Professional Training

        Listing your professional training offers one of the best opportunities to demonstrate that you are up to date in your field. If you lack the typical degrees held by people in your field, training can show that you’ve worked hard to compensate for that fact, so use training to sell yourself.

        It is generally best to separate education from training. Training usually includes seminars and workshops, but can also include college courses taken to help you perform better in your field, but which are not part of a degree program. Seminars include those sponsored by your employer and those offered by outside consulting firms at your place of employment. You should also list seminars and workshops you’ve attended away from your place of employment, paid for either by yourself or your employer. Even if you have received college credit for such courses, you would normally include them under training rather than education. Glance at the example below and you’ll see why it’s a good idea to separate training from education.

        EDUCATION

            Total Quality Control, Rainier Group (24 hours) 1999
Terminating Employees, Human Resources Inc. (8 hours) 1998
B.A. ‑ Business, University of Colorado 1992
Supervising Difficult Employees, Townsend & Assoc. (10 hours) 1991

        If you hold a degree, you want the reader to spot that fact instantly. In the example above, the B.A. is hidden by the seminars. It would look better this way:         

        EDUCATION

            B.A. ‑ Business, University of Colorado 1992

        PROFESSIONAL TRAINING

            Total Quality Control, Rainier Group (24 hours) 1999
Terminating Employees, Human Resources Inc. (8 hours) 1998
Supervising Difficult Employees, Townsend & Assoc. (10 hours) 1991

        Listing workshops and seminars can help demonstrate your professional growth. But as valuable as seminars are, be selective about those you choose to include—be sure they are relevant. If you took a course in estate planning, but that knowledge will be of little or no value for the job you’re seeking (restaurant management, say), it’s better to leave it out.

        Usually you should state the seminar title, the name of the organization that put it on, and the year you attended. If most of your seminars lasted a half day or more, it would be useful to show the number of hours spent in class. If your company sent you to seminars in different cities, it can be beneficial to list those cities. It demonstrates that your company thought highly enough of you to invest in out‑of‑town workshops.

        Some seminars have catchy titles that really don’t describe their content. If “Make The Most Of Yourself” was really about time management, it should be written as: “Time Management, Simms and Associates (1989).” Feel free to alter seminar titles so the reader will understand their content. Review the following:

        MANAGEMENT SEMINARS

            Managing People, Harvard Business Workshop, four days (1999)
Motivating Employees, Bob Collins & Associates, two days (1996)
Management and Human Relations, California Institute of Technology,    
    124 hours (1994)

        SEMINARS

            Financial Management for Closely Held Businesses, 40 hours,
    Bank of America (2000)

            Construction Cost Improvement, 20 hours, Nevett & Associates(1998)

            Scheduling, CPM, 20 hours, Nevett & Associates (1996)

            Real Estate Syndication, 10 hours, NW Professionals (1994)
Construction Estimating, 30 hours, Lake Washington Vo‑Tech (1992)

            Closing the Sale, 12 hours, Roff & Associates (1991)
Goal Setting/Richer Life, 18 hours, Zig Ziglar (1990)

        Normally, training would be listed right after education. The two just go together. If your training section will take up more than eight lines, however, it is usually best to put your training at the end of the second page. One guiding principle is that you usually want to get at least your most recent job on page one and preferably at least two jobs. If your training section would allow you to get only part of your most recent job on page one, it is probably best to move training to page two.

        Some people have extremely long lists of seminars that will all help sell them. In such a case you can create a totally separate page for training and simply label it Training. Or you can label it Appendix (centered at the top, bold, and 14- or 16-point type) and then skip several lines before listing Training in bold and two points smaller than Appendix. Training would be flush left. Then list all of your seminars or trainings.

        I like labeling the page Appendix because that is a good way to let the reader know that you’ve produced a two-page resume with a one-page appendix. The word Appendix indicates that the information is being provided but that it is not essential reading. Those who are interested will quickly scan the page and those who are not will skip it. That’s okay since you’ve included it only for those who pay attention to such things.

        An alternative to a long list of seminars is the following:

        Professional Training

            Over 250 hours of classes and seminars in interviewing, hiring/firing, supervision, employee motivation, performance appraisal, interpersonal communications, COBRA administration, project management (list available by request)

You can also break up your training section into subject areas:

        PROFESSIONAL TRAINING

        Computers/Programming

            Microsoft Access, Catapult, Inc., 32 hours  (1998)

            Microsoft Visual Basic, University of Washington, 30 hours  (1996)

            Intro to C Programming, Everett Community College, 60 hours  (1992)

            HP Basic Programming, Hewlett-Packard Education, 20 hours  (1991)

        Communication Skills

            Presentation Skills, Decker Communications, 16 hours  (1999)

            Developing Effective People Skills, 8 hours  (1997)