By: Kandi Mensing
{FORMATTING} A resume is a glimpse at your work history, an indicator of your grammar and punctuation skill set, and a look at your attention to detail. Resumes are intended to get applicants to the interviewing phase of the recruiting process. Many people compose 'paragraphical' resumes. If you learn one thing from this blog, please take this away: do not format your resume in paragraphs. {BULLET POINTS} Bullets are always the answer. In this economy, it is said that you have 15 seconds to catch a recruiter's attention. Look at your resume. Does it communicate the most important parts of your resume in that time? {BOLDING} Is the name of your company and years of experience in bold? If your answer to that question is 'yes', listen up! While your prior places of employment are relevant, they are not near as important as the actual position you held with that organization. You should always bold your position/title, not the company or dates of service. Now, while we're talking about formatting, let's talk about those bullet points. First of all, each bullet point does not need to be a full sentence. Just make sure that within your bullet points for each position you include keywords that describe your work experience accurately. {KEYWORDS} Keep in mind that many application interfaces are able to identify applicants by keyword. Include keywords in your resume that you would use to search for candidates for employment such as yourself.{OBJECTIVE} I would argue that objectives actually hurt an applicants chances more than they help. Objectives are the first thing listed on a resume, the hardest part of a resume to author, and truly do not tell the recruiter much of anything because applicants purposefully compose them to be vague. All too often, I see the objective "To obtain a challenging position with a growing company." Well, the job may not be challenging and the company may not be growing. With this objective and in this scenario, you have automatically eliminated yourself from being considered for employment on this basis alone.
{ATTENTION-GETTER} So, how do you catch a potential employer's attention with your resume? First of all, your name needs to be LARGE. This is YOUR resume we're talking about. You want your name to stand out and be remembered. {PERSONALIZE} Resumes are almost always black and white, text and paper. It is refreshing to see a little color, or a designed/personalized letterhead. Add some color to your resume. Don't be afraid to be yourself! I repeat, it's YOUR resume; a representation of YOU. Make sure your resume reflects who you are and what the potential employer is getting if they hire you (within reason of course!). If a job doesn't want you for you, then you probably don't want that job. You want to be happy right?
{SO, HOW DO YOU GET TO THE INTERVIEW?}
{FORMATTING} A resume is a glimpse at your work history, an indicator of your grammar and punctuation skill set, and a look at your attention to detail. Resumes are intended to get applicants to the interviewing phase of the recruiting process. Many people compose 'paragraphical' resumes. If you learn one thing from this blog, please take this away: do not format your resume in paragraphs. {BULLET POINTS} Bullets are always the answer. In this economy, it is said that you have 15 seconds to catch a recruiter's attention. Look at your resume. Does it communicate the most important parts of your resume in that time? {BOLDING} Is the name of your company and years of experience in bold? If your answer to that question is 'yes', listen up! While your prior places of employment are relevant, they are not near as important as the actual position you held with that organization. You should always bold your position/title, not the company or dates of service. Now, while we're talking about formatting, let's talk about those bullet points. First of all, each bullet point does not need to be a full sentence. Just make sure that within your bullet points for each position you include keywords that describe your work experience accurately. {KEYWORDS} Keep in mind that many application interfaces are able to identify applicants by keyword. Include keywords in your resume that you would use to search for candidates for employment such as yourself.{OBJECTIVE} I would argue that objectives actually hurt an applicants chances more than they help. Objectives are the first thing listed on a resume, the hardest part of a resume to author, and truly do not tell the recruiter much of anything because applicants purposefully compose them to be vague. All too often, I see the objective "To obtain a challenging position with a growing company." Well, the job may not be challenging and the company may not be growing. With this objective and in this scenario, you have automatically eliminated yourself from being considered for employment on this basis alone.
{ATTENTION-GETTER} So, how do you catch a potential employer's attention with your resume? First of all, your name needs to be LARGE. This is YOUR resume we're talking about. You want your name to stand out and be remembered. {PERSONALIZE} Resumes are almost always black and white, text and paper. It is refreshing to see a little color, or a designed/personalized letterhead. Add some color to your resume. Don't be afraid to be yourself! I repeat, it's YOUR resume; a representation of YOU. Make sure your resume reflects who you are and what the potential employer is getting if they hire you (within reason of course!). If a job doesn't want you for you, then you probably don't want that job. You want to be happy right?
{SO, HOW DO YOU GET TO THE INTERVIEW?}
- Proper Grammar
- Correct Punctuation
- Consistency in formatting
- Keywords
- A concise resume that quickly outlines your experience and has the ability to catch the recruiters attention quickly
- Professional and proper correspondence (more information to come in our future blog)
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