Resume Writing Tips

Before you begin your resume, ask yourself these questions. Are you:

• Making a lateral move?


• Looking for a promotion?


• Making a career change?

Once you have defined your goal, the most effective way to begin targeting your resume is to search openings that appeal to you on job boards (such as Yahoo! Hot Jobs®, Monster®, or CareerBuilder), classified listings in the newspaper, or internal company postings.

There are many considerations that should be weighed when reviewing job listings. It is important to highlight the qualifications that are required and the duties that you would be expected to assume.
Knowing how you match up to a potential position will provide focus, enabling your resume to be tailored to the hiring personnel. The more closely the content of your resume matches the content of these postings, the more likely you will be asked to interview.

Reference to industry hot topics, industry-specific jargon, and acronyms are important elements of your resume. In fact, any indication of qualification and knowledge that can be integrated into your résumé's content should be used because some companies may employ "keyword scanners" that check keyword density before a hiring manager even reviews your resume. Because of this practice, the use of keywords in your resume is vitally important.

As you begin to create your resume, it is important to not only accurately reflect your career goals and industry expertise, but to do so in an appealing way. If it's not - no matter how brilliantly it is written - your resume is more likely be added to the rejection stack.
To ensure that your resume receives the attention it deserves, it's important to adhere to the following formatting guidelines:

• Template and font choice


• Effective use of white space


• Prioritization of data

In all cases, templates and font choice should:

Be easy to follow
An effective template will present dates, company names, job titles, academic information, and other pertinent data in a clear manner, so that a quick glance will tell the contact person what they need to know. A template that is haphazard indicates an inability to process and communicate information, hindering your chances at getting the job.

Accurately reflect your career or goal
Some industries are simply more liberal than others, so a complementary resume makes sense. For example, it would be more advantageous for a graphic designer to submit a format that might include sans-serif fonts and photos than it would for a banker, accountant, or administrative assistant. In those industries, a more formal, conservative format would be more indicative of the job.

Be easy to read
Resumes in script fonts, bold text or italics are difficult to read and unprofessional. It's not the font that attracts attention, but rather the overall appearance and the words crafted within it.
If you are in doubt about which font type to use, err on the conservative side. Times New Roman or Arial, written in size 11 font, are easy to read and look professional.

The goal of your resume is to get your point across quickly, using a minimum of words. Remember to use bulleted sentences in special sections (such as Experience or Extracurricular sections) separated by white space. White spaces provide a chance for the reader to comprehend the data you've presented while improving the look and feel of your resume.

Hiring managers, like most employees, are under a time crunch. It is unlikely that they will read all the resumes they receive for a job position, let alone read each line of the resumes they do review. Therefore, it is important to prioritize the most important data first so the hiring manager can tell, at a glance, that you meet the requirements necessary and deserve an interview.

Hiring managers generally afford no more than 10 seconds to your resume, unless they're compelled to read further. With so little time, it is absolutely vital to draft a well-thought and enticing qualifications summary that showcases your most effective skills and experience. This brief paragraph provides a chance to convince a hiring manager of the skills you can bring to the position without requiring them to read your entire resume (which is unlikely anyway).
Note that personal pronouns are not used in your qualifications summary. In business writing, which includes resumes, personal pronouns such as I, me, or my are never used.

In the modern resume, an objective statement is no longer used because it can be perceived as self-serving. An objective statement, which may identify a desire to achieve a promotion or raise, for example, sounds less professional than the qualifications summary, in which applicants declare what they can do for the company instead of themselves.

There is nothing on your resume more important than your career accomplishments because they, more than any other variable, provide the opportunity to differentiate yourself from the competition.

The candidate who gets the job is the one who contributed the most in previous positions. As mentioned, accomplishments are differentiators, but the most effective accomplishments are those that can be quantified.

A quantified accomplishment includes dollar figures, time periods, and/or percentages. A good example of a qualified accomplishment is:

• Achieved a $2,500 monthly savings for XYZ Company within three months of hire by streamlining procedures.

The statement of accomplishment identifies how your efforts helped the company and imply the quality of the work you can do.

Special skills should be presented up front so that a hiring manager knows what you can do. Similar to the accomplishments in your resume, these skills can differentiate you from others competing for the position.
Special skills include:

• Computer proficiencies


• Office procedures such as answering multi-lined phone systems, taking dictation (include speed), transcription, typing (include speed), 10-key, etc.


• Linguistic capabilities (fluency in a foreign language, ability to translate, etc.)

In the Professional Experience section of your resume, you will list your employers, job titles, and dates of employment in a reverse-chronological order. This format is standard and generally expected by hiring managers.

Generally speaking, hiring managers prefer years of employment, rather than months and years (i.e. 1999 - 2003 as opposed to May 1999 - April 2003).
It is also common to include daily tasks and responsibilities beneath the appropriate employer listing. If you have a career accomplishments section in your resume, do not repeat information here. Once data is presented in a resume, it must not be repeated.

To ensure that your daily tasks are presented in an interesting and easy-to-read manner, you should do the following:

Use a bulleted format
This breaks up large blocks of text that could prove daunting to a hiring manager.

Delete unnecessary articles and adjectives
Your sentences should be short and snappy.

Begin each sentence with an action verb
This quickens the pace of your writing and makes the text more enjoyable to read.

The amount of professional experience you have influences the way you write job responsibilities and tasks in your resume. For those jobs where you are still currently employed, write your job duties in the present tense. For those jobs in the past, use the past tense. Additionally, consider using one of the three formats defined below to effectively communicate your abilities to hiring managers.

• In the functional format, you stress what you know over where you gained your experience. This format is used by individuals with little or no prior work experience.
  
• In the chronological format, you are providing a work history dating back from the present. This is the most common format and is generally preferred by hiring managers.
  
• In the combination format, you are stressing what you know in one section, while also providing work history dating back from the present in another. This is a highly popular modern format.

If you're an entry-level candidate with little or no professional experience, your education should be presented immediately after the qualifications summary and/or skills area because your education is your most marketable asset. Here, you would include:

• GPA (if 3.5 or above)


• Awards/scholarships


• Dean's list


• Coursework relevant to job search

If you're a professional with five or more years of experience, education should be listed last on your resume. GPAs, awards or scholarships, and mention of dean's lists are not generally provided in a professional or executive resume, except for those used for entrance into graduate school programs.

Resumes are the most important aspect of getting the job you want. They identify, quickly, your past effectiveness, your qualifications, and your differentiators.
For more resume writing tips, or for assistance in putting together your own successful resume, visit ResumeEdge.com.