Free Sample Resume

Info-dense! That’s what technology has made our lives. Next time you pick up someone’s business card, count how many bits of data are included. It’s not unusual to find a cell phone number, a toll-free 800 number, a fax number, an e-mail address, a Web site listing, and a blog, and that’s just on the front of the card! Businesses provide these numbers and links to make it easy for customers to gain access to their products.

Info, info, everywhere,
Download oodles of free software!

Cell phones with e-mail help keep us in touch,
Can you chat for a text-messaging power lunch?

With Internet access and new URLs,
Customers go global to buy and sell,

Zillions of facts at the touch of a mouse,
Just plug in at airports, your work, or your house.

First PCs, then laptops, now PDAs a must,
Forgo them and risk being left in the dust.

This info-dense world can cause quite a strain,
So why can’t they make a fast chip for my brain?

Now that you are the product, take a lesson from business. Make yourself easily accessible to your “customers.” Technology makes it possible for employers and recruiters to reach you immediately, and if they can’t, they’ll find someone else. An employment agency owner tells the story of a sales manager who lost an opportunity because she was out-of-pocket too long. The candidate hadn’t promptly checked messages on her home answering machine and missed the window of time for an important first round of interviews. The candidate who ultimately landed the job was less qualified, but he was more accessible.

The following list includes 10 pieces of contact data, or “data bits,” that you might use on your résumé to make sure employers can reach you easily. Put a check mark in the box next to each of the data bits you will use in your résumé header. (Your name is a given!) Keep in mind that, on a paper résumé, your name, phone number, and e-mail address are the most important elements. If you allotted one line for every piece of information, you could take up as many as 11 lines on the résumé. Obviously, I don’t recommend using this many because it will detract from the visual appeal, make the résumé look cluttered, and steal the limited space available for the text portion of your résumé. So later I’ll show you how to combine these data bits to take up less space but still give ample contact information.

To List or Not to List Your Business Telephone Number

This is a tricky question. It can be a dilemma for confidential job seekers. If you don’t include some sort of daytime contact number, the delay the employer experiences in contacting you might just cost you your dream job. The following suggestions might help you decide whether to list your present work number:

• Definitely include your work telephone number on the résumé if your search is not confidential and your employer has no policy forbidding the acceptance of personal telephone calls.
• Do include your work number if you have a private voice-mail system that guarantees that your messages won’t be accessed by others.
• Don’t include your work number if your search is confidential and calls will be screened before they get to you.

These suggestions seem like simple advice. However, I’ve run into many people who didn’t think through the consequences of going public with their job search, only to find that a nonconfidential call to the office tipped off a coworker or boss about their search and caused work relationships to be strained (and, in some cases, terminated). If you want employers or recruiters to contact you at work and you don’t have confidential voice mail, consider providing your work telephone number in the text of the cover letter but not on the résumé. You can include it in the closing or next-to-last paragraph with words to this effect.

If you wish to contact me during business hours, please do so with a measure of discretion (any premature speculation about my departure could be advantageous to the company’s competitors). My work number is 888-8888.

The preceding sentence is effective because it lets the reader see your professionalism and respect for your current employer. It also implies that you will extend this same courtesy and professionalism to your new employer.

Other Solutions for Daytime Contacts

Human resource professionals, hiring managers, and recruiters prefer not to bring extra work home with them after putting in a long day at the office. Be thoughtful and provide a daytime contact number to make it easy to reach you. If listing your current work number on your résumé is out of the question, consider these ideas:

• For greatest accessibility, put your mobile number on your résumé and carry this phone with you regularly.
• If you don’t have a mobile phone, a less-expensive alternative is a traditional digital pager. Your caller needs only a push-button telephone to leave you a digital message, meaning a telephone number only. Nationwide or statewide pagers are available. The cost for a pager is nominal.
• If your boss or coworker questions the new contraption strapped to your belt or purse, be prepared with some innocuous comment, such as, “I just want to be more accessible to the important people in my life.”

View more at Data Bits, or Contact Info.