Then you can look into your background to determine if you have accomplished the same tasks, although labeled with different names.
Employers want people with well-developed communication skills. Certainly your ability to write might interest the employer. Your resume is a written document, and should thus serve as a sample of your writing skills. Yet many people will prepare a resume chock full of grammatical mistakes, written in a style that would make a grammar school English teacher cringe. Let's look carefully at the writing style you should use as well as some of the grammatical mistakes people often make.
Resume Talk: Listings
Resume information will appear either as listings or sentences. If a group of words has a verb in it, it's a sentence. If it has no verb, it's a listing. Here's an example of a listing: "B.A. in History, May 1985." Here's an example of a sentence; "Worked forty hours per week waiting tables, assisting in the kitchen, and responding personally to customers."
The only real problem presented by listings is punctuation. Does a listing end with a period? The answer is maybe yes, maybe no. If a listing is followed by a sentence or another listing on the same line, it should end with a period.
Because that listing was followed by a sentence on the same line, a period obviously was needed to end the listing. Both of those lines are listings not followed by other words on the same line. Thus, no period is necessary. You could, however, decide to include periods at the end of the listings, and it would be perfectly okay. The key is consistency. As you create your resume, make certain that if one listing has no period, all listings have no periods. Also, of course, make certain all resume sentences do end with a period.
Resume Talk: Sentences
Most of your resume information will appear in sentences because you're writing to show your accomplishments. To do this you must use verbs. If you use verbs, you're writing sentences. The resume sentence is different from the sentences you're used to constructing. To avoid overusing the first-person pronoun I as the subject of sentences, the resume sentence drops the grammatical subject. Thus, don't write, "I developed a new inventory system saving 25 percent of floor space." Instead write, "Developed a new inventory system saving 25 percent of floor space."
There is, however, no absolute prohibition on use of first-person pronouns. We've seen some very effective resumes that included an occasional I, me, my, or mine. They result in highly personal documents quite appealing in style and tone.
Finally, put your verbs in the first person, not the third per son. We've seen some resumes that use the third person, like this: "Delegates tasks to staff members, orders all supplies, and is responsible for balancing daily receipts." This resume sounds like it's talking about somebody other than the resume writer. Usually, it's copied word for word from the Military Occupational Manual.
Grammatical Mistakes
It's unfortunate, but many resume writers make significant grammatical mistakes when composing their resumes. Nothing could be worse, of course, than touting one's communication skills with grammatically incorrect prose. Without producing a complete grammar book here, we do feel compelled to review the most common mistakes people make.
- Nonparallel Constructions
Thus, "Yesterday, I went boating, hiking, and cycling." In a resume, the writer frequently must reveal a series of events, duties, entities, or accomplishments, so the odds of writing a nonparallel construction are quite high. Thus, resumes will often have nonparallel constructions like this: "Developed new inventory control system that saved limited space, expedited orders, and cost saving of $500 per month." Once you begin that listing of verbs of the dependent clause, each item on the list must be a verb of the dependent clause. Thus: "Developed new inventory control system that saved limited space, expedited orders, and cut costs by $500 per month."
- Verb Tense
- Capitalization
In the above example the coursework statement is a listing on a line by itself. It should begin with a capital letter. The honors line is a resume sentence, which should begin with a capital letter as well. The resume sentence also should end with a period, although the other listings in that entry need not end with a period.
Avoid seemingly clever tricks, like typing your name in lowercase letters. Also, any resume listing or parts of a resume sentence following a comma or a semicolon should begin with a lowercase letter. This is a common mistake. Many writers for some reason will produce this:
Duties included Taking inventory; Meeting customers; Ordering stock; Operating the cash register. Instead, you should follow ordinary, grammatical rules of capitalization.
