Welcome to the workshop!

• We will start around 2:35PM

• Be ready to take notes – digital or pen and paper (the slides will be sent out after the workshop,
but notes help you retain information)
• The workshop will be recorded today for LA&PS purposes, please have your microphones muted
for your confidentiality
• If you want to ask a question, the recording will be stopped around 3:20PM for a Q&A portion
(write down your questions in your notes so that you don’t forget)

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Perfecting Your
Resume
Optional LA&PS Career Education Workshop

ALEKSANDAR GOLIJANIN
 • Writing a Resume
• Resume Targeting
• Reading a Job Posting
• Skill Table Activity
• Proving Fit
• Getting Through ATS
• Resume Don’ts
• Formatting a Resume
• Contact Information
• Resume Introduction
• Education
• Relevant Experience
• Optional Sections
• Activity
Agenda • Resources
Writing a Resume
Resume Targeting
• Target and tailor your resume for every
application you submit
• Embed and incorporate key words, skills and
terminology from the job posting by identifying
the core components of a job posting:
• Purpose: one or two paragraphs describing
the company, its values and recent
achievements
• Responsibilities: what you should expect to do
on a daily, monthly and yearly basis on the job
• Requirements: the skills the employer is
seeking in the ideal candidate

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Reading a Job Posting
1. Identify the key skills from the job posting: in a single
posting you can identify multiple skills for the best
candidate
a) Soft skills are highlighted in green
b) Hard skills are highlighted in blue
2. Use your resume introduction to highlight a
combination of soft and hard skills from the posting
3. Use your education section to highlight courses or
projects which helped you develop knowledge relevant
to the posting
4. Use your relevant experience section to describe how
you have used skills or gained experiences relevant to
the posting

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Creating a Skill Table
Soft Skills
- Strong analytical skills and communication skills
(required)
- Exceptional problem solving skills (required)
- Attention to detail, organization, ability to multi task
and time management is critical (required)
- Presentation skills: experience explaining concepts
to others (nice to have)
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Hard Skills
- Proficiency in MS Office, particularly Excel
(required)
- Experience in email marketing platforms
(SalesForce Marketing Cloud or similar) (nice to have)
- SQL and other programming skills (nice to have)
- Experience in digital marketing with broad
understanding of industry best practices (nice to
have)
Proving Your Fit: The Job Application Venn Diagram
1. Identify the desired skills and experiences based
on your reading of the job posting Skills and
2. Determine which skills and experiences you have Skills and experiences
from your studies, work and volunteering experiences from your
3. Compare the skills and experiences to discover from the job studies,
the commonalities between the two posting work and
4. The commonalities are known as your fit: think of volunteering
this as your compatibility for the role (roughly 60-
80% match is appropriate)
5. You won’t be able to fit everything into your Your fit (skills and experiences
application, so determine which skills and which match you to the role)
experiences help you stand out
Your application (what you
highlight and submit)

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Using a Skill Table to Determine Fit
Acquired Soft Skills
- Strong analytical skills and communication skills
(required)
- Exceptional problem solving skills (required)
- Attention to detail, organization, ability to multi task
and time management is critical (required)
- Presentation skills: experience explaining concepts
to others (nice to have)
Acquired Hard Skills
- Proficiency in MS Office, particularly Excel
(required)
- Experience in email marketing platforms
(SalesForce Marketing Cloud or similar) (nice to have)
- SQL and other programming skills (nice to have)
- Experience in digital marketing with broad
understanding of industry best practices (nice to
have)

• Based on your personal assessment of your skills, you determine you meet 6/8 criteria
• You feel confident with 4/4 of the required skills
• You feel confident with 2/4 of the nice to have skills
• Overall, you are 75% fit for this role (well within the 60-80% threshold)
• Start to craft your targeted resume based on the 6 skills you feel most confident with

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Getting Through ATS
• More and more nowadays, companies of all sizes are using
applicant tracking software (ATS) to assess job applications
• This means an algorithm is accepting or rejecting your resume
and cover letter before a human ever sets eyes on it
• If the algorithm cannot read your application, you will have a
harder time landing an interview
• The KISS principle (keep it simple, stupid): a clean and simple
resume and cover letter will never go out of style
• Things to avoid:
• Lots of colour
• Text boxes and circles
• Icons and clip art
• Lines
• Photos and shapes
• Anything made in a design program (Canva, InDesign, etc.)

10 TikTok Video: “Keep it simple and traditional if you’re applying through an ATS!”
Resume Don’ts
• Don’t use a template you found online or resume-building software
• Don’t send out the same generic resume en masse
• Don’t use a generic objective to introduce your resume
• Don’t limit yourself to paid experiences
• Don’t just describe tasks you completed
• Don’t write in paragraphs or complete sentences
• Don’t focus heavily on skills which are not mentioned in the job posting
• Don’t include “references available upon request” at the end of your resume
• Don’t exceed 2 pages for your resumé unless it is an academic CV

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Formatting a Resume
Contact Information
EXAMPLE STUDENT
4700 Keele St, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 (555) – 555 – 5555
examplestudent@gmail.com LinkedIn | Website | Blog

• Place your contact information in the header of your resume to save space, rather than placing it
in the body of the document
• Use a professional personal email address (your my.yorku.ca email address expires after you
graduate)
• happystudent99@my.yorku.ca ❌
• firstname.lastname@gmail.com ✓
• Instead of including the full URL for your online materials, hyperlink them like this:
LinkedIn | Website | Blog

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Resume Introduction
• Resume introductions serve 2 purposes:
1. Allow your resume to gain extra traction with Applicant Tracking Software thanks to the additional
inclusion of key words
2. If a human being eventually reads your resume, they will likely only read the resume introduction
• Use 4-6 bullet points to express your fit for the role you are applying to:
• 1 point about your student status and relevant knowledge you have acquired through your studies
• 1-2 points about your hard skills including technical expertise and software proficiency
• 1-2 points about your soft skills targeted specifically to the soft skills from the job posting
• While this section appears at the top of your resume, it should be the final section you prepare in
the resume writing process (it acts as an executive summary of the key points in your resume)
• Do NOT introduce your resume with a generic objective statement

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Resume Introduction Example

EXAMPLE BREAKDOWN
HIGHLIGHT OF QUALIFICATIONS
• 4th year Information Technology student with • 1 point about your student status and relevant
knowledge of machine learning, predictive knowledge you have acquired through your studies
modeling methodology, and data analytics tools
and techniques
• Proficient in Microsoft Office suite including Azure • 1-2 points about your hard skills including
for the purposes of building, testing, deploying, technical expertise and software proficiency
and managing applications
• Independent worker with the ability to self-
motivate as demonstrated in my experience as a
• 1-2 points about your soft skills targeted
freelance software specialist
specifically to the soft skills from the job posting
• Ability to communicate results to various
audiences developed through working in customer
service for 2 years

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Education
• The Education section of student resumes tends to go underutilized (misconception that
academic experience does not count as valid experience)
• Your Education section allows you to highlight specific skills and knowledge you have acquired
through your studies
• When formatting the Education section, consider including:
• Full name of your degree and program
• Start date and expected date of graduation
• Institution of study and where it is located
• Awards and achievements gained through academic achievement or student involvement
• GPA, cumulative or major (only include if a B+ or higher)
• Courses or projects which allowed you to develop relevant skills and knowledge
• Do NOT include a long list of courses you have completed (course titles do not contribute to
Applicant Tracking Software and most student job postings already require academic
transcripts)

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Education Example
EXAMPLE
EDUCATION
Honours Bachelor of Education, French and Social
Sciences | 2018 - 2022
York University, Toronto, ON
• Received Entrance Scholarship (2018) and
Continuing Student Scholarship (2019-2021) for
strong academic performance (GPA: 8/9)
Relevant course: Teaching French at the
Intermediate/Senior Level
• Gained experience preparing lesson and unit plans
to improve French language proficiency for
students in grades 7-12
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BREAKDOWN
• Full name of your degree and program
• Start date and expected date of graduation
• Institution of study and where it is located
• Awards and achievements gained through
academic achievement or student involvement
• GPA, cumulative or major (only include if a B+ or
higher)
• Courses or projects which allowed you to develop
relevant skills and knowledge
 Additional Resources
Relevant Work Experience • Accomplishment Statements and Action Verbs

• You can format your experience sections in your resume however best represents your profile
• Consider titling this section “Relevant [Discipline] Experience” to include paid or unpaid
experiences which helped you to develop specific skills, ex. Relevant Accounting Experience
• Include:
• Title of the role you held
• Start and end date
• Name of the company and location
• Accomplishment statements, which can be formatted as follows…

Action Verb What You Did Result/Skill

Presented findings on financial analysis in front of using my strong oral communication
over 100 classmates skills
Action Verb Result/Skill What You Did
Developed strong oral communication skills by presenting the findings of my
financial analysis to my classmates

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Identifying Accomplishments
Consider situations where you:
• Made an impact
• Increased efficiency/saved time
• Took initiative/did something beyond your role
• Satisfied clients/students/supervisors
• Improved a process or product
• Received positive feedback from clients or supervisors
• Overcame a challenge
• Received additional responsibilities for high performance
• Pro-tip: When in doubt, highlight a skill you used, gained or developed

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Relevant Work Experience Example

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Other Relevant Experience
• You can format your experience sections in your resume however best represents your profile
• Other Relevant Experience should include any roles (whether paid or unpaid) which are not
directly linked to your discipline, but helped you to develop soft skills
• Follow the exact same formatting as the “Relevant [Discipline] Experience” section

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Additional Information (optional)
• Think of this section as your skill/experience “parking lot” – a space to include additional skills,
knowledge and interests you have which are not crucial to the posting
• Consider sharing information about additional software proficiency, languages, instruments,
sports, etc.
• You never know what will resonate with an employer/interviewer, you could end up bonding over
something in your Additional Information section
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
• Programming Languages: Advanced proficiency in HTML, Java, C++, and Python
• Other Software: Experience using Adobe Photoshop for personal design purposes
• Languages: Advanced English and French fluency, learning Spanish during weekend classes
• Instruments: Played piano for 5 years and formally recognized through the Royal Conservatory
• Sports: Competed in recreational soccer and hockey leagues for the past 2 years

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Accomplishment Statements – Activity
Highlight of Qualifications
• 4th year Bachelor of Commerce student with a focus in Marketing with knowledge and experience with digital marketing
standards
• Proficient with Microsoft Office suite, particularly using Excel formulas and pivot tables to manage client data
• Organized individual who can explain concepts to others developed through working as a barista for over 2 years
Education – verb + what you did + skill OR verb + skill + what you did
Honours Bachelor of Commerce, Marketing | 2018 – 2022
York University, Toronto, ON
Relevant course: COMN 2000 Introduction to Digital Marketing
• Developed knowledge of digital marketing standards through research projects related to current practices in the field
• Compiled a database of client information including audience reach, interaction ratios and follower counts using Excel
software (set array formula, mathematical formulas, etc.)
Experience – verb + what you did + skill OR verb + skill + what you did
Barista | 2018 – Present
Starbucks, Toronto, ON
• Improved upon ability to stay organized and multi-task through handling various customer requests and fulfilling them
in a timely manner
• Regularly explained new and existing menu offerings to customers in a way that was accurate, clear and friendly
towards the clients
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Resume Resources
• Liberal Arts & Professional Studies Resume Resource
• University of Ottawa Chronological Resume Resource
• University of Toronto Resume Writing Toolkit
• York University Career Centre Resume Resources
• Sample Resume: Human Resources
• Sample Resume: Sociology
• Sample Resume: Accounting
• Sample Resume: Marketing
• Sample Resume: Linguistics
• Sample Resume: Social Sciences

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Questions?

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