1) Be Complete
Make sure that your resume includes EVERYTHING your prospective employer
would need to know to be able to offer you an interview.
It is NOT unheard of for your carefully-crafted cover letter to be separated
from your resume - if your contact details were only on your cover letter,
how will they get in touch to arrange the interview?
Therefore, make sure that your resume includes AT LEAST the following
information:
* Full contact details
* The position you are applying for or are interested in
* Employment history
* Personal and professional achievements
* Academic and professional qualifications
* If not included elsewhere, evidence of your key strengths that will make
you an irresistible candidate!
And while we're at it, functional resumes are a big NO-NO!! As a
professional recruiter, when I see a functional resume, I think "What is
this guy (or gal) hiding?". It's like smelling fresh paint on an old car.
Just stick with a chronological resume ALL THE TIME and paint any
inconsistencies (e.g., career breaks) in as good a light as possible. This
will ALWAYS be better than trying to hide it in the first place!
2) Be Relevant
Seasoned recruiters are AMAZED by the number of applicants who have clearly
not tailored their resume to the job they are applying for.
Make sure that you put yourself in THEIR shoes. Think about what they are
looking for in your resume.
If, for instance, you are applying as a job as an office manager and your
experience is in telesales, make sure that you emphasise your team
leadership and time management skills.
If, however, you were applying for a sales job, then clearly focus on your
ability to get leads, convert leads into sales, and sell more products to
existing customers.
In short, every time you mention something you've accomplished in your
resume, make sure it will strengthen your case for being given an interview.
3) Be Recent
As well as being relevant, make sure that your resume content is RECENT.
If you are a seasoned manager applying for the position of CEO in a large
company, is your experience managing your university's theatre company
particularly convincing?
On the other hand, if you are a recent graduate, that could be exactly the
right thing to put on your resume as it will demonstrate that you have some
management experience. Just make sure that you back it up with specific
accomplishments in the role!!
4) Be Specific
Be as specific as you can on how YOUR performance served the company you
were working for.
As an illustration, consider these four descriptions of an applicant's
experience managing a sales function:
* Responsible for 50 people in XYZ Corp's sales department.
* Managed 50 colleagues in XYZ Corp's sales department to increase sales by
100% over 4 years.
* Led 50 colleagues in XYZ Corp's sales department to increase XYZ's share
of the widget market from 15% to 20% over 4 years.
* Led XYZ Corp's 50 strong sales team to increase XYZ Corp's share of the
widget market by radically overhauling the compensation structure, fostering
a more collaborative culture within the team and redesigning the customer
acquisition process.
5) Be Clear
Make your resume as clear as you can in five ways:
* Font: Use an easily-readable font. Verdana is a classic, is easily
readable and is easy on the eye. Other favourites are Times New Roman or
Georgia. Try to stick to one, or at most two font sizes (nothing less than 8
point and ideally nothing less than 10 point), and do not over-style your
text. Italics, bold and underlined words on the same page look clumsy.
* Format: Make the format of your resume as easy to follow as possible, and
consider using horizontal rules across the page to separate sections.
*Language: Ensure that the description of your experiences and
accomplishments is as clear as possible. Test them with your friends. Ask
them whether it is possible to make the descriptions clearer or more
concise.
* Consistency: Make sure that you are consistent in every way - this
significantly increases readability. For instance, use a consistent date
format throughout. If your first position is listed in the order of [date,
company, position, achievements] then make sure they are ALL listed like
that. When listing your achievements, make sure that they all start with a
verb. And make sure that font sizes and styles are consistent for similar
words - for instance if your previous employers' names is in bold, then they
all should be.
* Spelling and Grammar: Use your word-processor's spelling and grammar
checking facility. A spelling or grammatical error in a resume is quite
simply inexcusable and could be enough ON ITS OWN to send your resume to the
bin. Once you've checked it on the computer, check it with someone who you
trust to pick up any last gremlins in the grammar.
6) Be Brief
Ideally, a resume should be just one page, although if you are applying for
a job in which the assessor will need significantly greater detail on your
past accomplishments, then the resume can spread to two pages.
Though remember, this is the exception and not the rule!! |