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Your one-page résumé
Build a one-page résumé a parent can read in a minute: experience, training, references, availability.
1Look
Two résumés on a fridge
Two résumés on a fridge
Two sheets pinned to a fridge: one is three pages in tiny type with a photo; the other is a single page with five headings and lots of white space.
A parent reads this while a toddler pulls on their leg. Guess which one they finish.
2The idea
What it is for
This is not a résumé for a bank. It is one sheet that answers five questions: who are you, what have you done, who says so, when can you do it, and can you handle an emergency. Everything on it is something a parent could check with one phone call.
Five headings. Name and how to reach you, and a parent’s number is fine at your age. Experience: siblings, cousins, neighbours, with their ages. Training: this course, first aid, anything else. References: two adults, not related to you, who have said yes. Availability: which nights, until what time, and how you get home.
3The idea
Writing it so it is true
Each experience line: who, how old, how often, what you did. Sister, four, most Saturday mornings, breakfast and the park. No adjectives. Training: the name, the date, who ran it. References: name, how they know you, their number, and only after they have said yes. Availability: honest, and it includes your ride-home rule.
What to leave off: your school name, because they will know it after five minutes of talking to you. Your address. A photo. Anything you would not want read out loud at a kitchen table. One page, and if it does not fit, cut the adjectives you were told not to use.
4The idea
Marcus's page
Marcus is thirteen. Experience: twin cousins, six, every other Sunday for a year, lunch, garden, bedtime once. Training: this course, and a first aid course in June with the date. References: his football coach and the mum next door, both asked, both yes. Availability: Friday and Saturday until half ten, his dad collects.
It is under a page. The parent reads it in forty seconds and rings the coach. The coach saying yes, he is reliable, is worth more than anything Marcus could write about himself. That is why the references are the part you cannot skip and cannot fake.
5Decide
Which experience line belongs on the page?
Pick one to carry on.
6Build it
Résumé builder
Résumé builder
Fill in the five headings. It warns when a reference has not been marked as asked and said yes, and it will not print until both have. Prints to one page.
It will not print with an unasked reference. That is on purpose.
7Find them
Which of these belong on the page?
Tap the ones that count.
Find all 4.
8Say it
The ask
Say this to an adult, the way you would actually ask
“Would you be OK with me putting you down as a reference for babysitting?”
You will need it tonight, for the drill. It is a smaller ask than it feels.
9Do it
Before you leave this page
Ask one adult who is not family to be a reference, in person or by message, using the line. Write their name on your page only when they have said yes.
Tick it when you have done it.
Lesson done.
One page. Nothing on it you cannot back up. Two references who have said yes.
Next lesson: Finding work safely