Resume Tips by cutting-edge-resumes.com
| Question - what
should my resume include"?
It should be a brief and concise summary of your relevant skills and achievements for the job field you are targeting. It should show that you are a proactive person that determines what needs to be done and takes decisive action. Every point on your resume should make the reader say "this is
what we are looking for". It possibly could contain recent community service. That shows you are a community minded person which is good. But this should be impressive. You don't say you participated in a walk a thon 5 years ago. You do not list job descriptions. This is the second classic mistake. You need specific examples of what you did personally, skillfully worded as achievements (to the greatest possible extent). You do not rely too much on flowery, essentially meaningless things like "team player" or "well organized". Everybody says that. Many people have whole sections of their resumes devoted to goofy phrases like these. Bad idea. You need actual specific examples of being a team player or well organized. You need to translate things into quantifiable, measurable results whenever possible. Claims need to be backed up, or else you are just blowing smoke. Now some things can't be, I realize that. But try to quantify wherever you can. You do not "grasp at straws", listing weak or unimpressive points. Ask yourself - "would this impress me if I were hiring someone?" Keywords are very important. But you do not try to cram your resume full of keywords. If there was a magic list of words that could get you to the top of a search engine result everyone would know about those words and it would be a meaningless exercise. Basic keywords will identify you in a search. Making a long list of generic terms like 'hard working" or "highly motivated" is a waste of time. Contrary to the popular resume trends of the month, you might need a career objective. The first person reading your resume could be a junior HR person. The company might have hundreds of vacancies across the country. They are not going to sit there and try to figure out if you want to work on the sales desk or apply for the director of marketing. You need to tell them, and a career objective is a good way to do that. Then they can say - "this person wants to be a sales rep. Well we are looking for those - we will put this aside to read later." Career objectives are not necessary if it is obvious what you want to do. Listen to advice (including mine) with a critical mind. Do what makes sense to you, and don't follow anybody' else's silly rules for resume writing. Well, that is a start. We are only scratching the surface here. You could write a book on this. |
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Question - Can I write my own resume? In some cases - yes. IF you are prepared to spend the time required to learn exactly what a resume should and should not contain, and IF you can translate what you have done into concise achievement statements that precisely match the job requirements, and IF you have a knack for powerful marketing language, and IF you have expert level skills in word processing, and IF you know how to use keywords, and IF you can create a scannable resume - then you MIGHT be able to write your own resume. I have personally reviewed and critiqued about 4,000 resumes. About half of the people submitting their resume to me said something like "my resume is really good, I just need someone to improve it a bit". However I would estimate that 90% of the resumes that come across my desk are really, REALLY bad. They are unfocused, wordy, full of fluffy meaningless statements like "highly motivated team player", are too long and list irrelevant information. They usually list job descriptions (boring!) and fail to translate experience into hard hitting achievement statements that grab attention. A resume is the key to the door. A good resume can change your whole life, leading directly to a much better job or a big salary increase. Yet people try to save a few bucks and do it themselves. I don't understand this. You might be able to get a book out of the library and fix your car or house wiring. But then again, that is not always the best idea for most of us. It is the same with resumes. Find someone who really knows what they are doing (and that is a challenge in itself because there are more quacks in the resume writing business than almost anywhere else) and spend a few dollars to get it right. |
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Resume Myths Myth #1 - Resumes are a complete list of everything you have done. Your resume should be a concise summary of your accomplishments, knowledge and skills that are relevant to the job you are targeting. Resumes are not an exhaustive list of everything you have done. Some people are convinced the resume is some kind of confessional, and they list in intricate detail every job since high school. This can really hurt your job search. For example, if you are targeting a sales management job, you don't talk about that bartender job back in 1984. No one really cares. It takes up valuable resume space with irrelevant information. Listing experience unrelated to your career goal can water down, rather than enhance your resume. It can make you look unfocused, or unsure of your career path. If possible every point on your resume should cause the reader to think - “this is exactly the type of person we are looking for”. Big gaps can also be a problem however. You can minimize this issue by selecting the correct resume format and presenting dates with years only – not months. The goal of the resume is to get an interview. At the interview, mention that your resume is a summary of your relevant experience, not an exhaustive list. There is no rule that says everything you have done must be on your resume. Choose wisely, and if possible leave out things that may hinder your chances of getting called for an interview. |
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Resume Myths Myth #2 - Resumes MUST be only 1 page. Your resume must briefly, accurately and powerfully convey your relevant qualifications. For many people this can be accomplished in one page. For others it cannot. It is silly to try to cram too much information on to one page by using very small fonts or tiny margins. Use a reasonable font no smaller than 10 point (12 is better), with decent margins - say 1 inch, and lots of white space. This is easy on the eyes and the reader will appreciate it. People get so hung up on the mythical 1 page rule it is almost unbelievable. No hiring manager ever said, "well this person looks great but we can't hire them - their resume is 2 pages long". But try not to go over 2 pages. Most people should be able to fit all of the important information on 2 pages if they are being concise. |
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My resume writer says everything on my resume should be a quantifiable achievement. How is this possible? In a perfect world your resume would contain only quantifiable achievements. In some professions - sales for example, this might be possible. But many people cannot easily quantify what they have done. There may simply not be a number or benchmark that they can show they achieved. For example, a physician tries to heal the sick. But it would be goofy for them to put on their resume that they healed a certain number of people. Accountants, people in IT, airline pilots and countless other professions might all have difficulty quantifying what they did. Now if there are things they can quantify - great. Put it in. But don't struggle and try to stretch it just so you can come up with numbers. And above all - don't listen to people who try to get you to follow every silly resume writing trend of the month |
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