Do you find yourself gazing out of the window, imagining how happy you could be working in a certain field? That desire means you’ve found your “dream job” if you are literally dreaming of the perfect career path for yourself.
Getting hired anywhere can be a challenge, but finding your dream job can seem even more daunting. You want the position because you love the field, so it's much harder to be told “no.”
Unfortunately, people just like you are turned away at the first step toward their dream jobs all the time. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to improve your chances of getting hired.
Having experience in the field, writing the ideal cover letter, finding great people to recommend you, and interviewing well are all crucial stages in the process of being hired for your dream job. But how do you communicate your experience and desire to be part of your ideal industry? Through your resume.
Whether you’re a recent college graduate looking for your first job or a long-time expert aiming to change career tracks, your resume introduces you to a potential employer. This definitive resume guide will help you build the best possible resume and get you closer to landing your dream job.
What Is a Resume Anyway?
Your resume highlights your skills, experience, abilities, education, and accomplishments. This document is essentially an advertisement for you as a potential employee. You want your resume to tell prospective employers that this is your dream job, and you’re ready to take on the challenge.
There are several approaches to formatting your resume, which can show off different skills — from relevant job experience, to education, any additional training, and even volunteer positions. You can put experience from a wide range of work at the top, or focus on specific organizations and clients you may have worked with. Regardless of what your resume emphasizes, it should be relevant to your dream job, so it must tell employers that you’re engaged and passionate about the work.
Your resume should also be carefully written, edited, and critiqued. Consider getting friends, colleagues, teachers, or even a professional resume editor to read through the document and make sure it suits you and your dream job.
Figure Out What You Need to Convey About Yourself
If you’re reading this guide to resumes, you’ve probably already thought hard about what you want to do and just need guidance on how to properly execute your plan. To start, have you considered writing down what you want to do and why?
Psychologists recommend maintaining a personal journal for all kinds of reasons. It is an effective tool for keeping track of ideas, managing your emotions by reflecting on them, and even expressing good things that happen to you. Deciding to change careers or pursue your dream job can be stressful, but writing down your thoughts in a personal journal can help alleviate any stress. You can also use this document to help you understand why you want a specific job.
Keeping a journal means you can write down your personal values, ideals, and goals. When you keep track of these thoughts in one place and allow yourself to freely write whatever you think and feel, you can use this information to help you through several stages of the job-hunting process.
As you journal specifically about your dream job, you can make a list of anything relevant to the position, including training, school, work, and passion projects. It is important to make lists of anything you need or think is important, so you know what you want to put on your resume.
It can also help you find areas where your knowledge may be lacking. These might be addressed with additional education or training. You can also use these blank spots in your knowledge to start a discussion with a potential employer about how this job will give you better standing in a field you love.
You can tailor your resume to your dream job by customizing details about your work ethic to the industry you want to work in. This is where you can include any related experience even if it isn’t exactly what the position is asking for. It simply involves shading the experience you do have to fit well with the position you want.
It is important to base your revamped resume on the job you are applying for. Often, highlighting relevant experience that does not specifically involve your past work history will show hiring managers that you have a deep passion for the job. That spark can motivate them to give you an interview.
Professional Resume Formatting and Language
When you begin creating your resume, you may start with an online template or one of the templates offered through a word processing program. These are valid places to begin, but it is important for you to keep a few points in mind, so your resume looks professional and is easy for hiring managers to read.
Use standard margins, or keep them below 1.5 inches in width.
Choose a professional, legible font, like Arial or Times New Roman.
Keep your font size between 10 points and 12 points, depending on the size needed for legibility.
Use section headers so potential employees understand what information they are looking at.
Use bullet points when appropriate.
A resume template may feature other options to customize the look. Modern resumes have many graphic design elements, like a place for a professional headshot, different sizes and color options for fonts and headers, and even background image choices. If you’re looking at a career in a creative field, these can help you show off your interests and skills. However, they are not appropriate for every career option, so look at examples of resumes from others who are already working in your dream field.
You should write an objective statement about yourself. This goes at the top of the resume and will be the first sentence a hiring manager reads about you. Two-sentence objectives are ideal. Three sentences are the maximum. This includes basic information about you and your passion for your dream job, allowing you to talk directly to potential employers.
As you list skills, experience, and other information on your resume, avoid colloquialisms or informal language. Run your resume through spell check, look for grammar errors, and keep sentences short and clear.
Get help during the revision stage. Ask mentors, teachers, friends, and professionals in your chosen field to review your resume and give you feedback.
The Three Core Types of Resumes
Resumes are a list of your qualifications for your dream job, divided into sections and itemized. They should act as a guide for hiring managers to understand how you fit in with their own itemized needs for a position. Resumes also serve as an introduction to who you are as a candidate. Along with your cover letter, interview, and online presence, your resume shows off how much you love the industry in question.
There is a lot of debate about how important your resume actually is. Some hiring experts think it is not important — that you should list your career experience and education while focusing on your cover letter and online presence. Others treat the resume as the be-all, end-all that will land you an interview for your dream job when formatted perfectly.
It is important to treat your resume as one very important document since it is a guide for your future employer to understand who you are and how you will fit into their industry. While it is not the only part of getting your foot in the door, choosing the right format for your career change or job hunt can make the difference between setting up an interview and never hearing from potential employers.
Chronological: This type of resume lists your work, volunteer experience, and educational background in reverse chronological order. Your most recent job is listed first.
It is the most common form of resume and is considered traditional. People who take resume classes will learn this one first.
Your contact information
A summary statement or objective at the top
Your professional experience in a list, with the most recent first
Relevant skills from each job you’ve held, often listed beneath the title of the position and where you worked
Education, which should be listed at the bottom
Additional information like volunteer work, special interests, and special skills
If you are already working toward your dream job, or your dream career is related to your current work, a chronological resume will serve you well when you apply for new positions. Chronological resumes work best for people whose work histories are consistent, related, and show a clear trajectory toward the position for which they are currently applying.
For example, if you had an internship at a theater company, worked as an actor in a community theater for fun, and worked in the fundraising department of a larger theater, this can all show, in chronological order, your growing career in the theatre world.
Chronological resumes are also great when you apply for full-time work beyond entry-level jobs. Employers often expect you to have degrees and a certain amount of work history regardless of the field you are interested in. While you may have special skills in a field that allow you to apply for a mid-level job without much work history in that area, the hiring manager will still expect you to have worked in a professional environment for a few years.
Functional: This resume format is sometimes considered the opposite of a chronological resume. It shows your most relevant work history, volunteer experience, and education, often with detailed summaries beneath each position, as well as a longer list of special skills gleaned from your experience. The point of a functional resume is to show off anything relevant to the job you’re applying for and leave off anything that is not relevant to your dream job.
Information included in a functional resume should be in this order:
Your contact information
Summary or objective statement at the top, which is a good time to highlight your passion for this new work
Summary of relevant skills, like typing, graphic design, or animal handling
Work experience, in somewhat chronological order but chosen based on importance to the job application
Details beneath each job title describing skills and experience relevant to your current job application
Education
Additional information like relevant hobbies, education, and volunteer work
New graduates, people changing careers, and anyone with gaps in employment are best suited to functional resume formats. This type of resume also works well for people who have held positions in several different types of jobs. For example, if you have worked as a clerk in a law firm, a barista, and a babysitter, a functional resume can help you find relevant experience in each position that makes you a good candidate for a position in a hospital as a social worker.
Functional resumes work well for part-time employment. If you are looking for a second job or want to start small in a position relevant to your dream job, choosing specific skills and a couple of previous work or volunteer positions can show your dedication to employment in a position with fewer responsibilities than a full-time gig.
Combined: As the name implies, a combination resume is a mixture of both chronological and functional resume formats. If you have some relevant work experience but more education or volunteer experience that gave you needed skills, creating a combined resume can work well for you.
The information on your combined resume should be listed in this order:
Your contact information
Your objective summary or statement, which can help you show off your passion
Work experience in reverse chronological order, with newest job first
Culled work experience to include only relevant jobs
Another section of skills, which can come from work, parenting, volunteer experience, or other areas
Education
Keeping distinct sections in a combined resume format is important, but you have much more flexibility for how these sections are ordered and how they look. Your skills and your work experience are the most important sections of this resume, so list whichever is more relevant for your new career.
Combined resumes work well for many situations — full-time work, part-time gigs, contract positions, and even returning to school. The flexibility of choosing sections to display your best professional features means you can format this page for any situation.
Employers expect resumes to be one page, but do not let formatting with margins or font size suffer so you can squeeze every detail of your work history and experience onto this paper. You may find it most useful to use the combined format for your resume, even if you focus more on skills or work history.
Choosing only the most relevant skills and experience when you apply for a job will help you keep everything down to one page, highlight the most important aspects of yourself, and display your passion for your dream job.
Example Resume Templates
To help you understand resumes and what employers expect to see, here are some examples based on the information above.
Chronological Resume
Jane Austen Author
34 Highbury Lane, London, UK | jane.austen.author@email.com | Twitter: @janeawrites
Objective: Passionate fiction author focusing on feminist themes; published through multiple platforms and publishing houses. Seeking a leadership position with a magazine that values women’s leadership.
Experience:
Emma (1815)
Themes of youthful hubris and misconstrued romance
Dissects concerns and difficulties of genteel women
Considers unlikable heroines
Mansfield Park (1814)
Highlights overburdened and impoverished families
Underlying message that money is not happiness
Analyzes the complexity of international affairs and their deep impact on individuals
Pride and Prejudice (1813)
Delivers the message that nasty judgments lead to errors
Examines the relationship between the superficial and the essential
Awards and accolades as the most beloved book for many readers
Sense and Sensibility (1811)
Classic coming-of-age story
Deals with grief and loss of physical and spiritual aspects
Critically reviewed for several decades
Education:
Preparatory Academy, 1770 – 1785
Major: English Literature
Functional Resume
Albert Einstein Physicist
12 Buckle Road, Kingdom of Wurttemberg, Germany | Einstein_A@email.com
Objective: Leading physicist seeking deeper understanding of the universe through educational position, both teaching and learning.
Experience:
1911 - 1919: General Theory of Relativity Mathematical foundation showing that light from other stars can be bent from interactions with gravity
1911 - Present: Professor of Physics at Charles-Ferdinand University, Prague
Through tenure, published 11 scientific works, including quantum theory of solid matter and mathematical speculation about radiation
1908 - 1909: Leading Scientist and Lecturer at University of Bern Focus on electrodynamics
Awards and Honors:
1925: Copley Medal, Royal Society
1921: Nobel Prize in Physics
Special Skills: typing, higher order mathematics, development of the concept of photos
