Resume writing 101
By Israel Ellner
Contact: Israel Ellner ~ Direct Phone 603-493-4773 ~ E-Mail isearch4tech@yahoo.com The eternal question for most job seekers is how to write a resume that is going to land a great job? Standout and get noticed? For most job seekers the resume is where the rubber meets the road. It is the key one hopes will unlock the door to a fruitful career opportunity.
The most important aspect of a resume is readability and content. Content that is not reader friendly is, well, content that will not be read and a resume that is easy to read with poor content will not get you an interview. Do not try and get noticed by using standout graphics or outstanding paper colors ext….A well written resume with good content will get you noticed and for the right reasons.
My advice to those seeking to write a good resume is to first start with Content. Content is what is going to drive your resume and is going to give it structure. It is also the biggest challenge for most job seekers. I find that content is hard to write because you are too concerned with the size of the resume, the layout and the readability and this makes it difficult to get the word to paper. So put all that aside, open up a blank word document or piece of paper and just start writing, without regard to layout or size of the resume. You can always pare your resume down and edit it later. I call this the brain storming session of resume writing.
Write your resume in bullet point form as it allows you to worry less about sentence and paragraph structure allowing you to let the words flow on the paper uninhibited. More importantly it allows the reader to quickly scan your resume for content and is the most readable form. I can recount many times when job seekers were passed over because the reader did not notice the words on the page lost in the bulk of a paragraph. Bullet points are also easy to pear down, rewrite and move around the page to make the content standout.
I always suggest when brainstorming on content to write everything down no matter how insignificant. This is brainstorming after all and you will find yourself remembering aspects of the job you had forgotten. You want to think in terms of cause and effect. Creating solutions based on business problems that resulted in a solution and how that affected the outcome. Think in terms of dollars and cents, what impact did the solution have on the organization. How did you save the company money, improve on a process, save a customer. Keep writing until you have covered every job going back to the very first job you ever had and you will have a C.V. Curriculum Vital. Curriculum Vital or C.V. is a fancy latten word for life’s work but more importantly it the mother document in which all future resume will be written.
Never send out a resume for a career opportunity without rewriting it to suite the specific intended reader. Every Job is different, every company is different and your one version resume is not going to fit the needs of every opportunity so take a minute and put together a version specific to the opportunity at hand. This is very easy to do because your resume is written in bullet point form and you have this great C.V. in which has all this great content to pull from.
Now you have all this content what you really need is a simple readable resume that is compact and to the point. There is no need to overstate your experience over and over again, especially if you have had multiple positions with the same functions. So avoid using the same bullet points in multiple sections of your resume. Focus on the most recent employment first. Never write a resume in reverse chronological order. A reader is not going to look at the bottom of your resume for the most recent experience. The rule of thumb is to have the most bullet points in your most recent experience and the least number of bullet points in your older experience. Unless requested it is not necessary to show work history beyond 10 years. Some times if the work you did is pertinent to the opportunity at hand it is certainly ok to go beyond 10 years or have more bullet points in that section of the resume regardless of how many years ago the work was performed.
For technical resume, resumes of Engineers or individuals in which the type of equipment and tools you use are of the upmost importance it is necessary to have a skill summary in the top portion of the resume and this is also true if your education is equally important to the role. Do not place important aspect of your resume or Qualifiers in the bottom portion of the resume. Readers do not want to go to the bottom part of the resume to qualify you for a role. The qualifiers should always be placed in the top portion of the resume. You can never over emphasize the qualifiers. I strongly suggest an additional environment or skills section after each employer reemphasizing the tools equipment and skills used during your time there.
Do not worry about the size of the resume. Most resumes today are read on computers so the size is less of an objection. However, let’s not go crazy. The best resumes are only one or two pages long. If you have been a consultant who has worked on lots of projects in a short period of time it is best to pare the projects down to the essentials. Do not go over four pages. Go to three and then offer additional experience and or more detailed experience available upon request. Avoid using formats that waste valuable paper space. No need to indent the content to make space for dates and such. I suggest a straight forward approach. Simply place the dates, company and title on the first line of the experience above the bullet points. Simply bolding the company and underlining the title will give the reader quick and pertinent information.
So let’s recap:
Always create a specific resume catered to the audience
Gain the attention of the reader by being using concise, simple and easy to read format.
Write the resume in bullet point form
Worry not about sentence structure, size and format of the resume, just get word to paper
Write the resume for a cause and effect point of view
Focus on the results of your work, how you saved money, solved a problem added value
Write a complete CV a mother document in which all future resume will be written
Format the resume in chronological order.
Make sure all qualifying education and skills are listed on the top of the resume
Over state the qualifiers by including an environment/skill section after each job
Do not use outstanding colors or graphics as this is a distraction not an attraction
Keep the resume under three pages
Make sure the most important aspects of your experience is listed in the top bullet points
Have more bullet points in your most recent work history and less in the oldest
When you feel you have completed your resume give it a read, how long does it take you to read it? How easy is it to scan for key qualifiers, skills and attributes? Let others read the resume and ask how long it takes them, how easy was it for them to see the qualifiers? This is also a great networking technique. It is one thing to ask for a job it is entirely another to ask someone to give you pointers on your resume and what you might do to gain the experience you require to achieve your job goals. Look for Job coach’s career coach’s people in the industry that have made it. They will be happy to point you in the right direction and give you pointers on your career and resume.
Name
Address
Phone e-mail
Technical Skills Summary
Tools
Equipment
Education
Experience
Dates Company Title
Content
Content
Environment: Skills Tools Equipment