Expressing Your Skill Sets on a Resume – Step #1 Inventory

As you go through your work (or internship) day, it can be hard to think about what it is that you actually do. As a result, many students have difficulty effectively capturing their skills, duties, and the value that he or she adds(ed) to the organization in a resume. Whether you are currently looking for a job/internship or not, updating your resume is important to do so that your resume is always fresh and ready to be sent to anyone. You never know when you might need it — your resume always needs to represent you at any moment.

Take some time now and sit down with a pen and paper and jot down the following:

• List all your tasks for your previous day of work. List everything from when you walked in the door to when you left for the day.
• Consider the rest of the week. Is there anything that was not captured on this list that you did during the week? Add this to the list.
• Think about special events, high volume periods, unique times where your task list may expand. Add them to the list.
• Is your list complete? If not, add what’s missing. When it’s complete, rank order the items by value added to the organization. The highest impact items should be ranked first.

In the next blog, we’ll look at taking these items and creating the bulleted list for your resume.