There are 6 major sections that your resume USUALLY needs.
But what you’ll actually need depends on the actual application process that that particular company uses.
So the first thing you have to know about successful job applications is that you need a master, baseline resume with all your static unchanging information that you will then adapt to each application and job description.
While most people only think about resumes the moment they actually need it.
I would advise that you start practicing writing resumes and get into the habit well in advance.
The first two areas that are quite solid and unchanging are your contact info and your education.
Let’s start with your contact info.
I have a whole article written about your contact info.
This is an undervalued area of the resume and you only realize that once you get into applying for jobs.
It deserves its own dedicated time to sort all that out, but once it's done, its done and you can reuse it over and over again.
Another section of your information that can be one and done is your education.
Follow the format of: where, when and what you studied. And your good to go. For a lot of you that will be your university degrees.
Note that I did not begin this process by looking for a pretty resume template. We need to have our content sorted out first then we can worry about how it will look when it all comes together.
This is a major temptation when it comes to creative careers such as fashion. I’m not suggesting you submit an ugly or boring resume, but that part is secondary. And is only impactful if it is in conjunction with good content.
Now we are getting to the part that is more customizable.
To make your own job search a little easier, you should have a more focused 1, 2 maximum 3 job titles you’re targeting. The more similar the roles the better so that when you need to customize your resume there is a lot more you can reuse.
Your headline can basically be your job title.
For this video, we will use a fashion stylist job title/headline.
This is the point where you want to study the job description to know what you actually need to write in your resume.
So now, lets look over at a real job description to see what that looks like.
One of my personal tricks is to copy and paste the job description into a word document so I can easily study and highlight keywords.
If you don’t know what key words are, those are the specifics of that job description.
For example...
Once you have a pretty good idea of what the job description is about now you want to work on your experience section.
Putting down the basics of job title, company and location is easy enough.
Now think about all the relevant things you did in that role that relates to what they are asking about in this role.
But this is the problem, you’ve never had a job before. Or you have but it was unrelated like serving coffee at Starbucks.
What do you do then?
We will highlight your actual strengths like relevant education and push those sections closer to the beginning of the resume and then also go for low hanging fruit so to say like internships and jobs with low requirements and use that to get your foot in the door and get your name and time associated with your industry field, company and role of choice.
REMEMBER AT this point we are just gathering all the bits that will go into the resume so if you really have zero experience, it’s fine. Everyone has to start somewhere.
Also think of this phase as an assessment to see how you actually rank against real life job requirements of roles you’re interested in.
Next up we have the skills section, which we can also put together from studying the job description. You really only need a top ten.
Another really important asset you gain by studying job descriptions well before you need to be applying for jobs, and when I say well before I mean like as in while you are picking what courses you will study, you have already started familiarizing yourself with what you will need for certain jobs so that you can learn those skills either as part of your degree or even independently.
For example, no one really thinks that Excel is a skill you’ll need for fashion, but for roles that analyze data like as a fashion buyer you’ll need it.
Or to be a fashion designer, you might be surprised that studying graphic design will serve you a lot better than studying fashion. Shocking I know.
So it might serve you really well to lets say every month study a job description or two, see what job titles are popping up. See what skills and the kind of experience they consider relevant. So that you are better and better prepared for your own job/internship search.
And then lastly, let’s make you a summary. A lot of people with no obvious experience will feel like they cannot or should not create a summary for themselves. They would rather and are often advised to create an objective. Something that sounds like... Seeking employment with….
With or without experience, you want to use your summary to tell the employer what you bring to the table.
With no experience, you’re likely to rely heavily on your education and training.
That might be a relevant degree. If not, a degree that might be your completed high school education. If not that there might be some short course or micro learning.
But you will also want to look to your transferable skills that you could have learned anywhere like during school or an unrelated job like teamwork, time management and basic or advanced computer skills.
If you still feel that there are too many gaps in your resume when applying for roles you actually want, then now you know what skills and experiences you have to acquire and you can actually start working towards those.
In any case, now that we have collected all our information, let’s start arranging our information into a resume.
Another thing you're not really told about job applications is you will need 2 versions of your resume.
One that is just all text that can be easily copied and pasted into a template or whatever system the company uses.
And then the actual pretty one in a template.
Below is the plain text version of your resume...
HEADLINE
Fashion stylist
SUMMARY
Fashion stylist with excellent ability to work with a team and follow instructions in a professional environment. Currently enrolled in/graduated with BA Fashion from XXX university. Available/accustomed to work(ing) 8 hour shifts.
SKILLS
· Fashion styling
· Stockroom management
· Knowledge of trends and designers
· Customer service
· Teamwork
· Point of sales
· Cash handling
· Lift up to 30 lbs.
· Social Media
· Merchandising
EDUCATION
Name of Fashion School
Dates of study
Course studied
Relevant modules studied
· Supply chain management
· Merchandising planning and buying
· Fashion promotion
EMPLOYMENT>> CAMPUS ENGAGEMENT/WORK
· Undergraduate student ambassador
· 2 years tutor 12th grade Fashion and textiles
· 3 years Barista at Starbucks