The purpose of a resume is to market yourself. It is important to target the resume to the job requirements.
It is recommended to write more than one resume and to send the one most suitable for the job requirements.
To pass the employer’s screening process make sure the resume addresses as many of the job requirements as possible.
The resume should preferably be only 1 page.
Resume Format
A resume has a specific format:
- Personal details
- Education
- Employment experience
- Military service
- Additional skills
Important to know:
- When writing a resume it is important to include information relevant to the position.
Including information that is unrelated to the position may harm the applicant’s chances of obtaining an interview while the employer may overlook information relevant to the position. - To describe previous positions use the gerund form of the verb. It is preferable to write: demonstrating high service awareness, providing service to customers, conducting interviews, training staff, negotiating, etc.
- Document design:
-Use the same font throughout the document (David, Ariel).
-Pay attention to the spacing throughout the document and between positions.
-Start each item on a new line and place a bullet at the beginning of each new item (avoid full paragraphs).
Specifying Personal Details
Personal details will be specified in the first 3 lines –
First name+ family name telephone address – if you want to work at a location far from your home address indicate when you will be available to begin work (Haifa/ Tel Aviv).
Specifying Education
- List education in chronological order beginning with the most recent.
- Indicate from which year to which year.
- Indicate the degree.
- Indicate the name of the institution that awarded the degree.
- If you completed the degree with distinction, indicate this.
- If you did not complete the degree write “studied towards a degree in…..” and list the name of the institution in which you studied.
- Courses are listed below the academic degrees and specified if they are relevant to the position.
Employment Experience
List your experience in chronological order beginning with your current position.
If your relevant experience is not necessarily in chronological order then indicate in the heading “experience relevant to the position” and add a subheading “additional information” where you will list experience that is less relevant to the position.
In the heading specify:
- The years you worked in the company, from which year to which year.
- The name of the company and your position.
Below the heading specify:
- What your position entailed, using bullets.
- Match the details of your responsibilities to the position to which you are applying.
- Emphasize the responsibilities you carried out to show that you are the suitable applicant for the position.
- If you are applying to a position in which your experience exceeds what is needed, and you are in fact overqualified with respect to the job requirements, adapt the resume to the job requirements. You can also decide to remove certain skills.
- Employment stability – employers check to see if there are many transitions between positions within a short period of time, or if there are “holes” in your resume. Employers look for employees with employment stability.
To demonstrate employment stability you should:
- Indicate years and not specific months.
- Indicate if you traveled abroad/ were on maternity leave/a period in which you worked at odd jobs.
Military Service
Indicate the years and the position.
If you did not serve in the army remove this section from the resume.
Additional Skills
Languages – list the languages in which you are proficient.
Computer applications – specify the programs you know so that the recruiter will know that you are proficient in them.
Recommendations- if you have recommendations add the following sentence at the bottom of the page: “References available upon request” (in the resume itself there is no need to add names of recommenders and recommendation letters).