About Your Resume
By Sandra J. Day

Frequently Asked Questions about your resume:

1. I don’t have a degree, in fact I have not completed Grade 12. What do I put on my resume?

2. I am worried that my employers will think I am not old enough for their job.

3. I have a criminal record. Should I let an employer know?

4. What do I put on my resume, if I do not have experience?

5. What do I do when every job I have ever held is not what I want to do next?

6. I have just graduated from school, how do I find a job? What should I put on my resume?

7. Not sure of my Objective

1. I don’t have a degree, in fact I have not completed Grade 12. What do I put on my resume?

NO DEGREE OR LESS EDUCATION THAN TYPICALLY REQUIRED

If you have the previous experience and skills to do a job that is often filled by someone with more education, you should take special care in preparing the education and experience sections of your resume.

For those with substantial work experience, you can simply not include a section on education at all. While this does have the advantage of not presenting your lack of formal credentials in an obvious way, a better approach might be to present the education and training that you do have without indicating that you do or do not have a degree.

For example, mention that you attended such and such a college or program but don't mention that you did not complete it. This approach avoids your being screened out unnecessarily and provides you with a chance at an interview that you might not otherwise get.
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2. I am worried that my employers will think I am not old enough for their job.

TOO YOUNG

Young people need to present their youth as an advantage rather than a disadvantage. So consider just what aspects of your youth might be seen as advantages. For example, perhaps you are willing to work for less money, accept less desirable tasks, work longer or less convenient hours, or do other things that a more experienced worker might not. If so, say so.

You do need to realize that many employers prefer to hire workers with experience and demonstrated ability in jobs related to those they have available. Still, young people who present themselves effectively can be considered over those with better credentials.
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3. I have a criminal record. Should I let an employer know?

CRIMINAL RECORD

A resume should never include any negative information about yourself. So if you have ever been "in trouble" with the law, you would certainly not mention this in your resume. Newer laws even limit an employer from including such general questions on an application as "Have you ever been arrested?" and limit formal inquiries to "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?"

Being arrested and being guilty are two different things. Arrests for minor offenses are also not supposed to be considered in a hiring decision. A felony conviction is a different matter. These crimes are more serious and current employment laws do allow an employer to ask for and get this information -- and to use it in making certain hiring decisions. For example, few employers would want to hire an accountant who had been convicted for stealing money from a previous employer.

If you have an arrest or conviction record that an employer has a leg al right to inquire about, my advice is to avoid looking for jobs where your record would be a big negative. The accountant in the above example should consider changing careers. I would advise people in this situation to avoid jobs where they could easily commit the same crime, since few employers would even consider hiring them for that reason. Even if they did get such a job because they concealed their criminal history, they could be fired at any time in the future. Instead, I might suggest they consider selling accounting software, starting their own business, or getting into a career completely unrelated to accounting.

As always, your resume should reflect what you can do rather than what you can't. If you chose your career direction wisely and present a convincing argument that you can do the job well, many employers will, ultimately, overlook previous mistakes. As you prove yourself and gain good work experience, your distant past becomes less important. So a criminal history really isn't an issue for a resume at all. Instead, it is a career planning, job search, and interview issue.
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TOO LITTLE EXPERIENCE

Young people, including recent graduates, often have difficulty in getting the jobs they want since employers will often hire someone with more experience. In this case, you may want to emphasize your adaptive skills that would tend to overcome a lack of experience. Once again, a skills resume would allow you to present yourself in the best light. For example, emphasizing skills such as "hardworking" and "learn new things quickly" may impress an employer enough to consider you over more experienced workers.

You should also consider expressing a willingness to accept difficult or less desirable conditions as one way to break into a field and gain experience. For example, "willing to work weekends and evenings" or "able to travel or relocate" may open up some possibilities that might appeal to an employer.

You should also look for anything that might be acceptable as experience and emphasize it. This might include volunteer work, family responsibilities, education, training, military experience, or anything else that you might present as legitimate activities that support your ability to do the work that you feel you can do.
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JOB HISTORY UNRELATED TO YOUR CURRENT JOB OBJECTIVE

If your previous work experience is in jobs that don't relate to what you want to do next, your best bet is to use a skills resume. The advantage of the skills resume in this situation is that it allows you to emphasize those transferable skills that you have developed and used in other settings.
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RECENT GRADUATE

If you have recently graduated, you probably are competing against those with similar levels of education and more work experience. If you don't have a lot of work experience related to the job you want, you will obviously want to emphasize your recent education or training. This might include specific mention of courses you took and other activities that most directly relate to the job you now seek. New graduates need to look at their schoolwork as the equivalent of work. Indeed, it is work in that it required self-discipline, completion of a variety of tasks, and other activities that are similar to those required in many jobs.

You also may have learned a variety of things that are directly related to doing the job you want and you should present these in a skills resume in the same way you might present work experiences in a chronological resume. You should also play up the fact, if you can, that you are familiar with the latest trends and techniques in your field and can apply these skills right away to the new job. And, since you are experienced in studying and learning new things, you will be better able to quickly learn the new job.

A skills resume will also allow you to more effectively present skills you used in other jobs (such as waiting on tables) that don't seem to directly relate to the job you now want. These jobs were also work experiences and can provide a wealth of adaptive and transferable skills that you can use, with some thought, to support your resumes job objective.
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As I have mentioned on several occasions, including a job objective on your resume is highly desirable but not required. If you really can't settle on a long-term job objective, consider on settling on a short-term one, and use that on your resume. In some cases, you can also do several resumes, each with its own job objective. This can make sense in some situations and will allow you to select information that will support your various options to best effect.
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