Putting all your experiences and accomplishments on paper requires serious thought and a good chunk of time. It isn’t any fun. And to make things even worse, no resume writer can do it for you because you’re the only one who knows what all you’ve done. The only good news is, you only have to do it once!
Here’s what I suggest. You need a list of what you’ve done since high school. So start by writing down everything that might go on your resume. Don’t worry about formatting for now, it’s okay if it looks ugly at this stage. Err on the side of writing too much: there will be time to delete later. Think about…
- What have you been doing?
- Write a timeline. Start in the year you finished high school and finish today. Fill in your timeline with your experiences, including all companies you’ve worked for and job titles you’ve held. Make sure you include something for every year, even if it’s not very impressive. For example, your timeline may begin:
- 1982-84: attended college at Washburn University, 3.2 GPA but dropped out to earn money
- 1984-1990: Retail Clerk job at Macy’s
- 1991: rode my motorcycle and camped at campsites all over California
- Write a timeline. Start in the year you finished high school and finish today. Fill in your timeline with your experiences, including all companies you’ve worked for and job titles you’ve held. Make sure you include something for every year, even if it’s not very impressive. For example, your timeline may begin:
- What are you most proud of?
- List all kinds of experiences, and include at least a few work-related or school-related achievements. Write down 10 to 15 items, and write a few words about what you did that made you proud of each one.
- What else took your time?
- Write down all other significant activities that you haven’t listed yet, even if they’re not very impressive. This could be college ROTC, weekly poker games with friends, skiing, being a parent, coaching little league, or whatever. If you spent more than 50 hours doing it, list it.
- Anything else?
- This is your chance to fill in the blanks. Maybe you once won a fancy award, you appeared on Wheel of Fortune, or you know how to create websites in HTML and CSS. If you think it makes you look good and you haven’t written it down yet, list it now.
When you think you’re done, look over your list and try to think of things you’ve left out. The biggest mistake you can make at this stage is to fail to remember something that could win you a job. So think really, really hard.
Once you’re sure you’ve got everything listed… congratulations! The hardest part is over. Now you just need to prioritize, format, and proofread to turn your list into a great resume.