Power Resume Tips

Most managers and human resource departments receive an enormous number of resumes. Faced with a pile of paper to wade through every morning, employers look for any deficiency to reduce the applicant pool to a manageable number. Studies show that regardless of how long you labour over your resume, most employers will spend just a few minutes looking at it.

Your resume must present your information quickly, clearly, and in a way that makes your experience relevant to the position in question. You must condense your information down to its most powerful form.

So edit, edit, edit. Long, dense paragraphs make information hard to find and require too much effort from the overworked reader. If that reader can't figure out how your experience applies to the available position, your resume is not doing its job.

"Nothing will kill your chances
faster than poor attention to detail"

Solve this problem by creating bullet pointed, indented, focused statements. Short, powerful lines show the reader, at a glance, exactly why they should keep reading.

Express your experience in targeted, clear, bullet pointed, detail-rich prose.

How to format your resume

More and more companies today are scanning your printed resume or importing your electronic version into an internal database for search and later use by their hiring managers.
As such, you should do your best to keep your formatting straightforward.

• For fonts, try to use only Times New Roman or Arial/Helvetica since those are found almost universally on every computer system.
• Bold is okay for highlighting, italics are usually okay, but underlining can sometimes cause problems.
• Do not overdo highlighting. Remember, when you emphasise everything you emphasise nothing.
• Bullet points are usually okay as they will either be ignored (and treated as sentences) or translated into asterisks (*) when imported into databases.
• Bullet points are the most effective way of listing your experience. Be careful of creating box text as it often gets distorted in translation.

Avoid Common Pitfalls

Nothing will kill your chances faster than poor attention to detail. Many resumes never see the light of day because of avoidable spelling errors. Use the spell checker on your computer, proof it yourself and then get someone else to double-check it for you. The spell checker will not pick up a word spelt correctly but out of context.

"Resume should scream ability,
not claim responsibility"

What your resume should contain

Resumes should scream ability, not claim responsibility.

Prospective employers should be visualising you in the new position. You don't want to be thought of as a cog from another machine. Instead, your resume should present you as an essential component of a company's success.

Change your career summary into an objective.

Companies are interested in what you can do for them, not a list of everything you've done before. Make sure the objective describes what you want to do and what you bring to the organisation. You should have more than one version of your resume if you are interested in several job options.

List duties from prior jobs in order of preference relative to the job you want most, not the one you had. Don't include any responsibility on your resume that you don't want to do again.

Flesh out the items you want to highlight. This is particularly important in those positions that are closest to what you want to do.

Place your achievements first on the list within each job. Your resume should demonstrate responsibility, achievement and results. Then list those other responsibilities that are important but for which you can't show results

Use the "So what?" method. After every sentence say - "so what," if you can justify it, keep it, if not, remove it.

Add an "Additional information" category. Include any languages you speak, hobbies and special interests that will separate you from other candidates. This helps to make you more memorable and "real" to the interviewer.

Be prepared to discuss and show your transferable skills. Since you are building on your past experiences, you need to think about what you bring to an organisation and how you can demonstrate this ability both on the resume and in an interview.

"The better you control the information you
create the stronger the resume will be"

Think Broadly, Write Selectively

Customise your resume for each specific position. Many job-hunters, particularly those beginning their careers, apply for many different jobs. A person interested in a career in publishing, for example, might apply for jobs as a writer, proofreader, editor, copywriter, grant proposal writer, fact-checker, or research assistant. You may or may not have the experience necessary to apply for any of these jobs. However, you have more skills than you think. When considering the skills that make you a valuable prospect, think broadly.

When editing your history to fit the resume format, ask yourself, "How does this particular information contribute towards my overall attractiveness to this employer?" If something doesn't help, drop it. Make more space to elaborate on the experiences most relevant to the job for which you are applying. Similarly, if information lurks in your past that would harm your chances of getting the job,
omit it.

Resumes require disciplined, succinct editing. The better you control the information you create, the stronger these resume will be.