Resume Tips

Your resume is who you are when it comes to your job search. The following tips will help you draft a quality resume.

Resume Length

If you are just graduating, have fewer than five years of work experience, or are contemplating a complete career change, a one-page resume will probably suffice. Some technical and executive positions will require multiple-page resumes. If you have more than five years of experience and a track record of accomplishments a multiple-page resume will be the way to go.

How Much Information Should I Include

Your resume is not intended to tell your whole life story. Instead, view your resume as a marketing tool that you will draft to get just enough of the hiring manager's attention that he or she will be prompted to call you in for a personal interview. In today's marketplace employers are getting more applicants than ever. In the process of weeding out the good resumes from the bad, the first step involves a quick glance through the resumes to eliminate any candidates who clearly are not qualified. Therefore, your resume needs to pass the skim test. Ask yourself if your top credentials for this position immediately stand out, especially in the top third of the first page?

Organizing Your Resume

First things first: Make sure your name and contact information gets center stage at the top of your resume in a clearly readable font. When including an e-mail address, insure that it is professional-sounding, like yourname@email.com. Resist using another more casual address such as hotbabe@email.com. Also, check your home answering machine message. Is the message a potential employer will hear professional sounding? Does the message clearly confirm the phone number or residence name to insure the caller that he or she has reached the right number?

Research shows that we have got 10 seconds, sometimes less, to get someone's attention - whether it is in a presentation, a print ad, a commercial, or even your resume. When employers conduct that first weeding-out process of their stack of resumes, there is very little deep reading going on. Therefore, it is crucial your resume gets right to work selling your credentials. Your key selling points need to be featured at the top of the first page. For this reason, the top third of the first page of a resume is known as the "Hot Zone." The theory is that if your Hot Zone is hot enough to grab the employer's attention, he or she may continue to read the rest of your resume instead of throwing it in the dreaded "no" pile.

Using the Hot Zone

If you have experience relevant to the job requirements, place your experience section first.
If you are light in relevant work experience, but have a degree in your field, put your education section first.
If you are going into a technical field, you may want to put your computer skills section first.
You may also want to include a Professional Summary statement below your contact information on the first page.

Resume Do's and Don'ts

Do's

Feature Your Accomplishments
When including information about the positions you've held, go beyond listing the duties and responsibilities involved. Give several examples of things you did or recognitions and awards you've received in each position that demonstrates how you are an impact player. Here are twelve examples of accomplishments to include on your resume:

Increased revenues
Saved money
Increased efficiency
Cut overhead
Increased sales
Improved workplace safety
Purchasing accomplishments
New products/New lines
Improved record-keeping processes
Increased productivity
Successful advertising campaign
Effective budgeting

Customize your Resume toward the Position to which you are Applying
Dedicate the most space on your resume describing the experience or accomplishments that are most relevant to the position to which you are applying.

Proofread Thoroughly
Proofread your resume carefully and thoroughly then give it to several colleagues to get fresh perspectives on grammar, spelling, and formatting gaffes you may have missed.

Use a Plain Font and Print on Plain Paper
Use 10-14 pt. font sizes. Stylistic embellishments on your resume (while sometimes useful for careers in the creative arts) will serve only to compete in a negative way with your professional accomplishments.

Use a Telegraphic Writing Style
Eliminating the use of "I" and other personal pronouns will give your resume its most professional voice.

Keep your resume 1-2 pages in length

Include Dates
Remember to include the dates for each position listed on your resume.

Use a Chronological format, if possible
Most employers prefer to see work experience listed, job-by-job, in reverse chronological order (from most recent to most distant work experience), with important information regarding responsibilities and accomplishments listed directly under the company name and job title where they were achieved.

Eliminate Unnecessary Words
Phrases such as, "responsible for," "duties include," and the tag line "References available upon request" are already assumed by the reader.

Be concise
Ironically, one of the things an employer relishes in a resume is what is not there, like the amount of remaining white space on the page. Employers prefer formats that are bulleted and brief versus resumes that contain chunky paragraphs of text.

Be Truthful
Degrees, dates of employment and accomplishments are being verified now more than ever.

Don'ts

Don't include reasons for leaving a job on a resume
The interview is the appropriate forum to discuss these issues. Regardless of the way you word it on the resume, the reader can find a negative connotation to even the most reasonable explanation and therefore turn you down for an interview opportunity.

Don't use exact dates (8/31/03).
Months and years are sufficient.

Don't repeat yourself
If you performed similar jobs for more than one employer, use the space on your resume to distinguish the accomplishments you achieved in each position.

Don't include personal information
Remarks regarding your height, weight, physical appearance, or health, and photographs are not welcome additions.

Don't include salary information
Save it for the interview. If information is requested regarding your salary expectations, reveal in your cover letter that your salary is negotiable pending further discussion of position expectations.

Don't list High School or Grammar School information

Scannable and Online Resumes

The Scannable resume

To make candidate databases more efficient, many companies have implemented document scanners, or Optical Character Recognition (OCR) systems, to quickly scan resumes into a master database. Resumes can then be retrieved from the system using keyword searches. Here are some pointers for making your resume scannable:

Use keywords

Keywords increase your visibility in a database search. Focus on nouns rather than verbs (for example, "Webmaster" is clearer than, "in charge of maintenance, design, and security of Web Site."

Picture your resume as a huge list of keywords. Think about the ones that will get the most attention in a search

Keep it simple

In general, the most scannable resumes are also the simplest ones
Keep your text size between 10 and 14 points
Include your name at the top of every page
Put your name and contact info on separate lines
Use a space to separate slashes (1 / 00), most scanners have difficulty interpreting characters that touch one another
Use boldface type or capital letters for headings
Use discretion with italics, horizontal rules and underlines. Not all scanning programs can read these decorative elements. If you decide to use these elements to highlight your text, just make sure no characters are touching
Remove ampersands, hollow bullet points, foreign characters, currency symbols, or any other unusual graphics that the scanner may have difficulty reading
Print your resume on plain white or extremely light colored paper that is free of speckles and other decorative elements

The Online Resume

If you are going to post your resume to an online job board, you'll want a resume that is useful and user-friendly

In the world of the Web, keywords also rule.
Hiring managers also use keyword searches to harvest resumes from the internet that match specific job requirements
Develop your resume in a traditional format and then extract choice words by which a recruiter may search. Not only should these words demonstrate your skills and experience; they should also reflect the type of job you're trying to find

Cover Letters

Highlight aspects of your experience that are most useful to a potential employer.
Cover letters provide you with the opportunity to show what you know about your field and the company you're writing to.
They can explain things your resume can't:

large gaps in employment history
re-entering the job market
changing the focus of your career
moving to a city where the company is located

Your cover letter can explain these things in a positive way

Tips on Cover Letters

Wherever possible, address the person by name.

First Paragraph

Express interest in the company and or the opportunity
Reference the ad, the person who referred you, and your awareness of the company

Second Paragraph

Speak to the requirements of the ad
Pick 2-3 points where your qualifications match their requirements and touch on those in a brief manner
Address any issues regarding discontinuity of work history, or entering into a new career path

Third Paragraph

Ask for the opportunity to meet with the hiring manager to expand on your qualifications and to discuss how your experience can help the company reach their goals.

Your cover letter is one more opportunity for that hiring manager to get motivated to call you for an interview.