Work Experience on a Resume - How to List It Right
Work Experience on a Resume - How to List It Right
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How to Put Work Experience on a Resume
Basic FormattingA good resume tells a story of who you are, what your background is, and why you’re the perfect candidate for the job at hand.Now, that doesn’t mean you should tell your whole life story, because after all, the ideal resume length is still 1 page.Instead, this is where you sell yourself, brag about your past
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How to Put Work Experience on a Resume
achievements and responsibilities. When listing your previous job roles, you should follow a reverse-chronological order (though, also consider other resume formats).To make sure your resume is easy to follow, we recommend going with the standard work experience format, which looks a bit like this:
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How to Put Work Experience on a Resume
– Job Title and Position– Company Name / Description / Location– Dates Employed– Responsibilities and Achievements
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How to Put Work Experience on a Resume
Job Title / PositionYour job title goes first.When the HR manager scans through your resume, this will most likely be the first section they’ll check.Be prepared and make it easy for them to find this. There is not a lot to say here except that your job title should be accurate to what you did.To make things simple, you
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How to Put Work Experience on a Resume
can use the exact name you saw in the original job ad.
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How to Put Work Experience on a Resume
Company Name, Description, and LocationIf the position checks out, they’ll want to know more details.If the company isn’t famous, you can also describe in 1-2 sentences. And you should always mention the location of the firm, too. Try to keep the total section under 3-5 jobs and only remove other job
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How to Put Work Experience on a Resume
experiences if you’re running out of space and absolutely can’t remove any other part of your resume.
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How to Put Work Experience on a Resume
Achievements and ResponsibilitiesWhen listing achievements in your resume, you should add any specific change you made happen (we’ll explore how to do this more in-depth below) that the HR manager can apply to their company.When possible, you should always list accomplishments over responsibilities.
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How to Put Work Experience on a Resume
After all, the HR manager already knows what your responsibilities are - they’ve probably gone through similar resumes over 100 times now with the same bland responsibilities
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How to Put Work Experience on a Resume
Dates EmployedSounds obvious, right?Simply list how long you worked at your previous role for. And relax, if you don’t remember the exact day you got hired, you can give an approximate timeframe.The standard format for dates employed is mm/yyyy.
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How to Put Work Experience on a Resume
Work Experience Q&AHave some questions on your work experience section?Maybe you have a giant gap in your work experience, or you’re a recent graduate looking for a job with 0 work experience.In this section, we’re going to cover the most common questions about the work experience section...
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Work Experience Q&A
Have some questions on your work experience section?Maybe you have a giant gap in your work experience, or you’re a recent graduate looking for a job with 0 work experience.In this section, we’re going to cover the most common questions about the work experience section...Do You List an Internship?Not sure if an internship
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Work Experience Q&A
belongs on your resume?Well, are you applying for an intermediate or senior role?If it’s either of the two, then you might want to leave out the internship you did 4-5 years ago.Meanwhile, are you a recent college grad with not a lot of practical work experience?If so, an internship is a great way to show some substance
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Work Experience Q&A
and that you’re serious about your career path. Everyone has to start somewhere, and if you’re struggling to fill up your resume, you should definitely include any internships, even if you weren’t hired full-time afterwards, or the internship was in a completely different field.
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Work Experience Q&A
What If You Don’t Have a Lot of Experience?If you’re applying for an entry-level job haven’t worked a day in your life, you can focus on other ways to present yourself.For example, you can focus more on your soft skills, university achievements, and other personal qualities.If you’re a recent college grad, the recruiter is most likely not
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Work Experience Q&A
expecting you to have a whole page worth of work experience - so don’t sweat it.Instead, you might consider including the following contents:– Summer Job - Ever worked a summer job? Include it! This can show the recruiter that you have SOME work experience, even if it’s not related to the job you’re applying for.
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Work Experience Q&A
– University Projects - Pretty much all team-based project exercises work. Created a mock product for a business class? Add it!– Personal Projects - Done anything interesting with your free time? Published videos on Youtube? Coded mini software applications? Add them to your resume!
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Work Experience Q&A
How Do You List Gaps In Your Resume?Gaps on a resume can be a red flag - only if you provide no explanation.If the HR manager sees an empty gap in your work experience section, they’re going to assume the worst case scenario. So, it’s better to ease their expectations and be honest. In a line or two,
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Work Experience Q&A
explain what happened and move on, no need to dwell on it.