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Continued from Main Page: Your Resume...

Your Resume isn't just another piece of paper. It serves as an extension of you, and lends power to your career endeavors. Over the years we have seen many applicants make the mistake in assuming their resume speaks for itself. Even if this was not a flawed plan, too often, the resume is not written well enough to accomplish even that. Your resume will often impact your career progression, your wage growth, and simply your chances to be seen by a recruiter or manager.

Here are a few tips that will help you build the "right" resume:

1. Your resume should be "clean" in appearance, uncluttered, with information easily located.
   
2. Does your resume pass the 30 second rule? Employers are often inundated with resumes. Picture someone posting a job announcement for their company (usually a small office). Picture this person overwhelmed in just a matter of days with hundreds (sometimes more) of responses. They won't be interested in reading a book, and if there are any turnoffs with your resume you can forget being called. The employer should have the following impression within 30 seconds: Name and phone number located, resume neat in appearance (they will assume this will translate to your work - at least on paper), your career background and skill set easily identified and understood, and a strong understanding of what it is you are applying for. If your resume is compared with hundreds of other applicants, how does it fair?
   
3. Your resume should match a job announcement before you send it to an employer. Review the "Targeted Resumes" section on this web site.
   
4. Your font should be consistent (Times New Roman, Arial, Garamond) 11 or 12 point font for text. You should bold headings appropriately. Suggested size for your name is 16 pt font. Many applicants make the mistake of "over-stylizing" their resume with too much italic, bold, underlining, and so on. Think conservative, consistent, professional and clean in appearance.
   
5. Make sure you list your phone number and email address (it should be professional, and you should have a personalized but professional voicemail. An employer's pet peeve is calling someone only to get loud music, inappropriate comments and sometimes, no voicemail at all). Your goal is to make things easy for an employer. Think about first impressions. If you were in their shoes, what would you want to see? And for goodness sake, dump the "please enjoy the music while your party is reached" voice message. I don't want to enjoy your music; I want to know if you are the one we need. There have been times in the past where recruiters (including myself) have hung up before leaving a message.
   
6. Your work history should only include the following: Name of company, job title, City and State, dates of employment, and 3 to 5 sentences (with bullets often preferred) describing what you did for a company (information that would matter to a recruiter or manager trying to see if your resume matches their need). Sometimes, depending on what you are applying for, you may want to list a few accomplishments with each position, in addition to tasks that mention keywords posted in the job announcement.
   
7. Keep it Relevant. That means a resume that contains only information to match a job announcement. If you have a lot of work history or have a professional background, it is likely that you will have a two page resume. Don't stick to this idea that your resume must be shrunk to one page. However, view your resume as a summary of information. You can always bring a more in-depth resume to the interview. Put simply, your resume is a marketing tool. It's designed to get you noticed, and get you called to an interview. After that, you must sell yourself.
   
8. Have many people review your resume (details matter). Are there spelling errors, punctuation errors or grammar errors? If you are applying for a position in which you would use a computer on the job, and in which typing would matter, your resume must be perfect, without question. As many people review your resume keep in mind you are going to get different opinions. That's normal. If you don't get any hits on it, change it up. But don't make the mistake of passing everything by a committee or it will freeze your job search in its tracks. Be active!