SNHU SkillsFirst: Building Your Resume & Cover Letter
Your professional story begins with creating your resume and cover letter. A resume is the foundational document in your job search. It lists your skills, work history, education, contact information and any other credentials or certifications you may have. Cover letters are an important part of the job application process as well because they help hiring managers develop a better understanding of your suitability for a position. Creating these ever important documents can feel daunting, but not to fear! SNHU offers you a free tool called SkillsFirst to create the ideal resume and cover letter!
resume guide: the basics
Step 1: Start With Your Heading & Education Sections
- Your resume heading will often include the following: full name, phone number, email address, and link to public profile or portfolio (i.e. LinkedIn URL). You will want to ensure all contact information is correct and visually balanced.
- Your education should be highlighted as well, included you major, any relevant coursework and projects, along with your graduation month/year (or expected graduation date). You can also include your GPA.
Step 2: Craft Your Relevant Experience Section
- Your experience section should included your job title, employer, location, and the dates you were employed in that role (or currently employed). This section will also be organized in reverse chronological order.
- Your experiences should be expressed with descriptive bullets points. Bullets should lead with strong action verbs, and use the present tense for current accomplishments and past tense for completed accomplishments.
- TIP: Use the STAR Method to create strong action verb bullets!
Step 3: List Skills & Other Activities/Experiences
- Your skills section should include any/all technical skills and soft skills you have achieved through your schooling and/or work experiences. TIP: Use the job description to be sure the required skills the employer is seeking is also listed on your resume to demonstrate you have what they are looking for in a candidate!
- You can also use this section to site certifications you have achieved or are working towards.
- If you have completed any relevant volunteer work, student clubs, community work, or civic engagements, you can add to a additional section like “volunteering”.
NACE has provided their top skills based on collected survey data. The top skills listed included problem-solving, ability to work in a team, communication, work ethic, flexibility, technical skills and analytics skills, iniative and detailed oriented skills.
- You can always contact our talented team of Career Advisors to view and provide feedback on your professional documents!
- Email cocecareer@snhu.edu or call 888.672.1458.
- Focus on broadly applicable and transferable skills. Understand that much of what we do is relevant. For example, customer service while working for Target is very much like customer service at EY, Wayfair, or Fidelity. True, the task might be different, but the principle is very much the same.
- Customer service, communication, teamwork, training, time management all are relevant skills that you should highlight in your bulleted descriptions relevant to your future career!
- Check out this article: How To Showcase Relevant Experiences
- Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are used by recruiters and employers to track a candidate’s job application throughout the recruiting and hiring process, making it easy for businesses of any size to filter, manage, and analyze potential candidates.
- Learn how to ensure your resume is successfully received and processed by employers.
- There are a handful of helpful and free resume templates and resume builders out there! You can even browse and search for resume relevant to your major, and/or the specific opportunity you are applying for:
- SNHU SkillsFirst
- Check out the SkillsFirst videos posted under “Career Videos” to learn how to customize your resume and cover letter.
- Indeed
- Resume Builder
- Live Career
- SNHU SkillsFirst
- Chronological Resumes:
- When you use a chronological resume, you start at the top, then work your way down and backward. After your name, contact information, and optional summary, you list your work history, starting with your current or most recent job. For each job, you list where you worked, the dates you worked, your title, and all of your job duties.
- Working your way backward, you cover your employment history until you’re out of jobs (or space).
- Functional Resumes:
- The key highlight of a functional resume vs a chronological resume is that functional resumes are skills-based. Instead of starting with your current job and moving backward, a functional resume focuses on your skills and abilities, instead of your job history.
- This formatting style is most helpful for those applying for jobs or internships with little to no experience.
- Generally, a functional resume starts with your name and then a summary of your achievements and accomplishments, similar to the summary statement on any resume.
- Each format style has its own unique pros and cons. You should carefully consider each when crafting your resume.
- Consider creating a Hybrid Resume:
- A hybrid resume includes an achievements section, but also provides a bit of information under each position, which helps gives context to your resume.
- In this hybrid format, you are emphasizing your skills without de-emphasizing your work history.
Skills First
Introducing SNHU’s automated tool dedicated to helping you with the creation of your resume, cover letter, e-portfolio and practice interviewing. View these 6 topics on how to leverage Skills First for your job search. There are 6 videos in the playlist. You can click the icon at the top right corner of the video below to view the topics. Once you understand how to use the tool, click here to get started using the tool. You will need your SNHU email to log in.
