If you’re applying to jobs in the federal government and private sector, you likely need to use two different résumés. A number of years ago, the federal government began accepting typical résumés — but that’s not the case across all agencies. While all federal positions are posted at usajobs.gov, you must read each job posting that you apply to in order to find out if they only accept USAJobs (read: federal) résumés, or if they will accept your regular résumé.
While it’s extra work, if you are going to be applying to government jobs, you should have a federal résumé prepared. You might come across some agencies that allow you to use your regular résumé and others that do not. USAJobs will take you through the steps to build it, and you can save it in the system and as a PDF in your files.
The biggest differences between the two types of résumés are the amount of detail and length. Much less information goes into a typical résumé, which should be no longer than one or two pages. Federal résumés can be up to five pages in length, and sometimes they’re even longer. Before you begin the federal application process, read this rundown of the specific ways in which the two types differ:
1. Contact Information: While you don’t need a full address and all phone numbers listed on your private sector résumé, the federal résumé should contain it all. You also need names and contact information of your former supervisors. These will serve as references, and you have the opportunity to add others.
2. Availability and Desired Locations: This is not part of a standard résumé. However, a federal résumé will cover the job type you seek (permanent, temporary and so on), as well as your desired work schedule (such as part time or full time).
3. Job Descriptions: On a standard résumé, you would list your organization’s name, job title, city and state and dates employed. Your federal version requires the full address of your employer, start and end dates (months and years) and hours per week.
In a private sector résumé, you use bullets to describe your work and the impact it had. The goal is to keep the résumé short, so these should be written in brief phrases. However, for your federal résumé, there is a section under each job called “Duties, Accomplishments and Related Skills.” You should expand your private sector bullets here. You can either use a paragraph format or dump bullets into categories based on the specific qualifications listed. (Note: These may change depending on the jobs you are applying to).
In both cases, you need to be cognizant of using keywords from the job posting wherever you can. In a private sector version, you weave them into bullets and throughout the résumé where appropriate. In a federal résumé, keywords usually appear before the paragraph or as the category titles for your bullets.
4. Education: In a private sector résumé, you usually don’t need to include anything except your institution, degree and major. The government wants you to add the month and year you obtained your degree, your GPA, credits earned and relevant coursework, licenses and certifications.
5. Job-Related Training: If you have taken professional development courses either in or out of the workplace, list those on both types of résumés. You should list the name of the course, institution and dates.
6. Additional Information: Normally, this would be where you list language skills, volunteer work and affiliations on a private sector résumé, as well as any specialized technical skills. On a federal résumé, this is where you can include technical skills, awards and/or a career profile that summarizes your skills (and thus increases the number of keywords in your document). You can also include anything that you want to make sure is on your résumé but that didn’t apply to the other fields available.
— Achievements and Awards: If you have honors and awards, you should, by all means, include them on both. If you feel that something is not noteworthy enough to include on your private sector résumé, it may have merit on your federal document. For example, if you’ve received performance bonuses you can list those, but that is not something you’d put on a private sector résumé.
— Language Skills: These should go on both versions. The federal one will require you to rate your spoken, written and reading ability in each language.
— Affiliations: Include these on both, if you can. If you run out of space on your regular résumé, you can include these on LinkedIn instead.
Before you spend time applying to a federal job, make sure you are eligible for it. The job description will list the qualifications, and you should make sure that your experience and education matches what they are looking for. Otherwise, you are wasting your time. The applicant tracking system software will filter you out before your application even gets the attention of a human.
Creating a federal résumé is time consuming, but it’s still a requirement for many federal job applications. It’s important to know the differences from a private sector résumé and how to make sure you stand out so that you can get through the system and land interviews.
Marcelle Yeager is the president of Career Valet, which delivers personalized career navigation services. Her goal is to enable people to recognize skills and job possibilities they didn’t know they had to make a career change or progress in their current career. She worked for more than 10 years as a strategic communications consultant, including four years overseas. Marcelle holds an MBA from the University of Maryland.
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Federal Résumés vs. Private Sector Résumés: What’s the Difference? originally appeared on usnews.com
