How to write a

QUICK AND DIRTY RESUME

And a knock-their-socks-off cover letter

I wrote this when I worked at a below-mentioned one-stop career center in Oakland; I've updated it with some of what I've learned at one in Fremont. You can use this format for any field, from line cook to Linux administrator; I've used it for all kinds of things. Note that this is a very streamlined resume. This is not because it's "quick and dirty". It's because every word on your resume should COUNT. No corporate-sounding blither-blather like "Seeking a position with room for advancement" or "Strong communication skills" or "Responsible for completing X projects on time", please. That crap is the bare minimum, the stuff both sides should be assuming is present before you even apply. Your resume doesn't get much time in front of their eyes while they skim through applicants: make it COUNT.


Take an ad…

Café Zoetrope, a well established North Beach Cafe featuring pizzas, pastas and home-style cooking is looking for an experienced line cook with a great attitude, outgoing personality and the desire to work with a great team. You should enjoy working in a high-volume, fast-paced environment while keeping good customer service at the forefront. This person will plan, prepare, and provide high quality service in all areas of food production. Maintain organization, cleanliness and sanitation of all food related work areas and equipment. 



Minimum six (6) months cooking experience with knowledge of safe food handling and preparation procedures. Must be bi-lingual English/Spanish. Food handling certificate and culinary school degree desirable. Experience in Italian style food preparation preferred. Local candidates preferred. Previous restaurant experience is required. 


Look through it for sentences about the skills and experiences they want....

Café Zoetrope, a well established North Beach Cafe featuring pizzas, pastas and home-style cooking is looking for an experienced line cook with a great attitude, outgoing personality and the desire to work with a great team. You should enjoy working in a high-volume, fast-paced environment while keeping good customer service at the forefront. This person will plan, prepare, and provide high quality service in all areas of food production. Maintain organization, cleanliness and sanitation of all food related work areas and equipment.



Minimum six (6) months cooking experience with knowledge of safe food handling and preparation procedures. Must be bi-lingual English/Spanish. Food handling certificate and culinary school degree desirable. Experience in Italian style food preparation preferred. Local candidates preferred. Previous restaurant experience is required.

Think about where you have done or learned those things....


What They Want What You Have
6 months of line cook/restaurant experience 10 years of experience as a line cook in DJ’S Diner, Tasty McCheese, and H.R. Hamburgers N Stuff
Great attitude, outgoing personality, good high-quality customer service Friendly, outgoing team player, always make sure the customer is happy
Enjoy a high-volume, fast-paced environment Regularly served 500 people a day at Tasty McCheese; love the energy and challenge of a busy restaurant
Maintain organization, cleanliness, sanitation; knowledge of safe food handling and preparation procedures I have a food sanitation certificate from Laney, and always keep my area clean and organized so that I can be as efficient as possible
Bi-lingual English/Spanish Studied Spanish in high school for 4 years; native English speaker
Experience in Italian-style food Often cook Italian dishes for myself such as pasta alfredo, as well as a few at DJ’S Diner

 

Now fill in the blanks....



____________________________ YOUR NAME (I recommend 28-point font, just and only for your name)
___________________ City, State, • __________  phone • _________________ e-mail

 

PROFILE

(Write a sentence or two summarizing your experience. You can just read the ad and describe what they are looking for, like this: “Experienced line cook with 10 years of providing wonderful customer service in high-volume restaurants." Pro tip: nowdays, I prefer to skip the "profile" part and just put a big bold line below the name and contact info that echoes what the ad is looking for. For example: "EXPERIENCED, OUTGOING LINE COOK," "FAST-PACED EXPERIENCED LINE COOK," et cetera.)

QUALIFICATIONS

 List some of those experiences you put before, and anything else you like to show off, like:  Spanish-speaking; Italian-style experience; food sanitation certificate; et cetera.

If you neded help coming up with Ways You Are Awesome, get it from a friend with more job search experience, or a paid professional, or a career center. If you went to college or are in high school, you may have access to your old/current career center. In the United States, each state is peppered with One-Stop Career Centers which surprisingly few people know about.

__________________    
__________________   
__________________   
__________________   
__________________
__________________


HIGHLIGHTS OF EXPERIENCE

List important things about your work experience here. For example:
Regularly served 500 customers per day at Tasty McCheese, up to 100 per hour during dinner rush.
One of top students in food sanitation certificate program
Highly experienced in quality customer service, with many years of experience serving hungry customers as well as cooking their food
Again, ask for help! Two heads are better than one.
__________________    
__________________   
__________________   
__________________   
__________________
__________________

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY

You do not have to list every single place that you worked. Only list relevant experience, if you can manage it.

You also don't have to list the dates you worked there; if you are concerned that you will be considered too young or too old for your field, you can just put the total years.

If you have big swathes of experience right in the middle that aren't relevant - for example, you worked in a restaurant for a few years, but then spent 15 years in the automotive industry, and limiting it to those 3 years in a restaurant would make it look like you had entered the workforce at age 45 - you can list the other job. Or you can do a combination skills- and experience-based resume, in which you briefly describe how each position was relevant to the one you want. For example:

"Team Assembler, NUMMI, 10 years.

Worked in fast-paced, high-volume environment, in the assembly of up to 1,000 cars per day."

__________________  (Job title, such as Line Cook)  __________________ (Company)  ____ - ____ (Years)

__________________  (Job title)  __________________ (Company)  ____ - ____ (Years)

__________________  (Job title)  __________________ (Company)  ____ - ____ (Years)

__________________  (Job title)  __________________ (Company)  ____ - ____ (Years)


EDUCATION


If your education is impressive or essential to the position, you may want to put it at the top of your resume. 

_________________________  (Degree or certification) (Year finished) _______________,   _______________ (School, City)

_________________________  (Another degree or certification, if you have one. If they don’t ask for any, you don’t need to put any, but you can if you think it will be helpful.)
(Year finished) ______________________________ (School, City)


And now for a cover letter – Mad Libs style!

____________________________ YOUR NAME
________________________________ Full street address
_____________________________Date


I was _____________ (great adjective, like thrilled or excited) to see your ad for a ___________ (job title) on ______________ (website). Or better yet, "thrilled when so-and-so told me of your opening for a ______. I have always admired  _______________________ (company name)'s ___________ (something nice - check out their website for something that they are excelling in), and I would love to bring my ______ (as high a number as you can come up with) years of experience to assist in your success.

Below, I have outlined the ways that my experience meets or exceeds your requirements:

(Here you just stick in the table you already made back on the first page of this worksheet! Get help in drawing a table in your word processing program. If you use something like Gmail that doesn't handle tables well, you can either re-word it as a list or save your cover letter as a PDF and attach it to a brief note along with your resume. It is a good idea to save your resume as a PDF too, because you never know what weird version of Word they might have and the different versions do not play well together at all.) 

My resume is attached. Thank you for your time; I look forward to discussing how I can add to ______'s success.

 

Sincerely,
_______________________________
(your name)
(email and phone - yes, even though you just emailed it from your own email address. Weird things can happen.)

(Now you attach your resume – again, ask for help attaching it or typing it up if you need to – and you are ready to go! Put something in the subject line like the job title, and hit send. Good luck!)

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.