Fresh out of school? Five different writing courses later, no one told you how to write a resume. Yeah, we've got you. Here's our step-by-step guide on how to not only write your resume but how to figure out what to put in one.
First, let do some quick housekeeping! We said it in Stop Holding Yourself Back part one of this series but it bears repeating.
"Stop Waiting to be Ready"
If the reason you find it so hard to write your resume is the thought that you are lacking in some way, whether that be experience, awards. Stop now and start making steps towards appreciating the things you have done and then achieving the things you believe you lack. Rant Done, let's get to the stuff you're here for.
STEP 1 List ALL your Experiences, No Editing Allowed
- List your experiences from all aspects of life, think about them in terms of the different aspects of yourself that they display, and then narrow them down to the most relevant to the job you are applying to and then the skills you think best suits the job.
- You can organize your experiences by Educational, Volunteer, Extra Curricular and then list beside each the soft and hard skills you developed from both. It is important to list EVERY experience here, it's not the time for editing or cutting stuff out yet.
WHY? Seems like a waste of time.
- Here's an example, participating in an athletic club might not seem related to animation
However, you would have spent a lot of time doing group work, organizing events, and training.
On a resume, it would read something like this
2016 -2020, Football Club, Member
- Organized and collaborated with team members to execute successful fundraising events four times a semester for four years.
- Participated in daily training and improved personal stats by etc. Starting member for 3 years.
This demonstrates your ability to work in a group under stressful conditions better than any line in your cover letter. Taking this further, going to daily training every day for four years shows your dedication, focus, and commitment which are all relevant skills to animation, and mentioning your improvement shows the ability to focus on a goal over a prolonged period.
Everyone says they're dedicated, team players who are excellent at communication. The job of your resume is to show it.
By doing this you not only reduce the risk of leaving out potentially relevant experiences but you give yourself time to think about it without the stress of having to format it properly.
Organizing in this way, helps you figure out the benefits of each experience by allowing you to take the time to think about which hard and soft skills they represent.
STEP 2 Think Like an Employer, Not an Employee
"The key point to determine how to layout your resume is what information is the employer looking for"
The job description is a step-by-step guide to what information the employer is looking for. Place that information at the top of your resume.
One thing job applicants tend to forget is that an employer is NOT going to have time to carefully comb through their resume.
Imagine this, you posted a job for an animator's position and you got 100 applications the first day, and 300 the next etc. If you gave each application even 5 minutes of time you'd be spending over 8 hours looking through applications on just the first day.
Most employers have a filtration set up, it goes something like this:
- Interns or secretaries scan the resumes to see if the applicant meets the minimum requirements for the job, usually, this is the first page of your resume.
Auto-Reject those who don't, Set Aside those that do. At this point, the employer hasn't even seen your portfolio or cover letter. - The Second Scan, looking for bonus skills that they might want for the position. These applicants are usually the ones that end up in the pile that gets their portfolios looked at by the employers. The group of 400 applications may shrink down to 20 applicants based on skills alone.
Portfolios go through a similar process, but that's an article for another day.
