Most books and articles on resume writing have been written by Human Resources people who describe the type of resume they like to receive, in order to place you in their filing systems in a way that will serve their purpose: to screen, or to select candidates who, in their opinion, are the best persons to fill positions in their companies.
Most readers of this article aren't looking for an entry level position. The decision to hire you will not be made by a personnel clerk, or by the Human Resources Manager. The decision to hire you will be made by the executive who will then be your boss. Accordingly, your objective is to get through the personnel screening process and place your candidacy before decision making managers.
It is a common misconception that the purpose of a resume is to get the job hunter a job. No one gets a job because of a resume. The only purpose of a resume is to help organize your written and oral presentations to generate interviews. How you come across during the interview is what will get you the job offer.
The interviewer, groping for a way to start evaluating a candidate, will often inquire, "Do you have a resume with you?" What should you answer? If the purpose of the resume is to help you land an interview, and as you already have the interview, does it make any sense to hand over a resume which no longer has any purpose? Of course not!
Your reply should be, "No, I don't have one with me, but I'll be glad to put one in the mail this evening." You could also say, "I have one out in my car; would you like me to get it?" Either way, the conversation will start without the resume. The last thing you want to do is handing over a resume and then sit there while the interviewer reads it, looking for questions to ask, or for possible reasons to reject you.
A resume is an essential component of the job hunting process. It is a valuable document, but its real value lies not in the document itself, but in the planning and thinking you put into its preparation. Your resume is analogous to your college degree. The degree (or high school certificate, or teaching credential) is only a piece of paper. The value of the degree is in the many hours you sat listening to boring lectures, writing term papers, studying for tests, reading textbooks. Those things are all inside your mind and help make you a better, more valuable person.
Your resume should be a unique, dynamic and factual synopsis of you at your best. It will suggest your potential for achievement. An employer is only interested in hiring you for your future. Your past is history and is only meaningful in generating a perception by the employer as to your potential for solving problems.
There are only two reasons why an employer might want to hire you. The main reason: he likes you. If he doesn't like you, you are not going to get the job, no matter how good your qualifications may be. Obviously, a printed resume isn't going to make the employer like you. That can only occur during a face-to-face meeting where you smile, turn on the charm, and demonstrate the positive attitude of the superior employee.
The other reason someone will want to hire you is that you have guided the prospective employer to the perception that you can help solve some of his problems. The way to achieve this is through your accomplishments. What sells - what counts - is what you have accomplished. Most of the space on your resume should be devoted to a list of your major accomplishments.
Your resume should have the following characteristics:
- It should present your job objective in terms of your greatest strengths, described in a positive and easy to understand way.
- It should support your job objective as being realistic and supported by related experience and achievements.
- It should enable you to take control of interviews by providing you with a vehicle to express your potential in a powerful and succinct manner.
The functional resume presents the job candidate's background according to the responsibilities of prior positions. This enables the job seeker to present a balanced understanding of all aspects of his job objective.
The chronological resume presents material in reverse time frames. It shows your title and responsibilities on your most recent job, and then it describes the job before that, and so on.
Then there is the one page "accomplishments" resume which this author believes to be the only appropriate resume for the experienced manager to use. To reiterate, the value of a resume is not in the resume itself, but in its preparation. Therefore, after you have put your resume together, DON'T USE IT,
Don't use it when you are answering ads. Don't circulate it among your friends and acquaintances. Don't enclose it with your Broadcast Letters. Don't mail it to executive search firms. THERE IS ONE EXCEPTION. Use your resume when you are networking. When you are asking for help and guidance, it certainly makes sense to provide the interviewer with information about your background so advice can be forthcoming.
Of course, you will always be happy to provide a resume after you have enjoyed a successful interview. The interviewer may want something in writing to present to his associates or to his boss. You have already sold yourself, so now your resume is not going to get you rejected. All it should do now is reinforce the great impression you made on the interviewer.
The three major components of your resume are your objective, your qualifications, and your accomplishments. The accomplishments should take up about two-thirds of the page with minimum space devoted to other topics, such as education, employment history and miscellaneous personal information.
Objective
Your resume should start with a statement of your objective. It could also be described in other words, such as: "Career Objective'' or "Position Desired." This is a statement of purpose and must gain the reader's immediate and positive attention.
State your goal simply and avoid convoluted, self-serving statements which serve no purpose. Here are a couple of silly statements of objectives taken from resume guidance books currently on the bookshelves:
"To obtain a position in a field where past supervisory experience may eventually be utilized and where there is room for advancement and growth."
This person obviously doesn't know what he or she wants. Is the objective to supervise an office staff or a factory assembly line? Everyone wants to build on past experience, and growth and advancement are universal goals. The objective should have simply said:
"Operations supervision with brokerage firm."
Another job hunter came up with this wonderful objective:
"To find a job with a progressive and growing organization where I can apply a strong educational background with a results oriented approach to solving marketing problems."
Who wouldn't like to join a growing organization? Is any reader more attracted to a shrinking operation? Marketing is a broad field. Is this job hunter interested in field sales, in advertising and promotion, in sales administration? The objective should have been more specific, like this:
"Sales Administrator for medium sized, consumer goods company."
Or,
"Marketing management with national franchising organization."
It is often preferable to express your objective in terms of job functions and not to use titles. For example, you could express your objective as "Sales Manager," but alternatively you could emphasize the function by showing the objective as: "Sales management with emphasis on field organization, distribution and customer service."
If you wish to use a job title, remember you share that title with thousands of others, and the reader of your resume will still want to know what makes you unique. Focus on your greatest area of strength and motivation. Refrain from listing all your abilities and interests as this might weaken your statement. Save your heavy firepower for the interviews.
Qualifications
This section of your resume should follow immediately after your objective and should consist of a brief statement indicating the qualifications you offer to support your objective.
Your capabilities are the essence of what you are selling; they should therefore be woven into your qualifications statement. If your greatest strengths involve your communications skills and your ability to sell complex concepts, then these should be blended into your Qualifications together with some reference to your experience.
Following are a few good qualifications statements:
OBJECTIVE: Sales and Marketing Management
QUALIFICATIONS: Proven and creative sales producer with excellent communication, interpersonal, analytical and problem solving skills. Experienced in organizational development, market penetration, personnel development and meeting sales forecasts and budgets.
OBJECTIVE: Financial and Operations Management
QUALIFICATIONS: Twelve years experience in domestic and international financial and operations auditing involving organizational and analytical skills. Effective background in cost controls and attention to operations details. Excellent written and oral communications skills. Successful trainer, motivator and team player.
OBJECTIVE: Research analyst for financial organization
QUALIFICATIONS: Trained in various methods of security analysis with a proven talent to integrate both qualitative and quantitative factors of a company to produce concise reports. Extensive knowledge of techniques to identify undervalued equities. An effective communicator with a keen sense of stock market behavior.
OBJECTIVE: Human Resources management
QUALIFICATIONS: Extensive people oriented experience and strong communications skills for program training and development. Perceptive in evaluation and placement and responsible in financial matters. Effective in working with all levels of management in coordinating wide range of human resources activities.
OBJECTIVE: Management of manufacturing operations
QUALIFICATIONS: Extensive experience in all facets of manufacturing including materials management, quality assurance, manufacturing engineering, purchasing, production and inventory control. Analytical and enthusiastic problem solver with strong leadership, communication, and motivational skills.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Your Accomplishments make up your arsenal. You are going to select from among your strongest achievements those 11, 12, or 13 that most clearly support and relate to your Objective. How many accomplishments you list in your resume will be determined by the space available. The more accomplishments the better, provided that you don't try to cram so many on the page that it makes your resume look cluttered.
Your resume will start, of course, with your name, address and phone number. After that, you should type in your objective and your qualifications. Your accomplishments will follow but, before you start typing them in, you should consider how much you want to include at the bottom of the resume regarding your education, your work history and other personal information.
It is obvious the more space you devote to these categories, the less room you have for Accomplishments. This causes some difficult trade-offs. The more you talk about where you have been, the less room you have to talk about what you have achieved. You can solve this dilemma by remembering that your accomplishments are what will convince the decision maker that you are the one that CAN help him solve his problems.
Pursuing this logic, it follows that the miscellaneous information at the bottom of the page should be kept to a minimum. The space available between this information and your qualifications statement at the top of the page is what will determine how many accomplishments you will be able to list.
Education
If you want to get fancy, you can call it "Academic Background" or "Scholastic Credentials." If your education relates directly to your objective, as it would if you are in the academic field, list it near the top of your resume with your qualifications. Most other executives should show their education at the bottom of the page.
List your highest degree first. Add non-academic education and training if relevant to your objective. If you have the equivalent of academic certification, and can support it, you might want to mention it. For example, you might be able to say, "Extensive course work at upper division university level is equivalent to a Bachelor's degree." Ex-military people can often say something like, "Advanced graduate studies under military sponsorship equivalent to MBA."
If you attended a prestigious, well known university, you might want to mention its name. On the other hand, if your MBA is from Podunk College, it might be best to show the degree but not the school. If you have a Baccalaureate or an advanced degree, that is wonderful. You don't have to give the year the degree was conferred. That will usually give away your age.
Degrees are ego satisfying, but they can also work against you in certain environments. Waving too many degrees can get you labeled as an "egghead" and might turn off a potential employer who has been less educationally fortunate.
It needs to be emphasized that information on the resume, such as college degrees, should be truthful. Many companies, particularly foreign owned, do careful checks on this information. Most organizations rightly feel that if a candidate lies about something on an application, it portends other dishonesty.
Employment History
Various other headings can be used, such as: "Employment Summary," "Job History," "Related Work Experience," or other variations. This is your professional work history. Remember, you must emphasize what you can do for your next employer and not dwell on what you did for the last one. Sometimes, if a work record is spotty because of too many jobs, long periods of unemployment, or jobs not related to your objective, it may be advisable to eliminate your job history and use the space for more Accomplishments.
If your work history includes well respected companies, you may benefit by your association with them and will want to list them by name. If so, start with either the most recent, or with the most relevant position, list your job title, the employer, and possibly a description of the major function or duties of your job. Preferably, you will have included a description of your responsibilities in the qualifications section. If your former job titles do not relate to your objective, use functional titles that do.
Often it is advisable not to identify prior employers, because you want to avoid being referenced before a mutual interest has been established between you and the prospective employer. You can refer to former relationships as: "Major financial services firm," or "Fortune 500 consumer goods manufacturer," or some other descriptive term.
If you must show employment dates, show only the years. Show those dates only if they appear to give positive information about you. Preferably, leave out dates and handle such omissions during the interview.
Pitfalls to Avoid
Before you attempt to put together a resume, consider the faults commonly found. Knowing what to avoid will enable you to concentrate on essential information that needs to be presented.
Organizations
List relevant memberships, awards, publications, patents, only if necessary to support your Objective. In some cases, avocations relate to Objectives and may be listed, but more often they become relevant only during interviews.
In most cases, this type of information does little to help you reach your goals. Usually, it is better to devote this space on your resume to listing one or two more Accomplishments.
Personal
Personal data not related to business has little value in a resume. The fact that you want to mention you are married and have two children suggests stability. But don't waste precious space elaborating on your family status. You might want to state "excellent health," if you feel this could be an important factor in the type of employment you seek.
You may actively participate in several organizations or have an absorbing hobby. You may have other qualities and talents that make you a superior human being. None of this belongs on your resume unless you feel certain specific data might help support your qualifications for your objective.
Avoid meaningless phrases such as "willing to relocate," "willing to travel," or "references available upon request." These do nothing for you and take up space that could be devoted to another Accomplishment or two.
Too Long, Too Short, Too Many Jobs
With rare exception, there is no need for a resume to exceed one page in length. In the field of higher education and in some scientific fields it is often necessary to list complete academic credentials or to show articles published. These are some of those rare exceptions. Most resumes run much too long, listing unnecessary information that can give the prospective employer reasons to reject you. Your resume is designed to generate interest and to develop interviews. Just offer your strengths in a way to make the reader want to meet you.
If your resume is too skimpy it might turn off the prospective employer. With a little creative thinking, you should be able to fill a page extolling your virtues and talents.
It is not necessary to mention every single job you have ever held. You don't need to go back any more than fifteen years in your work history. Short term jobs lasting less than six months are best left unmentioned. It is better to leave a gap here and there than to present yourself as a job-hopper.
Poor Focus, Negative Information
It is essential for your resume to provide the reader with a clear idea of your employment objective. If you don't know what you want, or where you want to go, then how can someone else respond to your needs?
Your resume should be upbeat and positive in every respect. Don't insert comments that might suggest problems. Don't offer the information that you are divorced, that you are a recovering alcoholic, that you are foreign born, that you were fired unfairly, that you will not relocate, that you have 14 children, that you have a health problem. If you feel an overwhelming compulsion to mention a negative, save it for the interview. Better still, get rid of the urge and never mention it!
Poor Layout, Hard to Read, Quality of Paper and Reproduction
Your resume should be pleasant and easy to read. You want a lot of information, single-spaced, on one page without it appearing cluttered. Margins should be wide enough to allow note taking, but not so wide as to waste valuable space. Get rid of unnecessary words and phrases. Make every word count.
Avoid complex sentences. Stay away from long paragraphs. Don't use unusual, esoteric words or pedantic expressions that are not likely to be understood by the average reader. (A feeble attempt at humor.) The person reading your resume is busy and doesn't want to struggle for comprehension.
Your resume does not have to be typed or reproduced on expensive, watermarked bond paper. No one gets hired because of a "pretty" resume. What counts is what you put on the paper. Use a 20-pound white bond in the standard 81/2" by 11" size. If you have your heart set on color, and if you don't mind the extra expense, go with a conservative off-white or pale gray or cream colored stock. Avoid bold colors where the color can distract from the resume's content.
Poor Grammar, Misspelled Words
You may not have been fortunate enough to acquire an advanced education. Yet everyone has an educated friend who can handle the English language. Ask your friend to read your resume and correct errors in grammar and punctuation. Your friend might also come up with ideas to make your presentation more effective.
There is no acceptable excuse for a misspelled word, or even a typographical error on a resume. No one is interested in talking to a job candidate who is careless or sloppy in the presentation of a resume. Why would any company be interested in hiring you to take care of its affairs if you are unable to take proper care of your own presentation?
Age, Listing of Dates, Photographs, School Grades
Don't volunteer your age. They say, "Age isn't important unless you're a cheese." More likely than not, stating your age will cause you to be rejected for a job that might have been yours had you been successful in getting interviewed. You may be 26 years old but possess the maturity of a 35 year old. You may be 55 and have the vitality of a 40 year old. Either way, concentrate on getting the interview. The interviewer will be less concerned with age when you appear in person to make your dynamic presentation.
Exact dates you worked for a company are irrelevant. It certainly is superfluous to give precise months of employment and termination. Dates tend to focus attention on your age, often a subject you would like to avoid. How long you worked for a company is a statistic of limited value. What counts is what you accomplished while you were there.
A photograph attached to a resume only raises questions as to the psychological needs of the applicant. No matter how handsome or pretty you are, a photograph will do more damage than good to your job hunting campaign.
Except for the recent graduate with nothing to sell but education, school grades should be left off the resume. The business decision maker is not likely to be thinking in terms of grade point averages. The focus is more likely to be on your experience and what you have accomplished.
References and Reference Letters
Your references are precious. Guard them zealously and use them selectively, only at such times as when some employer has shown a positive interest in hiring you. When you can, let your references know when and to whom you have given out their names so they will be prepared when they receive a phone call asking about you. Do not list references on a resume.
You were advised against listing prior employers in your resume. When the appropriate time for references arrives, you want to direct the inquirer to someone who will speak well of you. An undirected call to a prior employer might be fielded by your worst enemy at your prior place of employment.
Never attach letters of recommendation. They do little to help your cause. These letters have no real meaning and almost all decision makers dismiss such letters as self-serving and without value.
Salary Information
Never, never, NEVER show salary information on your resume. Don't show what you earned in the past. Don't give your income expectations for the future. You might be rejected because you are too high-priced. More sadly, you might be rejected for being too low-priced. Also, you will destroy any chance you may have to negotiate a better salary.
"Resume"
Don't entitle your resume with the word "RESUME." Anyone interested will recognize it for what it is. When you write a letter, you don't write "LETTER" at the top of the page. Apart from being superfluous, the word "resume" wastes a line you can devote to more valuable information.
A Few Additional Points
Make sure the information you provide will not be interpreted negatively. When in doubt, leave it out if some negative information must come out, you will be in a more favorable position to overcome it during your interview.
Check over the information in your resume to make sure it supports your Objective. Trim all unnecessary words and arrange information in order of importance.
Your resume must have good content, but it must also be visually pleasing. Try various layouts to find the best appearance and impact.
