A resume must hit the person reading it as having been prepared by someone of sufficient skills and accomplishments that not to call you in for an interview would be to risk losing just the right person for the job. That means that when preparing your resume you have to give considerable attention to making certain that it not only sums up your background but "sells" you as well. There are ways to do this, and one of the most important revolves around accomplishments.
To simply list job descriptions without indicating what accomplishments they represent is virtually to guarantee a cursory, uninterested reading by a prospective employer.
For example, a typical resume will include the fact that you have spent two years as an office-automation analyst for XYZ Corporation. Chances are you would include the fact that this position involved the evaluation and implementation of word-processing and office teleprocessing hardware to provide data access to all levels of management.
Fair enough, but a simple statement of that does not indicate whether you were particularly good at it. What that particular item on your resume should also include is the fact that during your two years with XYZ you analyzed data-access needs, proposed improvements to the system that would speed access at a lower cost, and eventually implemented a new system that not only accomplished its goals (faster access at lower cost) but' won you an award from the Society of Office Automation Analysts. I'm being hypothetical, of course, but this a vital point.
I can hear it now: "That's fine for someone who's been lucky enough to do something like that in their previous job, but I really don't have any accomplishments to include. I did my job, that's all."
Few of us spend as much as two years at a job without accomplishing something worthwhile, and what it takes is the time and effort to go back over those years and recognize the contributions you made to your company. Of course, it's a lot easier if you have made note of them as they happened. You should keep an up-to-date personnel file on yourself, and that includes making note of each significant contribution you made at your company. Having this information at your fingertips is extremely helpful when it comes time to ask for a raise, and it has the same value when it comes time to prepare a resume What have you accomplished in your previous employment that will cause a prospective employer to pull your resume out of a file of hundreds, pick up the phone, and ask you to come in for an interview? That's what you must think about and work toward before you actually put your resume together. Again, organization helps here. Take each job you've had, list it on a separate piece of paper, and reflect on your accomplishments for each, making notes as you go. Don't worry about creating too long a list. The important thing is to have that information in front of you when you actually describe that job on your resume.
But before I get into the physical requirements of a good resume, let's talk some more about the attitude that should be behind its creation.
If you aren't committed to turning out a letter - perfect resume - every word spelled correctly, proper punctuation in place, sentences that are crystal clear and have been stripped of excess verbiage, attractive layout so that there is enough white space to make the page whittle down words so that they say the same thing in less space.
- While many professionals in the hiring business profess hard-and-fast rules about resume length, I prefer to judge it on the basis of readability. If getting your resume down to one page means cramming it onto a single sheet, leaving little room for margins and space between paragraphs, the person receiving it is going to have a difficult time reading it. In this case, it would be much better to spread the material over two pages that are pleasantly laid out and that provide a high "read ability factor."
- One way to shorten a resume is to take out practically all the "I's." It's assumed that the resume you send is about you, and there is no need to stress that point by starting sentences with "I." Another way is to get rid of many of the "that" words. You'll find it will shorten and improve your writing.
- Even if padding your resume isn't the motivation for including extraneous material, avoid the temptation. I've had countless resumes cross my desk in which the writer included so much personal information - hobbies, love of family, uninteresting and unnecessary background that the most salient material relating to job experience was lost in the barrage of words.
- Avoid the temptation to include a "Job Objective" in your resume, unless you're applying for a specific job with a specific company. Including a job objective on the resume can be counterproductive. If you make it broad and vague, you accomplish nothing. If you make it extremely narrow, you cut off all possibility of being hired at that company in a similar job that does not precisely meet your stated objective.
