Resume Clothing

People who grew up in the 1960s will recall the fashion of collectively sneering at fashion and most every other norm. We can remember the fashionable thinking back then that no one should be allowed to judge another person by the clothes he wore. After all, many people thought, if others can't see our intrinsic value, that's their problem, not ours. Over time, people began to whistle a different tune. Books like Dress for Success began to appear. Experts in body language emerged. An entire industry of images boomed. The children of the '60s got caught with their ratty old pants down. The next generation tuned in to the importance of images. They realized that people do judge other people, at least initially, by what they wear. Even my generation had to admit that first impressions make a vital difference. We began to realize a fact of reality: You never get a second chance to make a first impression!

First Impressions: Sizing People Up

Imagine you're nervously waiting to interview with a recruiter. The time arrives and you're ushered into the room. You immediately size up the interviewer. How? By only two senses: what you see and what you hear. What do you see? Well, you don't see much skin, do you? Just a face and some hands sticking out of a suit coat. You see size: tall, short, fat, or thin. But what is your main visual image? What you see primarily during the first thirty seconds is clothing. You see very little content of character. You see very little structure of personality. You see little if any evidence of humor, no warmth, nothing-just clothes. Of course, the recruiter is sizing you up, too. What does the recruiter primarily see? Clothes. That's it. Nothing but clothes. Similarly the clothing on your resume speaks volumes about your image as an individual.



First Impressions: Sizing Up Your Resume

Remember that employment manager facing a stack of eighty resumes to review each day. He takes a thirty-second scan. He's sizing you up, and initially he sees only the appearance of your resume-format and paper. He can't see your tight and action-packed writing style, or even your credentials, not initially. All he sees at first is the clothing on your resume. And that first, quick glance produces a reaction that might well determine whether he listens to your pitch or tunes you out, banishing you forever to the reject pile.

The Importance of Formatting and Production

The clothing on a resume is very important which includes its format and layout, its paper, its printing, its overall production. If your resume wears blue jeans or combat boots, that's the first impression, the employment manager will have of you. If your resume is messy, that's what the employment manager thinks of you. If your resume has a weird format, the employment manager probably thinks you have a weird format. You might have written the world's best resume and not get a single interview. To produce a winning resume you must pay careful attention to its format. In short, you must package yourself professionally by producing a tasteful but powerful advertisement.

Balloons and Dancing Bears

Think of the tasteful and memorable commercials you've seen on TV. Then think of the car dealer ads, the ones with balloons, trumpets, tubas, cheerleaders, confetti, clowns, and dogs, screaming salespeople, and dancing bears. Those ads are overemphasized. By emphasizing all messages, they emphasize none. Those ads might appeal to people with no taste, but they don't impress people with good taste, which we hope includes the employment managers of this world.

Many resume writers come up with the most tortured formats imaginable. Many people feel compelled to draw the reader's eye to every fact in the resume. They feel they have to set everything off; they want to make everything stand out. They format the written word like it would never be formatted anywhere else-not in a book, not in a thesis, and certainly not in any decently formatted advertisement. Seeking to make everything stand out, many resumes resemble the used-car ads, complete with balloons and dancing bears:

The problem with that mess is that nothing stands out except maybe the bulging eyes of the employment manager as she strains to bring order out of chaos. Take a look at it. Aside from sporting too many funny little symbols (one modest, straight forward bullet or asterisk, used consistently, will do fine for your resume), it has six separate left-hand margins:

1. far left at the Education heading;
   
   
2. at the beginning of the lead;
   
   
3. at the word courses;
   
   
4. at the word Microeconomics-,
   
   
5. at the word Order; and
   
   
6. at the numeral 3.5.
   

And what determined those margins and those symbols? Nothing more than the fortuity of the length of certain subheadings and a desire to set everything off so it'll stand out.

As we've counseled job seekers over the years, we have been constantly amazed at the strange formatting schemes people devise. By looking carefully at their mistakes, we have developed a two-part approach to resume formatting-approaches that will help you produce a top-flight resume.

When you sit down to put together your resume, you should consider the two parts of our two-part approach to resume for matting. First, you must decide what goes where, or the graphics of positioning. The graphics of positioning will determine the overall layout of your resume. Second, once you've chosen an overall layout, you must decide on the graphics of emphasis to make things stand out. By carefully and tastefully choosing the correct graphics of positioning and emphasis, you'll avoid the balloons and dancing bears syndrome, the death knell of most resumes.