JUNE 2005 ISSUE
INSIGHT
How to Prepare Short, Snappy
and Effective Resumés
Editor’s Note: The following article is tailored from notes from Ginny Nicholson, CMA, APEGGA Manager of Administration. We’ll be providing more of her insight on job hunting as space in our Careers section permits.
Resumés do get you there, so when you’re job-hunting, do take the time and make the effort to prepare and present them properly.
Here are a number of hints to help you come up with a professional, effective resumé.
• Invest in expert assistance — highly recommended.
• Keep your resumé to two pages or less. The reviewer is sometimes working with 100 or more resumés, usually within tight time frames. Reviewers respond positively to a shorter, bullet-style resumé with easily assimilated logical segments.
• Make a longer version for yourself, as an interview practice tool, with examples and job responsibilities filled out. If the longer version includes a section describing the responsibilities and accomplishments of each job you have had (or some project responsibilities and accomplishments), then it can be brought to the interview. If the interviewer asks in-depth questions, you can show him or her the appropriate section.
• If you make the longer resumé first, most people find it easier to distill the resumé to the two pages. As you add more jobs, you will update the longer resumé with the details of that job, including the names of potential references. You need to keep in touch with those people whom you intend to keep as references as part of your long-term networking strategy.
• Resist the temptation to embellish or put an inaccurate slant on a negative matter.
• Use proper spelling and grammar.
• You are a professional. Make your resumé look professional.
• Be available. You may be bypassed if you can’t be easily contacted.
• Your technical skills outlined in your resumé usually are a main factor in being selected; but behavioral factors are the greatest factors of success.
CONTENT IS CRITICAL
• Include technical skills and soft skills. List them under separate headings.
• Describe both functional and chronological experience, again under separate headings. Reviewers find dates of chronological experience essential – they are looking for a continuous track record. If you leave dates out, reviewers may immediately suspect that you have something to hide.
• Briefly outline industries in which you have worked.
• Undertake enough research about the job and company to tailor your resumé content to show some knowledge and to increase resumé fit.
STRUCTURE IS CRITICAL
• Have very precise and clear headings for each section.
• Use bullets rather than long sentences and paragraphs. Remember, the reviewer does not want to have to summarize your resumé from a long-winded portrayal.
OUTCOME ORIENTATION
• You want your resumé to be a track record of success and development
• Describe your experience in terms of results. “I developed,” I completed,” “I initiated and led the design team for…”
• Outline how each of your accomplishments made a difference to the bottom line, to market share, to efficiency, to skill sets of others etc. It saved the company money, it improved safety etc.
• Spend time choosing the best possible words to describe what you are trying to convey. Find a wordsmith if you are not comfortable with words.
• If your experience is limited, include accomplishments that are significant, such as an educational project, a volunteer experience project, or a personal project.