Career Prep

NACE Definition: Proactively develop oneself and one’s career through continual personal and professional learning, awareness of one’s strengths and weaknesses, navigation of career opportunities, and networking to build relationships within and without one’s organization.

Reflection Questions:
• What strengths do I use in my day to day responsibilities?
• What skills or knowledge have I gained that will help me in my future position and career goals?
• How have I advocated for myself, my team, or customers in the workplace?

NACE Definition: Clearly and effectively exchange information, ideas, facts, and perspectives with persons inside and outside of an organization.

Reflection Questions:
• How have I articulated my thoughts and ideas to my supervisor and team?
• How well do I speak to students and guests who frequent my program area?
• How have I performed in written reports of usage of facilities?
• Am I thorough in expressing my ideas, directions, and requests both orally and in written communications?

NACE Definition: Identify and respond to needs based upon an understanding of situational context and logical analysis of relevant information.

Reflection Questions:
• When did I have to think quickly on my feet to resolve an issue or make a decision?
• When did I approach a situation to make it more efficient and effective?
• How did I weigh the pros and cons of a decision and what was the result moving forward?
• How have I used former knowledge about RecSports to enhance the guest, employee, or overall user experience?

NACE Definition: Demonstrate the awareness, attitude, knowledge, and skills required to equitably engage and include people from different local and global cultures. Engage in anti-racist practices that actively challenge the systems, structures, and policies of racism.

Reflection Questions: 
• To what extent have I diversified my social circles and intentionally learned from or advocated for people from diverse backgrounds?
• How have I protected, affirmed, or valued someone from a historically underrepresented group while at work?
• In what ways does my role in RecSports help promote inclusion from all groups?

NACE Definition: Recognize and capitalize on personal and team strengths to achieve organizational goals.

Reflection Questions:
• How have I exhibited leadership in my role with RecSports?
• How have I used my influence to motivate others to collaborate and complete a task?
• What interpersonal skills have I gained to coach fellow team members or guests who frequent our facility?

NACE Definition: Knowing work environments differ greatly, understand and demonstrate effective work habits, and act in the interest of the larger community and workplace.

Reflection Questions:
• What values or habits do I hold that help keep me personally accountable when working?
• What impact does my non-verbal communication have on my professional work image?
• How have I held myself accountable to mistakes I’ve made in the past and how have I grown from that experience?

NACE Definition: Build and maintain collaborative relationships to work effectively toward common goals, while appreciating diverse viewpoints and shared responsibilities.

Reflection Questions:
• How have I intentionally immersed myself in building relationships with fellow employees and student guests who were different than myself?
• Describe a time when I managed conflict between myself and another employee. What was the result?
• Describe a time when you helped resolve a conflict between two or more employees that did not necessarily include you. What skills did I learn in the process?
• What role do you play on a team?

NACE Definition: Understand and leverage technologies ethically to enhance efficiencies, complete tasks, and accomplish goals.

Reflection Questions:
• What platforms, software, and technology do I use for my job?
• How have I used technology to make things more efficient and effective for my role?

An obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions (via Merriam-Webster). Holding yourself and others accountable is an important part of being a leader. This means having conversations with team members when they do something wrong as well as being upfront about your own mistakes. This is essentially the ability to take responsibility for yourself and your team members.

Good leaders can readjust to changes in the workplace, which means being able to be aware of changes and updates that continue to happen throughout your job. Changes in processes and policies can happen at any time, and it is important to be able to still work just as efficiently when these happen (Via Indeed).

Belief in oneself — that one can meet life’s challenges and succeed — and the willingness to act accordingly. Being confident requires a realistic sense of one’s capabilities and feeling secure in that knowledge. One way a leader can build confidence is to strive to be excellent and not perfect (Via Psychology Today).

The ability to think about a task or a problem in a new or different way, or the ability to use your imagination to generate new ideas. Creativity enables you to solve complex problems or find interesting ways to approach tasks. If you are creative, you look at things from a unique perspective. You can find patterns and make connections to find opportunities (Via Indeed).

The capability to be trusted or relied on by others (via Merriam-Webster). This means that anyone on your team can look to you and know that you will be able to get the job done. This is important for a leader, because a leader is typically the person looked to regarding being dependable.

The ability to efficiently managing your time, workload and resources. Organizational skills are competencies you can use to establish structure and order in your daily life. They can help you work more efficiently and effectively and, as a result, increase your productivity and performance (Via Indeed).

The process of finding solutions to difficult or complex issues. In problem solving, leaders should use critical thinking, have transparent communication and help people be open minded (Via Oxford Languages).

The ability to use one’s time effectively or productively. Leaders can more effectively manage their time by delegating tasks. Also, proper time management will allow leaders to multitask more (Via Oxford Languages).

The desire or determination to work hard on tasks or duties. This will help ensure positive relationships within the workplace, with coworkers and superiors. This shows that you are willing to work and learn along the way (Via Merriam-Webster).

• Type of font
  • Serif font: “with feet” is recommended
  • Example: Times New Roman
• Written name
  • Make the name bigger than the contact information (typically size 18pt font)
  • Small caps in font settings
• Email address
  • Use common email address, move away from UFL email to personal email
• Eliminate white space as much as possible
• Put all information for contact section on one line and use “ | ” to create separation between contact information
• Recommend using same header on resume and cover letter

• Recommend using one if your resume will be scanned quickly
• Not recommended if using a cover letter

• Education
  • Goes first unless you have been out of school/ working for 10+ years
•  Experience
  • Reverse chronological order
    • Put categories with the most relevant information at the top
•  Awards, Volunteer, Leadership, Skills, Certifications
  • Include organization name, exact title of the certification, date obtained
  • Remember to include CPR certification

• Strong action verb + what you did + why it matters
• Prioritize bullet points
• Include quantities, percentages, and numbers to show scope
• Keep verbs in present tense because it reads better
• Reference job descriptions to articulate
• Do not include periods
• Don’t include parentheses unless it is an abbreviation and has already been defined
• Always keep statement past the halfway point on the page, don’t let the line have few words

• Save resume as LastnameFirstname_Resume
  • May include position title, but better to be name only
  • Save as a PDF

• Page numbers are great, but include total number of pages as well (Page X of total)
  • Not necessary to include page numbers on the first page
• Double dash advocate “–”, on Word will create a long dash
• Tailor bullet points to job description of promotion position
• Keep older positions
• Keep all positions in promotions progressions, may take away the descriptions from entry-level as moving through