How To Write A Great Resume

You need to look closely at the job requirements, and then emphasize those very skills in your resume.

Keep It Short

Keep your resume short and easy to comprehend - after all, you will give a detailed explanation of it during your personal interview. Employers have to go through many résumés to find the ones they find interesting, so make yours stand out from the crowd.

A typical employer is likely to spend little more than half a minute on each resume. That's why perfecting yours is a must; it should be short, eye catching and promising enough to get them to call you.

Clearly State Your Objectives

Your objective is your 'goal statement' - it should be brief, but strong enough to keep the reader interested in reading further. Objectives should be written from the employers' perspective, detailing how your past experience, skills, and educational qualifications will benefit their organization.

Highlight Your Skills

Broadly outline your skills; keeping it brief will enable you to put your strongest points first. Include soft skills like effective communication, being a team player, and leadership qualities. Also include your technical skills, mentioning how you acquired them.

Highlight your functional area of expertise. Mention any special skills and certifications earned. All of your computer skills are important, as they indicate how versatile you are. However, list your skills sets in the order that meets profile of the position you are seeking.

Any accomplishments that you mention should be supported with documentation. Be prepared to bring proof of anything contained in your resume if you are granted a personal interview.

Unless specifically mentioned otherwise, every resume you send out should be accompanied by a cover letter. Your cover letter should be like an open window, inviting the reader to have a peek inside your professional history. It should stand out from the hundreds of other resumes that the company will probably receive.

Your cover letter should clearly state the name of company. It should also mention the position that you're applying for and how you came to find out about it. You should let the employer know why you feel you are best suited for the position and that if given the opportunity, you will do your best to exceed the employer's expectations.

KISS (Keep It Short and Sweet):

1. Make your cover letter short, sweet and relevant to the position. For example, if you are applying to an advertising firm, then include a small advertisement of your own on the cover letter. This way, you can give them some insight into how effective your advertising skills are.

2. Show your cover letter to a friend or someone with professional experience to get feedback before sending it out. Doing this will help you to pinpoint any errors that you didn't catch the first time around.

3. A generic cover letter is the kiss of death. Remember to tailor each cover letter to the company and position that you are applying for.

4. A well written cover letter indicates that you have clear thought processes and know what you want to achieve. A poorly written one will only end up in the trash along with your resume. If this happens, then you will have just lost a good opportunity.

Your cover letter should compel the reader to want to learn more about you and what you have to offer. Planning and executing a great cover letter is the first step to getting your foot in the door.

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Many job applicants worry about what to include on their resume, especially if they did not obtain a college degree. It should not be a concern, however. Only about 30 percent of adult Americans have a college degree, meaning that about 70 percent of the work force got their jobs without listing a college degree on their resumes.

A college education does not imply experience, or even skill. As long as you can focus your resume on your abilities, employers will judge you on your skills rather than your education.

While you should not leave the education section entirely off your resume - hiring managers want to see at least a high school diploma for most positions - you can put it at the end of your resume. If a section is unimportant to describing the reasons why you make an excellent candidate, leave it until the very last. List your skills, experiences, and etc. first.

If you can demonstrate that you are a reliable

ResumeMaker Career Edition

employee and have a solid work history, you can usually win out over a candidate with a degree but little else. Often, recent graduates have no work experience at all. In addition to the normal training a new employee might need, that college graduate may need further education in how to work in an office environment. However, an individual without a degree, but with plenty of experience, can often jump right into the work.

Many applicants feel like they need to explain the reasons that they didn't attend college, devoting their cover letters to the process. However, this is unnecessary. Instead, a more valuable use of your cover letter is to demonstrate how you can be an asset to your potential employer. Describe what makes you such a great candidate. Leave it for the hiring manager to realize that you are a better option than other applicants. Even worse, some applicants decide that, to be competitive, they need to embellish their resumes. However, it has become very easy to check on whether an individual graduated from a specific institute. It simply isn't worth it to embellish a resume.

Resume Maker Professional Ultimate

Most resume writers ask you only one question to determine whether you need a professional resume writer: are you getting interviews for the types of jobs you want when you submit your resume? If you aren't, most resume writers say that you need to call in the professionals.

However, a resume writer's services can be quite expensive, so you may want to consider a few other factors before hiring help.

Check if there are any basic improvements you can make. If you haven't had a chance to proofread your own resume yet, do so. Just double-checking your spelling and grammar may be enough to catch the reason that you aren't getting many callbacks.

Make sure that your resume is geared towards the type of career you want. Especially if you are changing careers, your resume may reflect skills and a work history that doesn't focus on the type of job you are looking for now. Consider making a list of the ideal abilities of someone in your dream job, and then reworking your resume to show that you have these skills.

Focus on describing your accomplishments. Your accomplishments will set you apart from other applicants, and can clearly show a potential employer why they should hire you.

If you are still having trouble, though, it may be time to seek professional help. Many resume writers can truly improve your resume and help you find the job that you want. However, keep in mind that paying a professional resume writer doesn't guarantee that your resume will land the perfect job. Instead, a good resume is just an edge in your competition with other applicants.

There are also, unfortunately, plenty of individuals who look for work as resume writers but cannot provide you with the help that you need. It can be hard to find a reliable resume writer. While professional services may seem high, using a low-priced service can actually be a problem. Extremely inexpensive resume writing services may be little more than scams. At the minimum, you want to work with a resume writer who is easy to contact, can provide you with samples of both resumes and cover letters, and provides their costs in writing ahead of time. You may also want to work with a resume writing service that offers additional services, such as job search consultation and interview preparation.

You might want to consider choosing your resume writer through PARW (the Professional Association of Resume Writers). PARW maintains a list of certified resume writers, and their certification has come to be considered the industry standard. Whether or not you work with a certified resume writer, check the reputation of the service you plan to use. Even a simple Internet search can help you determine whether you want to work with a company.

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For many job applicants, a resume just doesn't tell the full story. Instead, a portfolio, or samples of your work may better show a potential employer your skills and abilities. You might want to consider constructing a portfolio by gathering your past projects together.

In the past, portfolios were only used in considering candidates for artistic positions, like graphic designers. However, more and more careers are lending themselves to portfolios, especially as more employees must find ways to show that skills from one position will translate to another - especially if an applicant is changing career paths.

For careers that don't seem to lend themselves towards portfolios, you may have to think outside of the box. A manager might include a few numbers on how she improved a department, or some documentation of a large project she lead. A computer programmer might show off a few programs that he has written. Don't look just at projects documented on paper, either. Think about videos or Power Point presentations you may have made.

You may need to be equally imaginative when considering how you will display your portfolio. While poster board and large carrying cases might work for graphic designers, an applicant for a management position will not want to carry them around. Creating a document, however, might work better for a manager. As long as such a document is clear and easy to navigate, it can work well as a portfolio. Consider adding a table of contents and explaining the contents of your portfolio, however. A computer programmer, though, may need to burn his project to a CD or bring a laptop computer along on interviews.

Many professionals even use personal websites as a way to provide potential employers with their portfolios. However, before you post past projects to the Internet, or even hand out copies to hiring managers, you may need to check if your past employers considered projects in any way confidential. Some companies may attempt to block your use of your work, and can be legally able to do so. Check your contract and, if you have doubts, check with that company's human resources department. As long as you are not sharing proprietary information and you aren't portraying your old employer badly, most companies are reasonable about allowing you to use work in your portfolio.

While generally you should restrict your portfolio to projects that clearly show the skills you will need for a new position, you should still make a point of adding work that clearly demonstrates your communications abilities. If you show that you write well, and communicate clearly, you can improve your chances of landing a job. These talents may seem simple, but are actually vital to every company. Even a well-written memo can be enough to demonstrate your writing skills.

After looking day in and day out at resumes, many hiring managers have pet peeves. Applicants whose resumes contain these pet peeves are likely to be removed from the running for a position. There are several steps that you can take to avoid irritating potential employers.

Avoid leaving unexplained gaps in your work history. If you need to address the reason for your absence from the work force, consider doing so in your cover letter. Otherwise, show that you were doing something during that time: volunteer work, stay-at-home parenting, etc.

Proofread carefully. Many applicants make the mistake of sending their resumes out without so much as running some sort of spell check. Employers tend to assume that if an applicant doesn't care enough about getting a job to proofread her resume, she won't care enough to do well at the job.

Leave off hobbies and interests, if they don't actually pertain to the job. While many resume writers believe that hobbies can set you apart from all the other applicants trying to get a job, the fact is that most hiring managers don't care what applicants do in their off time, unless it directly improves their abilities to do a given job.

Do not include personal attributes or photographs, unless you're applying for a modeling position. Most hiring managers actually avoid knowing anything about candidates beyond their actual skills, in order to prevent accusations of discrimination. Providing this sort of information unasked can make a hiring manager's job harder, and can get you eliminated from the applicant pool immediately.

Print your resume in an easy-to-read font, on white, or another neutral color, of paper. Fancy fonts and papers, while pretty or eye-catching, can make it harder for a potential employer to process your resume quickly. Even if your resume isn't eliminated from the running, the longer it takes for a hiring manager to deal with your resume, the longer you have to wait to find out if you've landed the job.

Remove outdated information. If you've been out of high school or college for several years, you do not need to include information about your school activities on your resume. Additionally, if any of your skills have become obsolete, consider leaving them off as well. Very few companies are actively looking for employees that can fix eight-track players, for instance.

If you are applying for your first job, you may not have much past experience to list on your resume. However, that does not mean that you should entirely forgo creating a resume.

When writing your first resume, your greatest asset is your education. You may be a recent graduate, whether from high school, college or a vocational school. No matter which, you've spent years honing specific skills. Beyond listing the schools you've attended, list the skills you've learned.

Another potential starting point for skills is your hobbies. Do any of your hobbies require a special talent? Even video gamers have some skills that an employer would find useful: most have experience with using computers and other equipment. Make a list of the skills you have learned in the course of your hobbies, and add that to your resume. However, you probably don't need to include a specific hobbies section: most hiring managers aren't especially concerned with them.

More and more educational programs are requiring some sort of volunteer work from students these days. If your school is one of them, you have a leg up when writing your resume. Even if you did not earn money for your work, you can list volunteer work on your resume, if only to prove that you have some experience working with others. If you have worked with a specific organization long term, you may want to emphasize that point - many employers worry about first time employees' abilities to commit to a position.

Other activities can also provide a good starting point for a resume. If you've been involved with group activities, whether at school or outside it, some of those activities may be able to show an employer that you have potential as an employee. The best activities to list on a resume are those that demonstrate leadership and commitment.

With your first resume, your cover letter takes on added importance. The cover letter is your chance to convince a potential employer to take a risk on you - that, despite your inexperience, you will make a good employee. While your resume is just a list of skills, your cover letter should be persuasive. Explain what about your abilities set you apart from all the other applicants out there. If you are trying to be hired for something more than an entry level position, you will also need to justify your application and show an employer that your lack of experience will not make it harder for you to do a job.

If you maintain a relationship of some sort with your school, you may be able to get help writing or reviewing your resume through your school's career counseling department. Most schools help current students with job placement issues, such as resume writing, and many extend the courtesy to past students as well.