- Resumes should stay between one and three pages. When a resume looks like a novel, it is very discouraging to the reader as they are meant to be understood at a glance.
- Standard resume practice is one page for every five years of experience.
- Fancy fonts are distracting, hard to read and take away from your message. Use a basic one such as Times New Roman.
- Choose a simple resume format first, and be consistent throughout the entire document.
- Now is the time to retire your internships or anything before them if you have more than 5 years of experience.
- Remember that a lot of resumes are opened on mobile devices where there isn’t a full visual unless you scroll down. Is the first third of your resume captivating?
Summary
- Highlight who you are professionally and how that is applicable to the position.
- Review the job description and requirements, and then tailor each (yes, make different ones for separate jobs) summary to the position you apply for.
- Use this as a space to express how you are valuable and qualified for the position. It’s always a good thing to appear ambitious and precise.
- It can also be tempting to list EVERYTHING you’ve ever done, but try to identify what is desired for your future role.
Professional Work Experience
- List your titles per job, company, and length of time in reverse chronological order.
- You want to list the direct experience and accomplishments per job that are relevant. Ask yourself what did you do, and answer with how those aspects pertain to your potential future job.
- Use real life examples accompanied with strong but never repetitive verbiage. Be sure to reference actual situations or measurements of success instead of just describing.
- Stay away from generic and vague statements on your resume, and explain how you impacted your role!
- Education
- Put your education first on your resume until you have at least five years of experience. After five years, move to the end.
Professional Activities
- If you have awards, community involvement, “extra-curricular activities”, a skill set that DIRECTLY applies or is asked in the job requirements list it here. It is great that you have hobbies, but unless it directly applies do not include it.
Revision
- After you have reviewed and completed your resume, revise it one more time.
- Always print it out, and have a couple different people edit it for suggestions and punctuation. That one misspelled word or duplicate sentence could be the tipping point on the scale between you and another candidate.
