are often interested in your hobbies or interests as these can help them ascertain your character. Memberships of clubs and societies can be listed too, but these should be distinct from, and listed separate to memberships of professional bodies which are relevant to the job.
Career Overview
This is a brief snap shot of your experience to date. The contents are aimed at providing enough information to entice the reader to continue to the more detailed accounts of your experience covered in the Work History section. This is NOT meant to be the beginnings of a novel, so be concise.
Technical Summary
Your technical summary should provide a detailed list of the Hardware, Software, Languages, Operating Systems, and Databases where you have experience. It should include the year last used, level of proficiency and overall duration. This is best represented in a tabular format. Please include a key/legend of how you determined your level of proficiency.
Work History
Work history should also be listed chronologically, beginning with the most recent position. You should provide dates, company name, position and summarise each job by describing the role, responsibilities and achievements. It is recommended that you indicate whether or not the position was contract or permanent especially if you have had a lot of short-term contracts. Refer to any hardware, software, languages, etc. that were used. Be concise - detailed accounts can come out in the interview.
References
You can decide to include referees or make a statement such as Referees Provided on Request. By including qualified referees you show organisation, as you would have already gained their approval to provide a reference for yourself. Referees usually consist of 2-3 people who you have worked for or with and perhaps a personal referee. A personal referee is usually someone who has known you for some time, who knows your career and can vouch for your character. Referees should not be family members.
Ensure you have permission to include the person as a referee. Do not assume that a previous employer is required to act as a referee. Also ensure you have correct name spellings, titles and contact numbers.
