Baraud Client Profiles - Permanent Candidates

How to Prepare an Effective Resume

Resume Essentials

Before you write your resume, take time to do a self-assessment on paper. Outline your skills and abilities as well as your work experience and extra-curricular activities. This will make it easier to prepare a thorough resume.
Remember that a resume is not an exhaustive list of everything you have ever done. It is a sales tool which should be written to ensure that you firstly secure an interview, and secondly to help provide your prospective employer with a solid structure for that interview, one that you have more control over.

The Content of Your Resume

Name, address, telephone, and e-mail address.

All your contact information should go at the top of your resume.

Avoid nicknames.
Use a permanent address. Ideally you will use a local address here in Cayman, preferably the one at which you will be staying. You can use our Post Office Box Number for correspondence: PO Box 2040 GT, Grand Cayman KY1- 1105, CAYMAN ISLANDS.
Use a permanent telephone number and include the area code. If you have an answering machine, record a neutral greeting. Try to list your cell/ mobile and home number, if you have one. Do not list your work phone number if you do not wish to receive calls in the office.
Add your e-mail address. Many employers will find it useful. (Note: Choose an e-mail address that sounds professional, preferably not your work email address.)

Objective or Summary

A summary and objective tells potential employers who you are, and the sort of work you're hoping to do. It helps set the tone of your resume, and puts everything else that follows in the correct context.

Highlight your core skills and experience, but make sure it is a short, generic summary. For example: “Business Graduate with four years experience as an Executive Secretary to a Senior Director in a publicly listed company”.
Be specific about the job you want. For example: “To obtain an entry-level position within a financial institution requiring strong analytical and organizational skills.”
Tailor your objective to each employer you target/every job you seek.

Education

Your educational summary should always be detailed before your work experience. You should list your qualifications and education in the context of the job you are applying for. For example, if you are a Qualified Accountant and you are applying for an Accounting job, your Professional Accounting Qualification is the most important, and should be listed first.

Your most recent educational information should be listed first (i.e. in reverse chronological order)
Include your degree (A.S., B.S., BA, etc.), major, institution attended, minor/concentration.
Add your grade point average (GPA) if it is higher than 3.0.
It is generally not necessary to list your primary and secondary level education.
Mention academic honors, achievements, or awards.

Work Experience

List your work experience in reverse chronological order-that is, put your last job first and work backward to your first, relevant job. Group each employer separately, listing the following:

Dates of employment
Name of organization
Title of position
Title of the person you reported to
Location of work (town, state)

You should then provide a brief, 2 to 3 line summary explaining who your employer is, and briefly outlining your role. Example: “Baraud International are the largest Recruitment Agency in Cayman with over 110 staff. Joined the company as a Receptionist, progressing to Office Manager over a period of two years”

Describe your work responsibilities, preferably using bullet points, with emphasis on specific tasks that you were responsible for. Begin with an overview, moving quickly to the specific functional tasks of your job. Example: “Responsible for the day to day administrative management of a busy public office. Prepared the paperwork for 4 consultants and the Managing Director. Managed a busy switchboard, and greeted customers at the main reception desk. Responsible for maintaining the company’s filing system, both manual and on the computer”. Etc etc”

Avoid broad sweeping general statements, or the use of too many adjectives. Example: “Solely responsible for representing the company to the public, and managing all important documents”. This is too general, and probably untrue.

After detailing your responsibilities, you should now detail 3-4 achievements. Your responsibilities should list the type of things you would expect to find in a job specification. Your achievements are those things that you were personally responsible for that were over and above your normal expected responsibilities. You should be specific in your details, and be able to back up all of your examples.
Good examples of achievements could be: “Was acknowledged by the MD at the end of last year as being the most efficient secretary in our department of four”, or “Was personally responsible for training four new staff in QuickBooks after we changed our accounting software last year” etc, etc.

Other information

It is not essential to list your personal achievements, hobbies, or interests. However, if you feel that it would add to your resume or make you look like a more rounded individual, you should include them.

Positive examples that you may consider listing include:

Sporting, Musical, or Dramatic Interests and/ or achievements.
Parts of the world you have traveled to.
Charitable/ Voluntary work that you have undertaken.
Personal interests that you have that you feel would be relevant to your profession or the job you are applying for.

The following are examples of information that you should not list:

Irrelevant personal interests. For example: Stating that you perform magic tricks, or have an interest in crime novels, or like to meet new people. Whilst they may be interesting elements of your life, it is unlikely that they are relevant to your job application.
Religious information. It is not required but if detailed can often lead to bias, whether it be intentional or not.
Marital status, unless it is relevant in showing that perhaps you have the right to work on your partner’s work permit.
You should not divulge whether you have children on your resume, as employers can inadvertently show a bias against parents of young children, perhaps making the unfair assumption that they would not be able to or willing to work overtime.

References

Ask people if they are willing to serve as references before you give their names to a potential employer. Do not include your reference information on your resume. You may note at the bottom of your resume: "References will be furnished upon request."

Resume Checkup

You've written your resume. It's time to have it reviewed and critiqued by a career counselor. You can also take the following steps to ensure quality:

Content

Run a spell check on your computer before anyone sees your resume.
Ask a friend to review your grammar.
Ask another friend to proofread. The more people who see your resume, the more likely that misspelled words and awkward phrases will be seen (and corrected).

Design

These tips will make your resume easier to read and/or scan into an employer's database.

Use white or off-white paper (if you are required to print and post your resume
Use one font size throughout, preferably between 10 and 14 points (ideally 11 or 12).
Use non-decorative typefaces/ fonts. Arial or Times New Roman are the most common fonts, and are therefore easier to read for most people. You want your resume to stand out because of its content, NOT because of its layout or font!
Use Bold, Italics, and Underline to highlight headings and titles. Avoid bolding words in the middle of sentences, and try to ensure consistency in your formatting. For example, if you BOLD one employer name, ensure you bold all of the other Employer Names.
The general rule of thumb is to have a 2 to 3 page resume. One page suggests that you don’t have much to say. 4 pages is a lot of reading, but don’t sacrifice good content and layout just to have a neat, 2 page resume.

REMEMBER, IF YOU HAVE WRITTEN SOMETHING THAT YOU THINK DOES NOT ADD TO YOUR RESUME, DELETE IT! ONLY INCLUDE POSITIVE INFORMATION, AND REMEMBER YOUR OBJECTIVE IS TO GET A JOB, NOT TO WRITE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.