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Common Resume Questions

Find the answers to the most common resume questions.

Q: What is the purpose of a resume?

A: Your resume serves as a guide to your personality, goals, skill sets, and experience. A resume can determine whether you'll get an interview or not. Your resume needs to have the following:

• A concise objective statement that conveys what sort of job you want.
• Relevant personal data such as name and contact information.
• A list of your accomplishments.
• Specifics that are important to you (volunteer activity, affiliations with clubs and service organizations, etc.).
• Work history (include internships, part-time work, etc.).
• Educational background.
• Statement about the availability of references.

Q: Does my resume have to be one page?

A: It's important to focus on making sure your resume reflects all of the important components (objectives, goals, employment history and experience, skill sets, etc.) and not so much on the length of your document. While recruiters do read a lot of resumes, remember that your resume is the only thing they receive that paints a picture of who you are and what you can do.

Q: Is it necessary that I have an objective?

A: An objective is not mandatory, but we recommend that you state one. If you don't have an objective, the recruiter will have to speculate about your career focus.

Here are some sample objectives to help you get started:

• Objective: To secure an increasingly responsible position, where self starting, independent, decision making skill sets can be used to improve corporate productivity.
• Objective: To secure a job where my experience and innovative thinking can be used together to help an organization enhance and grow its vision and mission.

Q: Do I need to have several different resumes to reflect different fields I might want to go into?

A: It is very difficult to have one resume that will be suitable for all jobs for which you will apply. We recommend that you have a general resume that you can customize for different jobs. The more you can customize your resume, the better. Recruiters will appreciate your narrowing the focus of your resume.

Q: I've had several internships, but not full-time paid employment. Should I list my internships on my resume?

A: Absolutely. Regardless of whether or not your internships were paid, they still gave you an opportunity to develop your skill sets and learn.