Part 3: Format of Your Resume
In this part of the course, I’m going to go through the formatting of your resume. There are typically 5-6 sections on a resume. Depending on your unique situation you may have to add some or remove some.
I highly recommend that you download and follow the resume template below. The structure of if is very similar to how I structure my own resume. You can make some small formatting changes if you’d like but don’t stray too much from this. It has been proven to work!
Now, let’s take a closer look at each of the sections on your resume.
Heading
– Name at the top, centered, and should be the biggest font on your resume.
– E-mail address should be something simple and professional (something like mathguy@gmail.com is not a good email address to use, but g.peterson@gmail.com would be ok). If you’re a student, you can use your school email address. Otherwise, create an email address that is professional looking. Make sure to check that email account often, because employers may reach out through email.
– Include a phone number too, but no need to label it with “Cell” or “Phone” (the employer all ready knows that it’s a phone number). Make sure you have a professional sounding voice answering message set up.
– Don’t provide any details related to your LinkedIn profile. If an employer is interested in interviewing you based on your resume then you want them to stop looking into you! You’ve caught their interest. By providing a LinkedIn profile it could potentially ruin their interest if they see something they don’t like. On the other hand, if your resume does not interest the employer then they’re unlikely to view your LinkedIn profile anyway. So don’t include it.
– You don’t need to put your full address on your resume. A city and state is enough. If you have more than one address that you could put on your resume (ie. a permanent and temporary address) put the one that’s closest to the company that you’re applying to. Of course, you’d have to be willing to relocate to that location if they decided to hire you. Some employers may place preference on candidates that live closer.
Career Profile
The career profile is an important part of your resume because it summarizes you and your experience up all in one 2-3 scentence paragraph. After the employer looks at your name and location, this will be the very first thing they read about you. So, you want it to have a very positive impact on them.
The career profile ensures that the employer gets a good overall picture of you without having to figure it all themselves by looking through the rest of your resume. The best part about this is that you get to decide what they learn about you first. You’ll be able to give them reasons that you’re a good fit right up front.
The career profile should summarize briefly who you are (career wise), what you’ve accomplished throughout your career up to this point, and the skills that you’re proficient in.
The career profile may change slightly depending on what types of jobs you’re looking for. Here are some examples of a career profile for an actuarial position. When you’re trying to come up with your Career Profile, try to think of what you’d want your interviewer to tell his manager about you after the interview to give him/her a quick overall summary of who you are and why you’d be good for the position.
Student:
University of Waterloo graduate with a Bachelor of Statistics and Actuarial Science minor. Held various summer jobs and internships involving insurance sales reporting, data entry and math tutoring. Served as the Secretary of the Actuarial Science club. Passed both Exam P/1 and FM/2. Proficient in Excel and VBA.
Core competencies include data entry, reporting, communication, team work, problem solving, and attention to detail.
Career Changer (switching from math teacher to actuary):
Math teacher with 6 years of experience teaching secondary school students about calculus and statistics. Taught over 700 students and served on several professional committees that aim to positively impact students with disabilities. Passed both Exam P/1 and FM/2. Proficient in Excel, VBA.
Core competencies include data entry, reporting, communication, team work, problem solving, and attention to detail.
Actuarial Exams
– If you’re applying to actuarial positions, then then your actuarial exams should be right below your Career Profile. You work hard for these and these exams are one of the top things employers care about. Always include the exams that you’ve passed, plus the next one you’re planning to write and when (even if you’re not registered yet). Ideally the next one that you’re planning to write should be within the next 6 months.
– If you’re not applying to actuarial positions then you’ll want to leave your exams off your resume because it would hint to employers that you’re not interested in staying with them for a long time.
– Something to keep in mind is that employers look at your exam history and note when the last time you passed an exam was. If it’s been over 9 months since you’ve passed one then it may lower they’re interest in you. Of course, every employer is different and students applying to internships can probably get away with a longer time.
– How many exams do you need? In the U.S. usually 2 exams is enough to get an actuarial position, but 3 will put you a step above most of the competition (assuming the competition is entry-level too). However, you should still apply for jobs and internships even if you have fewer, but remember that may be a reason that you don’t get interviews. In Canada, most students graduate with 3-4 exams passed so that’s what most of the other entry- level candidates will likely have in terms of exams.
– If you haven’t passed any exams, put when you’re planning to write your first one (preferably not more than 6 months into the future).
Career Highlights
The career highlights section is for career changers only, or anyone that has worked in a related position and is now ready to transition to an actuarial career. This section focuses on your major career accomplishments – it shows the things you’re most proud of and want employers to see right away.
In this section, you should highlight 2 – 4 major accomplishments throughout your career. If you’ve only been working for a year (say in a related position) then 2 is sufficient. If you have 5+ years of experience, then you’ll want to include 3-4 accomplishments in this section.
You want these accomplishments to show employers the value that you could potentially bring to their organization, so it’s best to show how these accomplishments benefited the company that you worked for at the time. For example, if could have reduced errors significantly, increased profits, or decreased expenses, increased market exposure.
The more specific and detailed you can be with your career highlights, the better. Try to include precise numbers and statistics when possible. You may need to refer back to old emails, documentation, or even ask a colleague/manager if they remember the specific impact your accomplishment(s) had on the company.
Example 1:
Increased average passing grade of grade 11 calculus students from 62% to 74% over 2 years by analyzing assignment scores and test scores to determine trouble areas. Then created additional resources that improved students’ understanding drastically.
Example 2:
Reduced average time spent on month-end reporting processes from 6 hours to 2 hours by automating many of the sub-processes using VBA in Excel; this saved [company name] $960 annually.
Education
– If you’re a career changer, then this can go at the end of your resume. Students should put it below the actuarial exams section.
– Follow the formatting on the template. There’s not much to mention for this section.
– You can use your cumulative GPA or your Major GPA, whichever is better. If your school doesn’t use GPA as a grade scale, just put your grade in whichever format your school uses. ** If you’re applying to U.S. jobs, consider translating your grade to GPA using this chart.
– If you have a GPA below 3, you may consider leaving it off of your resume. (But you’ll likely be asked about it during interviews so make sure that you’re able to explain it without implying anything negative about yourself.)
– Most of the time, you should not include relevant courses or school work on your resume. Only do this if you were unable to relate much of your past experience to the position being applied for (try going back to Part 2 with a fresh mind to see if you can do this better).
Relevant experience
– Part 2 of this course had you go through all your past jobs and create bullet points that would show the employer that your past experience was relevant to the position you’re applying to. That’s the hardest part of your whole resume. Now you can just insert them into this section.
– The template will show you the formatting to use for this section. Try to stick to that as closely as possible because that’s what employers are familiar with.
– Your first job listed will be the most recent, followed by the second most recent, etc.
Additional Skills
– This doesn’t have to be a very big section, you’re just going to include any computer skills (Excel, Word, Access, and any programming languages, as well as spoken languages).
Academic Achievements (optional)
– You can include scholarships, any other recognition, or research projects that you participated in that would be relevant. Don’t go overboard on these accomplishments. Choose the best 1-2 and leave the rest off.
Notes on Resume Length
– For internships and entry-level positions, a one page resume is all you need. In most cases, an internship or entry-level resume that is over one page means that you’ve included information that isn’t necessary. Remember, you want employers to see all the best information about you so don’t crowd your resume with things that don’t make you more qualified for the job.
Note on “fluff”: An important thing to remember is that you always want to be giving employers the most important information. Everything on your resume should be something you feel the employer absolutely must know about you. If you’re including “fluff” or things that don’t make you more qualified for the job, then remove it.
Review your resume to make sure that it isn’t too crammed/crowded/condensed. You want a good balance of text and white space so that it’s easy to read. Otherwise, your resume may end up being overlooked. Remember, employers often have lots of resumes to go through and not much time, so make it easy for them to find the information they want.
– If your resume ends up being too short (lots of blank space at the end) consider adjusting the spacing and/or margins a little bit. You could even increase the font size from 12 pt to 13 pt. Most of the time this doesn’t happen though. Once you include all the sections above most of the page will likely be used.
– There are a few cases where going over one page is OK. But if that’s the case for you, ensure that all your experience and everything else on your resume is very relevant to the job and you haven’t added any extra “fluff”.
Making a professional looking resume
You want your resume to be professional. You don’t want employers to see that you haven’t paid attention to details on your resume.
– Ensure that your formatting is consistent throughout, including indentation, spacing, font, headings, etc.
– Centering usually doesn’t look good on a resume and makes it hard to read. The only exception is your name and contact info at the top of the page.
– Spell check with the Microsoft Word spell checker, spell check yourself, get someone else to spell check, and I’ll spell check if you purchased the upgraded plan.
– Whenever possible, send your resume in both a PDF and Word version. If you can only submit one version, then use the Word version.
How to save as PDF: You can save a Word Document as a PDF by choosing Save As. When prompted to type in the document’s name, look for a “save as type” option (usually right below the field where you type the name) and choose PDF.