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  Resume Format - USA
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US Resume Format





American Resume

The resume is commonly as a "curriculum vitae" or CV in many countries. The resume is a document where your work experiences and your education are outlined. The resume should give the employers an idea about your skills and what they can get from you.

In Europe it is commonly know as a Curriculum Vitae (or "CV") whereas in US it is called as a "Resume"


US resume format
Title
Contact information
Objective
Location
Skills
Professional experience
Education
Languages
Achievements and awards
References


Title
Do not give any title for your resume. Start your resume with the contact information.


Contact information

The contact information should be at the top of the page including the following

    Name
    Phone number
    Fax number
    Address
    Email address

Until and unless it is relevant to the job do not mention your gender, race, religion or marital status. In the united states employers are subject to certain legal obligations against discrimination of applicants based on their, race gender or sexual orientation. Usually the employers are fair but some employers due to the fear of being sued against discrimination may discard such resumes that mention these traits.


Objective

There are varied opinions on writing the objective just below the contact information. Some experts recommend describing your career objective below the contact information while many others are against mentioning the objective in your resume. There is no hard and fast rule about writing the objective in your resume. Usually the objective covers the points mentioned in the cover letter so it could be as well omitted. However, if you prefer to mention the objective then it should be precise and make use of the best combination of words to give an overview of what you want from the job to the employer.


Location
It is very important for the employer to know whether you are willing to relocate or not. If you are willing to relocate then mention you're preferred locations where you are willing to work.


Skills

Mention all the skills possessed by you in the chronological order of the skill, which you have been using most recently and going down to the least. This gives an overview of your skills to the employer.


Professional experience

Usually the work experience can be represented in two ways:

Chronological:
In this format the work experience is listed starting from the most recent and going down to the least in the following format

Job Title

Name of the company

Employment dates

A brief description of your responsibilities and achievements in the job.
This kind of resume is good when your career has been stable without any long breaks

Functional:
In this kind of listing you list your experience into different functional categories.

For example
" Systems analysis experience"
"Java programming"
" Database administration "

This type of resume is particularly very helpful when there have been some blank periods in your career. By representing experience in this way the blank periods are less obvious.

Another advantage of presenting this way is that you can creatively reinforce your skills in this way.

While representing in this way you should group similar kind of jobs into the same category:

For example
Java programming
    Position, company name, employment dates, responsibilities
    Position, company name, employment dates, responsibilities Database administration
    Position, company name, employment dates, responsibilities
    Position, company name, employment dates, responsibilities


Education
Your education should be presented in a chronological order starting with the highest level of education then going down systematically.


Languages

As this resume is for an international job, you have to list the different languages you know and your level i.e. advanced, intermediate or beginner. You should indicate your efficiency in translation, speaking and writing in each language. You could also list any associated degrees you posses.


Achievements and awards

You can mention any achievements -personal or career related. You can also say about the awards received by you for any particular achievements in terms of career, education or personal.


References

You can give the contact information of three references that are well aware about your skills and career achievements. You should take prior permission of the references before furnishing their details. You can also mention that references will be furnished on request.






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