Tips for Perfecting a Resume
Tips for Perfecting Resumes
"Success will not lower its standard to us. We must raise our standard to success." - Rev. Randall R. McBride, Jr.
When all the little details of its appearance and content are attended to, a resume leaves a memorable impression and motivates potential employers to initiate first contact. A polished resume then fulfills its purpose as a great selling tool for a job hunter's potential.
Perfecting a resume involves reviewing its overall message, organizing and wording the content, and enhancing the appearance. It takes some creative thinking and several different drafts to get it to look its best - especially if relevant experience is on the thin side, or if there are notable gaps in the employment timeline.
Following the tips below can be the equivalent of taking a resume to a day at the spa - a little investment goes a long way. Read An Effective Resume Fits Like a Good Suit
Overall Message
Wow factor - At first glance, an effective resume leaves no room for doubt - a hiring manager or recruiter says "Wow, I can't afford to let this candidate get away. They show how their skillset and experience relate to the specific job requirements, their accomplishments so far give me the impression they are serious about doing good work, and their educational background shows they take initiative to learn and grow. They've clearly thought through the creation of their resume, dotting their 'i's and crossing their 't's, giving me what I need to sell them to the hiring decision makers in the company. Even if they don't work out for this specific position, they're a shining star and I'm going to keep them in mind for other positions as well."
Positively positive - If there's ever a time to appear uplifting, enthusiastic and optimistic, it's on a resume. A smart job seeker is careful not to imply anything negative about an experience with a previous employer or school - ever.
Employers are looking for the attitude: "I'm proud of what I've accomplished in spite of the realities of work and life, and I'm going to show up to do the best job possible each day. Every day is a new opportunity to have a positive impact on myself in the current moment, the people I work with, and the people we serve. By bettering my company, I better my future."
Step in their shoes - Job hunters who can understand what it's like to be looking to hire someone are more likely to write resumes that appeal to potential employers. Job applicants who don't have hiring experience can gain some important perspective by bouncing their resume off of colleagues, family or friends who have been in the position of employer. Not only can this kind of feedback help with word choice, but it can provide insight into how a manager might value experience that didn't seem important or relevant to the employee at the time.
Resume Appearance
Short but sweet - Because most resumes only get a few seconds of viewing time, they should be easy to scan quickly to find the answer to the question, "Is this candidate worth following up with?" The reader shouldn't have to dig for gold - it should be served up on a platter. Choose bullet point lists over lengthy sentences, and always keep it to one page (unless applying for a senior-level executive position).
Down to business - No need to waste time and money using fancy resume paper - the first thing that happens when a resume is received by a recruiter or human resources professional is its scanned in or copied onto plain printer paper. Most resumes are submitted electronically through email or online forms anyway. Avoid including a personal photograph, but a very small black or gray graphic or icon (such as a scrollwork squiggle or fancy checkmark) in the top left corner can serve as a memory trigger in the mind of the reader. They then may think to themselves "Where was that resume with the checkmark at the top? I wanted to follow up on that..." Graphic designers, illustrators and photographers have more leniency, and can do something with a little more style, as long as it's understated.
Resume Organization
Get to the point - Abandon the objective statement, instead highlighting key points in a brief skill summary at the top. For example:
Skill Summary
- Over 5 years experience in human resources coordination, including benefits administration, database management and reporting, resume distribution and interview scheduling, and organization-level event planning.
- Intermediate skills in Oracle and QuickBooks. Proficient in Microsoft Office and Joomla content management system. Advanced skills in Internet research.
- Specialize in human resources handbook and training manual creation and maintenance. See www.myworksamples.com for examples.
Fill in the gaps - Red flags for potential employers are gaps in employment history, not seeing a steady increase in responsibility or progression along a career path, and lack of experience compared to other candidates for the same position. Using a timeline-based structure for the Professional Experience section allows for them to get a sense of the job-seeker's story from when they started working in the field until the present, and quickly note questions they have about gaps or progression.
The limitation of a timeline-based resume for the job seeker is that they may have to include non-relevant work experience in order to present a complete timeline. Therefore it's important to make non-relevant work experience relevant with some creative thinking. For example, say a recruiting professional has chosen to leave a job to work for a year at her uncle's ranch. During that time, she created flyers to tell visitors about Friday night barbecues, and led guided horseback rides where she told the guests about the history of the ranch and about all of the activities that could be done there while visiting. On her resume, the recruiter could list the employment, describing how she was responsible for creating marketing materials to promote ranch events, and promoted ranch services while being responsible for guest service.
Condense - To squeeze in lots of work experience, group similar tasks related to one job into one sentence (e.g. Oversight of all aspects of event coordination including management of three-person team.) Focus on key responsibilities that best demonstrate accomplishments and unique skills.
When several roles were occupied at the same company, they can be combined if they were similar in nature. Otherwise they should be listed separately under professional experience.
For a more detailed look at how to maximize the value of employment history, read "Making the Most of Professional Experience".Education and honors can be grouped together in their own section. Once it has been five years since receiving a degree, details of the degree can be minimized to just the type of degree, school and location (unless details of particular studies have direct bearing on a job opportunity). Honors can include scholarships, awards, membership in organizations, certifications, and unique unrelated experience such as volunteer service or community service.
Resume Wording
Accomplishment-oriented - When describing professional experience, examples of how the applicant has applied their skills to deliver results should be used consistently and regularly. For example, "Researched and proposed
open-source solutions for handling support inquiries rather than commercial solutions, resulting in a savings of over $3,000 annually." Note that accomplishments that included participation on a team should reference the team as well (e.g. Participated in a special drug prevention task force that reduced drug-related crimes in the district by over 10% within 6 months.) Providing 3-5 links to best examples of work or a portfolio, or listing diverse industries or big name employers in the Skill Summary section, can also highlight unique qualifications.Speak their language - Specific jobs have related terminologies that, when used, reveal a job seeker's knowledge about the job. When describing accomplishments, it is sometimes necessary to use these terms - especially when trying to be succinct. When preparing a resume, however, applicants should keep in mind that the person filling the position may not be the one who wrote the job description. Therefore, they may not be able to translate what skills apply to the job description and how. Whenever possible, it's important to adjust a resume using language similar to the job description before submitting it. For resumes that are not targeting specific positions, job seekers should use professional terminology only if they are confident of its meaning and usage.
Spin - Often times, job descriptions can be intimidating when compared to the actual experiences of employees - especially those seeking entry-level positions. A job seeker may not feel they have relevant experience, or may not know how to word their experience in such a way as to make it sound as good as possible. Brainstorming on a blank page all of the tasks completed on a job, and any praise or acknowledgements, is a good place to start. Then finding action verbs that describe the items in this list can help identify bullet points to include under professional experience (see "list of resume action verbs and keywords" in Resources for Polishing Resumes below). Friends or colleagues with management backgrounds can help identify experience with value for potential employers. Read Making the Most of Professional Experience on a Resume
Use keywords - Because resumes are searched online and in databases, using keywords is essential for marketing a resume. Commonly-used keywords can include:
- Software application names (e.g. Adobe Photoshop or Macromedia Dreamweaver)
- Programming languages (e.g. Java or C++)
- Industry-specific terminology (e.g. Sarbanes-Oxley or Content Management System)
- Job titles (e.g. Technical Writer or Legal Secretary)
- Certifications (e.g. Cisco Certified Network Associate CCNA or International Coach Federation's Professional Certified Coach for life coaches)
- Organizations (e.g. American Library Association or California Dental Association)
- Employers (e.g. Microsoft or Madison County Social Services)
Resources for Polishing Resumes
Note: Avoid using hyphens or slashes in keywords and keyphrases because they will not come up in as many searches (for example, business-and-financial reporter will not bring up as many results as business reporter and financial reporter, and technical/marketing writer will not produce as many results as technical writer / marketing writer). Regarding abbreviations, it is okay to use them if they are commonly-recognized within the industry (CCNA would be acceptable use under Certifications examples in the list of keywords above because most people in the industry know the value of this certification).
Proofread like a pro - Before submitting any resume, after running spell-check, take an extra minute to look at it like a grammar teacher would. Use a critical eye to question wordiness and word usage, and catch errors in tense, plurals, spacing, and punctuation. Read through the timeline and look for unexplained sizeable gaps and incorrect dates. Look for places where a little space would make it easier to read. Try reading the resume backwards, sentence by sentence, to trick the mind into looking for errors that might not be seen when reading text in context. And then ask 3 or 4 eagle-eye proofreaders to double-check it.
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