Well you should be well on your way to having a master resume now. If you missed Part 1 you can catch up here. As you know though, your past positions are not going to make up your entire resume so lets look at what else needs to go on your master.
Education
Here, as the name suggests, you want to write down your educational background (This can still just be jot notes in a notebook for now). Again lets start back a little bit (but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE no earlier than High School….While conducting interviews and reading resumes I have ACTUALLY found someone who put their daycare on their resume….we kinda made fun of her and while her interview was pretty good if we weren’t looking to hire so many staff we probably wouldn’t have even offered her an interview because of how ridiculous that was).
Ok so High School.
Where did you go? Did you graduate with honours or distinction? Did you attend AP or IB classes? Did you obtain skills in a second language (10-20-30 or immersion etc.)? Where you awarded any scholarships from your high school such as the Alexander Rutherford Scholarship? Did you take any options that may be particularly interesting? Make notes of all these things. Lets look at a fake example of Barbie.
Matel Academic High School-2007
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Graduated with honours from a full IB Program
- Fluent in French
- Obtained the Alexander Rutherford Scholarship for grades 10-12
- Obtained the Matel Academic Scholarship for outstanding academic performance
- Directed the school musical “Toy Story”
- Played French Horn in the Provincial honour band
- Chair of the Grad committee
Again Keep in Mind this is your MASTER resume, this is WAY too much information to send out to employers.
Now, do the same thing with your post secondary education. List the interesting classes that you took as well, by title not by number (Psyc 281 means SO many different things)
For example, I have an arts degree. While I took classes in Music, Linguistics, Earth Sciences, Anthropology, Political Science etc. I’ll be honest, I took those classes because I had to, I didn’t care about then and got nothing out of them. Here’s a quick example of my master resume here.
Grant MacEwan University-2013-Bachelor of Arts-Psychology
- Noteable Classes: Forensic Psychology, Advanced Social Psychology(A+), Advanced Research Methods (A+), Advanced Statistics, Criminology, Criminal Justice, Clinical Psychology, Positive Psychology, Psychometrics, etc.
- Clinical Psychology Placement at the Grey Nuns University-Conducted (action word!!) research program regarding the Dialectical Behaviour Therapy Program there for patients with Borderline Personality Disorder
- Individual Study: Researched (Action word!) the association between inequality and response
- Research Assistant: Assisted in numerous social psychology studies focusing mainly on gender inequality
(I didn’t get any scholarships, I did get a few bursaries but I don’t know what they were so I’m not writing them down).
Get the drift?
Certification
Have you taken any classes? Write them down. Right down some details (are you seeing how detailed a master resume should be?). So don’t just write I have first aid, say I have First Aid and Level C CPR this means I am trained to do CPR on anyone regardless of age. I took the class in Spring ____so it expires and I need to re-cert spring_____ Do you have any coaching certificates, Applied suicide intervention skills training etc. etc. It can be anything from a certificate in welding to a black belt in karate. Right down your certifications and some details about them (how long was the course even). Feel Free to subdivide this section as well. Do you have a lot of sports related Certification…divide that out into Athletic Recognition for example.
Volunteer Activities/Community Service
Again, write down your experiences and give lots of detail. It gets repetitive but get er done! I promise it will help you on the path to your career. If you don’t have any volunteer experience….well we’ll talk about it another day but I am disappointed to hear that! You want to frame this section the same as your employment. Where did you volunteer, what was your position, what was your role?
You can also create other sections that meet your specific needs such as Professional Associations, Interests and Hobbies etc. This master resume will also form the basic of your curriculum Vitae (CV) if you are applying to grad school so it helps to take the time and do it right. (Keep in mind with your CV you will want to go into more detail about your research and educational background than you would on a regular resume)
Any questions? Its pretty straightforward right? Just get all the information written down in one place. Pay attention to dates and details. It takes time but it is definitely worth it!
I Have To Do What?!? 