Resume writing advice from an urban planner, to young urban planners

So I was having a discussion with some friends of mine, and we were discussing the trials and tribulations of the job hunt.  I noticed something among our conversations that was a similarity:  we had to do a significant resume update before we started getting some headway.  Personally, I realized that a lot of resume writing techniques don't really tell you what exactly to say on a resume that planners look at, and this can sell a planner short.  So, I thought I would give a rundown of the tips I learned, to maybe help some people along.  

Now before I go into steps, let me lay out some preliminary work you need to do:  GET EXPERIENCE.  Now you might be of the mind: well I need to get a job so I can get experience.  Um no, you don't.  The planning field has 2 levels of ways to get experience without having a "job" job.  Planning volunteer interns, which are typically unpaid, and paid planning interns, which are basically planning apprenticeships.  If you have no experience at all, contact your local City or country planning department, transit agency, housing nonprofit, school district facilities development department, economic development department.  First ask if they have paid planning internships, if they don't, ask about unpaid internships, and if not, see if you can just come in and volunteer.  I have always been a big believer in doing paid internships if possible.  The reason being, if you are in the public sector side of planning, they typically make you take the oath of office, and therefore you have the potential to do everything that other staff members do.  Volunteer and/or unpaid interns in the public sector are typically limited in what they can do officially.  However, I am also of the opinion that you need to go where you can get the most experiences, and challenging level of work, so if that is unpaid, or not, so be it.  Also, diversify your experience, otherwise, in a tough job market, the only jobs you can get experience in are what your internships are in.  I learned this the hard way, as when I was out of school, I hoped to get experience in transportation, but all my experience was in land use and development, so I didn't have a chance, but while it was unfortunate, I am happy I found work at a multi-faceted firm(sorry if this is long winded and repetitive to my other posts).

Ok, so now that you have some experience ;), here are some tips.

Read the job description.  In my experience, planning job descriptions and postings give a good clue on the job requirements that they will need.  The technical knowledge that will you need, and what roles and functions that you will need to fulfill.  Sure, there will be additional things not on the job description, but your resume better have some things in there that are similar to what they are looking for.

Know your audience.  I might sound like I am reciting Dr. Mitchell's URP 351 class here (cal poly pomona students will get the reference), but you need to get a good clue on who is going to review your resume.  Big firms like AECOM have big HR departments, who use all that resume reviewing software for key words, etc.  In Los Angeles County, you have 88 different cities, which means 88 different HR departments, and 88 different ways of looking at applicants.  For example, some HR departments will not include the planning staff in application/resume review until after they have filtered the undesirables out, others allow planners in the process earlier. Small and medium firms will give the resume reviewing task to a supervisor, or a professional or senior professional who reports to the supervisor.  So if you are dealing with HR professionals, your resume should include more flowery HR specific wording to get past an HR screener, but still make sense to a planner who will eventually make a hiring/interview decision.  If your sending a resume that you know will be reviewed by a planner initially, go with a more direct writing style that conveys your experience in a direct manner.  As part of knowing your audience, really understand the organizations you are dealing with.  For example, some cities can have what I call elitist HR policies, weighing a candidate from a ivy league school, more than someone with who has some experience.  In some cities, you are dealing with staff and HR reviewers who are handling multiple recruitments, so responsiveness can take time, as well as their ability to give your application/resume full consideration, and vice versa with a small city that doesn't do many recruitments.  

Mentally catalog all your experience.  Make sure you are mentally present to know the work that you did at the jobs that you do.  Also, be prepared to answer questions about what you put on your resume.  Personal story that probably torpedoed me in a job interview, I put down that I had participated in preparing a grant application for historic preservation.  In 5 years, never got asked a question about it, so never really thought about it much, and frankly forgot about the experience, well low and behold, someone finally did, and my response was "is that on there"....needless to say, not good.  It might be a good idea to have a super long, detailed resume of all your experience, which you can edit and condense based on what the job calls for.  

Upsell your experience/don't sell yourself short.  If you are doing experience as an intern, paid or not, in the field of planning, your work is important, whether you understand it or not.  An internship is meant to teach you the bare bones of the job you will eventually do, and the stigma of the word internship, and the feeling that much of the work you do is grunt work, is incorrect.  This stigma can cause a person to downplay the wording of their experience, and this doesn't look good on a resume. For example, if a planner at a City gives you as an intern, the responsibility of reviewing a set of plans, and double checking the plans to make sure the information the architect listed is correct versus code requirements, such as number of parking spaces, setbacks, etc. a downtrodden explanation of this experience might be "Reviewed plans for project data and information".  However, a better description might be "Reviewed project plans for adherence to the City's development standards and guidelines". 

Ignore non-planning experience if you can't draw a nexus to planning.  Sure we all do non planning gigs to pay the bills, the thing is, while you should include that experience, you got 1, maybe 2 pages to show what you got to a potential employer, don't include much about them.  I worked 10 years at In-n-out burger, in that job I would help manage shifts of 15+ people, cooked customers food, and other things.  However, none of that relates to planning, so when I give my resume to potential employers, I either don't show that experience, or only mention the customer service aspect, since as a planner who works the counter, that experience is the most valuable to what I do today.  

I might update this with any more insights that come to me, but hope it helps.