How to supply work experience

In this section you'll enter your relevant work experiences. If your resume is confidential, any work experience with an end date of 'present' will not be visible to Federal recruiters performing resume searches. To complete this section, enter information and click 'add work experience.

See below for additional information on selected fields:

Employee Information

Please enter the company or agency name; your formal job title (e.g., Database Administrator); start and end date; and ending salary.

Is this a Federal Civilian position?

Federal experience includes positions you have held as a civilian employee paid by an agency of the Federal government. The pay plan, series, and grade fields refer to Executive Branch competitive positions and are not mandatory fields. If your experience does not fit, simply leave those fields blank.

Active duty military members or experience working for a private contractor of the U.S. government do not qualify as Federal positions for this purpose.

Describing your duties, accomplishments and related skills can be challenging. To help you do this more effectively, take a minute to review the suggestions included below.

Focus On Your Goals

Your resume should showcase the skills you possess, and how they relate to the field you want to enter and the job(s) you are seeking. Think about your career goals. Then narrow your scope to the positions that will further those goals. Once your career goals are clear, it will be easier to describe your skills in a meaningful way.

Review Job Announcements

Before you describe your own duties, accomplishments, and skills, try reviewing relevant job descriptions. Once you have an understanding of the competencies required for the jobs you are interested in, you can relate those requirements to your own experience. After reviewing the descriptions, list your matching skills, experience, training, and education. Use words and phrases used in the announcements. Incorporate other commonly used technical terms.

Describe Your Experience

When listing your past jobs, concentrate on experiences that are relevant to your career goals and the position you are applying to. For instance, if you had a summer clerical job and you are looking to apply for a professional position, you do not need to list that job. With the exception of your current position, omit any job that does not show how your skills and experiences relate to the type of position you are seeking. Think about the projects you worked on; what your specific duties were; what you needed to know to do the job; the tools, software, or equipment you used; what you accomplished.

Include Achievements and Contributions

Did your supervisor require that you list your accomplishments for performance reviews? If so, you can use those documents as a guide. If not, try listing your accomplishments from the last five years. Focus on challenges you met, problems you solved, results achieved, and any awards, promotions, and special benefits you received. It's better to describe your accomplishments, than list your responsibilities. Writing Tips

When writing about a work experience, keep your description concise, clear and organized. Use simple sentences that cite specific examples. Name any tool, software, or equipment you used, and any specialized knowledge you acquired. Instead of saying, 'Performed the full range of project management duties for a new information system,' use concrete examples: 'Used Microsoft Project to develop timelines. Prepared budget requests; hired staff; selected vendors; negotiated contracts; designed and implemented a new UNIX client-server information system.' Use action word phrases (e.g., designed and implemented new organizational structure plan; negotiated contracts up to 90K; delivered report on waste management).

When you're finished, ask yourself the following questions:

Would someone who is not familiar with my occupational background understand the kind of work I do?
Is there nonessential information (nice to have, but not helpful in meeting mandatory qualification requirements) in what I have written?
Have I omitted any relevant experience or skills I possess that might distinguish me from other candidates if my resume reaches the desk of a selecting official?
Have I adequately described major characteristics of my occupation or background and skills that are most common to my occupation?