Building a Stellar Resume for Public Sector Employment

In a previous article here on GovLoop (“Prepare & Persevere: Navigating the Challenging Rivers of a Fed Gov Job Search”, March 20, 2024), I wrote how imperative proper preparation is to produce a successful public sector job search.

In this piece, I drill down on one element — arguably the most critical — of those job searches: Building and maintaining a superior resume.

An expertly crafted resume is the key to unlocking the doors of public sector employment — its sole purpose is to win you that interview — and build you a pipeline of interviews.

Characteristics of a Superior Resume

1. It tells your true career story in an honest, interesting, and ideally, compelling way.
2. It leads with a strong “Summary of Qualifications” section — bulleting your career in short-form.
3. Its “Work Experience” section includes high-level, bulleted scope-of-responsibility content.
4. It showcases your accomplishments — an abridged, bulleted list of career achievements.
5. It is visually appealing (not “hard on the eye’” hint hint to all those who love 6-point font).
6. It is organized cleanly, concisely, and is devoid of superfluous content and graphics.
7. It is user-friendly to your human Resume Reader audience, in terms of its tone and flow.
8. It somehow differentiates you from the countless other job applicants for a given role.
9. It is free of spelling, punctuation, and grammar mistakes — yes, they do, in fact, count.
10. It leverages keywords from the job posting, ensuring you are ranked high by automated applicant tracking systems.

Key Suggestions

• Resume Formatting

First and foremost, resumes used to apply to public sector positions must adhere to specific formatting expectations — if they are not listed in the specific job posting or on the agency’s career website, refer to USAJobs guidance here: https://help.usajobs.gov/faq/application/documents/resume/what-to-include

Tips:

1. Use Times New Roman 12 point black font.
2. Avoid any special graphics or other complex formatting.
3. Limit your resume to a maximum of 5 pages, and your cover letter to 1.
4. Keep content to its own row — avoid using multiple rows for a single bullet point.
5. Build a separate “Core Competencies” section; list that and the “Education” section last.

• Resume Alignment

A public sector resume should be tailored to align with the requirements of the job posting, and demonstrate your unique suitability for the role. So be prepared to build a “main resume” and use that to subsequently build customized versions of it, for each and every job that you apply to.

• Invest in Yourself

Have your resume reviewed by a professional resume writer, and if necessary, rewritten/reformatted to the expectations of your target audience. This is an investment in yourself and your career: Doctors don’t perform heart surgery on themselves — they go to a reputable heart surgeon. Do the same with your resume — it’s that important.

• Don’t Forget LinkedIn

Have your LinkedIn profile reviewed and, if needed, enhanced, also by a professional. Ensuring the profile’s content accuracy — and alignment to your resume’s content — in terms of dates, job titles, and scope of responsibility is essential, as discrepancies could raise red flags for human resume readers.

• Attention to Detail

Attention to detail is paramount when crafting a superior public sector resume. Careful proofreading and editing are vital in finalizing your new, superior resume.  

Special Note

Resumes for federal government jobs typically have a section at the top, usually in two columns right under the headline banner (your name, contact information, etc.), with no separate heading. It calls out specific data points relevant to federal consideration, including :

Left hand column:

• Citizenship                     
• Veterans’ Preference                                                                  
• Security Clearance                                                                   
• Availability
• Desired Locations

Right hand column
(this information comes directly from the job posting)

• Job Announcement
• Control Number
• Position

Jerry Cooney, “Jer” to his friends, has spent his career serving in various capacities within Human Resources and Talent Acquisition. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in HR from Cornell and is a Senior Certified Professional in HR (SHRM-SCP) and a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW).He began his career at a small firm in Manhattan and has since gone on to work with such famous names as Amazon, Siemens, General Electric, and Amtrak. Jer is originally from Islip, New York, but now calls Philadelphia home. He is a huge baseball fan.

Image by Adobe Stock