Resumé Tips

PREPARING YOUR FEDERAL RESUMÉ

Preparing your resumé is the first step in seeking employment with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Your resumé should reflect a summary of your personal and employment experience. There are several types of private industry resumés. It is misleading to assume that a standard resumé will land you a job with the Federal Government. Your Federal Resumé must be highly structured with specific data that may not be required when applying for jobs in the private sector. To receive proper consideration, make sure your resumé conforms to the Federal government requirements. Be sure that you address all of the following:

• Personal Information
• Work Experience
• Education
• Other Qualifications (Awards, Honors, Licenses, Certifications)

Before you start preparing your resumé to apply for jobs using , be sure to follow these simple pointers.

DO

• Develop your resumé using a word processing program such as Microsoft Word or WordPerfect.
• Use the spell checker in Microsoft Word or WordPerfect.
• Reread your resumé to double check your grammar and punctuation.
• Make sure your resumé is easy to read and understand.
• Include all appropriate dates and make sure that they are in sequence..
• Copy and paste your resumé into the system; if you need to edit it, do it in Microsoft Word or WordPerfect, then reinsert it in .
• Character limitation in for resumés is 16,000 characters including spaces (approximately 8 single spaced pages of text).
• Use the resumé “check length” button to avoid error messages.
• Address relevant experiences that coincide with questions in the job application.

DO NOT

• Try to type, edit or print your resumé in
• Use large margins and keep white space to a minimum. Use space to separate text and breaks in information appropriately.
• Use fancy fonts, bold text, unusual formats or graphics
• Exceed the character limitation

Here is a sample template ( WordPerfect format 22KB ), ( Microsoft Word format 31.5KB ) that may assist you in creating your resumé in . Following these tips will assure that your resumé meets the Federal government requirements.

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