A résumé has one purpose and one
purpose only - to get the interview. It is your marketing tool, your company
brochure. It is the first thing a prospective employer sees of you. Sure, you
might have talked to them over the phone, but visual representation is the
longest lasting, and the most influential.
You only get one chance to make a good first impression
The importance of a résumé cannot be overstated, to get a
sense of its true value do this little exercise. Take the salary that you would
like to receive and multiply it by the number of working years you have left.
That will give you an idea of the monetary worth that it carries.
I strongly recommend that no one, I mean no one does their
own résumé. While we may think that we know ourselves best, it is often hard
for us to ask ourselves the right questions, to stand back and look at what we
have accomplished objectively. Just as in most areas of our lives, we seek
professional help when there are important issues at stake. How important is
your future?
Now that I have gotten that out of the way, if you must
do your own résumé, here are some tips:
1. Use effective wording, power words, phrasing that will attract their attention.
2. Presentation; the way it is laid out and presented
reflects you as a person, and your personal value as an prospective
employee. Keep it simple and straight-forward.
3. The 30 second rule; Most people will give a résumé
30 seconds, if within that time they cannot tell why you are qualified for
the job, your résumé goes into pile B (the old round file).
The Style
Just as there are three things to remember about putting a
résumé together, there are three distinct kinds of résumé formats for
general use.
A. The Functional résumé.
This type focuses all it’s attention on a
persons talents, skills, qualities, and attributes - which is definitely a plus,
since they are very important. However, the functional résumé may only
summarily list job history and dates.
Generally speaking, such a résumé is used when someone has
extensive gaps in their work history, or numerous jobs over a short period of
time.
B. The Chronological résumé.
Is a list and description of jobs that a person has had over
the course of their working life. It will also list education and usually have a
paragraph called a summary which can list skills.
A majority of people use this format since
countless books and college career services teach it. The major drawback to the
style is it’s inability to focus the readers attention within 30 seconds.
C. The Combination résumé.
This style uses the best from both of the above formats and
puts them together to make a dynamic and very effective presentation.
After the objective comes a section called
Qualifications which lists, in bulleted form, the person’s Talents, skills,
special knowledge, abilities, and personal attributes. This section is where the
employer can tell instantly if that person seems to have the qualifications they
are seeking.
Once the employer sees that a person is qualified they will
go on to read the second part of the résumé; the chronological history of
employment.
This is the format that I prefer and the one
which has been so effective for my clients. The reasons for its success are
simplicity and clarity. An HR person, or employer, wants to spend as little time
as possible weeding through résumé’s for the appropriate candidate. The more
you can do to make their job easier, the better.
Employers usually like to see a consistent job history, and
for some applicants, that can be a problem; initially focusing on talents and
abilities can help them understand the persons value.
Generally speaking, a résumé should be written with the
employer in mind, but these days there is an abundance of employment agencies
and head hunting firms, each with their own opinion. Just remember that this is
your résumé and not theirs, they may have some salient points to make
regarding industry terms, etc. but you have to be satisfied that it represents
you in the best possible way first. Here are the basic sections that each
résumé should include
1. Objective.
2.Qualifications.
3. Education.
4. Employment.
The Objective is your guidepost, your
arrow. The last thing an employer needs is someone who doesn’t know what they
want. You have to be the solution to the problem and not the problem. An
objective gives them a sense that you have confidence in your direction, that
you have made a choice. Even if it is fairly vague such as Administrative Assistant
or A
position in the Banking Field.
Qualifications - This is where you put talents,
skills, abilities, special knowledge, and anything else that will impress the
reader of the résumé. Each point should be bulleted and phrased in an active
and powerful way such as: Strong Troubleshooting and Problem solving
abilities. Keep each line fairly short and don’t forget to include
computer skills and any other specialized knowledge that you possess.
This is the section that will tell the employer, within 30
seconds, that you are the qualified candidate. To this day, if I get an employer
looking for specific skills I go right to the Qualifications to see if they
match what they are looking for.
Education - Depending on how recently you have
graduated from college, or if you graduated from college at all, this section
could either go under qualifications or at the end of the résumé.
The rule of thumb is that the
most recent experience goes first. If that was going to school and you have just
received a Bachelor, Master, or even an A.A. degree then put it first. If,
however, you have little or sporadic education put it after your employment
history.
Employment - This is the nuts and bolts, the guts of
the résumé. Here is where
the active, accurate and pertinent information regarding your past and present
employment should be written in concise terms. On a résumé I is always
implied and never said. A way of checking to see if you have the right
implication is, after writing a sentence, check to see if the same sentence
would make sense with, I am, I have in front of it. For Example:
Oversaw a staff of 8 administrative employees in handling
legal documents.
Now put I in front of it and see if it makes sense. Then do
the same thing with the following sentence.
Overseeing a staff of 8 administrative employees in doing
legal documentation work.
Starting with active words such as
Oversaw, Performed, Administered (a comprehensive list is found in the appendix)
will give power to the résumé. Along with the power words don’t forget to
include industry appropriate terms which can be key indicators that you actually
have the background the employer is looking for. These terms can be part of your
workaday language and may be hard to spot. In the best case scenario, you can
use a job description that the company created for your position. This will
usually include all the salient points you need. Now all you have to do is put
it together so it’s readable to the average person.
If you don’t have a job
description, take some time to recall and write down everything you do at work,.
even if you think it doesn’t matter write it down. Then you can go back and
hone the information to a short paragraph.
Start with the most recent
employment experience and then work backward. Give the dates when you started
and when you ended each job. Personally, I do not put months on the résumé,
just years. This has the advantage of taking care of short gaps in work history,
or lack of memory. If, on the interview, they ask for months you can tell them,
after all, if you are on the interview the résumé has done it’s job.
Generally the last two years of experience are the most
important, however ten years of background is optimal. This will give the
employer an idea as to the extent of your professional experience and gives you
more credibility when asking for the salary you require.
If you have over ten years employment you may not have to
list it, unless it relates specifically to the job you are looking for.
Underneath the body of the employment description I like to
highlight accomplishments by using an arrow, bullet, or italics.
This is another important area where you have the opportunity
to show why you are the perfect candidate; Employee of the Month, having
Increased sales by 30%, or improved the efficiency of the filing system.
Following the job descriptions you can include other sections
if pertinent, such as, a section for Memberships and Awards, Volunteer Work,
Publications and other miscellaneous categories. Students might want to put
scholarships and fraternal organizations down if their work history is lacking.
Professionals who are involved in the community, have been honored, or written
scholarly articles, will usually benefit from informing their interviewers of
such activities.
A warning though, while discrimination is against the law, I
would still refrain from putting religious or ethnic oriented memberships on the
résumé, without them it will put you on an even playing field with everyone
else.
Age is another issue, it too is against the law to
discriminate because of age, but the issue is tricky and one that is hard to
police.
While I would never, ever support lying on a résumé (it
will always come back to haunt you) you can eliminate unneeded truths, such as
the date you graduated from college if it was more than ten years ago.
Unnecessary Information -
Just as humans evolved, eliminating our need for tails, so the résumé has
evolved to eliminate the standard ending phrase: References Available Upon Request.
If an employer asks for references you must have them, if you don’t, they will
move on to the next candidate.
Being asked for references is a clear indication of their
interest in you, so having to say they are available should be a moot point.
Personal hobbies or interests - as
far as I am concerned it is a waste of space on a professional résumé. If they
want to know your golf handicap or tennis game, they can ask during the
interview. Once again, if you are on the interview then the résumé has done it’s
job.
The following sample gives you an
idea of the basics for an entry level résumé, usually for someone just
entering the job market for the first time. Oh! One last thing, don’t use a
P.O. box as an address and make sure the telephone number you put down has an
answering service or message machine attached.
A résumé
for someone who has been in the job market for a while, will put their job
experience before education. The rule of thumb is that the most recent
experience goes first. That goes for the information in each section as well.
The One Page Controversy
- As I have said, there are opinions as thick as flies
out there. A good many people have been told, rather emphatically, that they
must stay with a one page résumé.
I would agree, if the person is just out of school or has had less than 10 years
of background. However, if someone has 20 years experience with impressive
accomplishments, it would be a shame if they left off a piece of good
information just so they could stick with one page.
I’ll tell you a secret, those who
insist on a single page are usually, agencies or headhunters. They do not want
to fax more than one page because of cost, or they may put it in their book for
clients to refer to. A one page résumé is more convenient for them,
they are looking out for their interests and not yours as an individual.
On the other hand, a résumé should not be more than two
pages, unless the person is a high level executive, or a teacher with extensive
credentials, continuing education, publications, memberships, etc.
New Technology and the Résumé
The world of technology is
changing around us day by day, it effects every aspect of our lives, sometimes
in ways we can’t imagine. Just five years ago E-mailing a résumé was unheard
of, today it is right up there with faxing. Companies are using software to scan
and sort applicants by searching out specific key words or phrases in order to
identify qualified candidates. This definitely saves time for the human resource
professional but ultimately takes the "human" out of the initial
equation.
By the time the computer spits out
what’s left of a beautifully formatted and worded résumé it ends up
uninspiring, plain, and ordinary.
That is why content is being
stressed more and more. It’s not just how it looks but what it says
that makes a difference. While I think we have covered what should be said on a
résumé, I want to inject a ray of independent sunshine in this rather sterile
version of employment future.
The bottom line is that an individual, a live person, is
eventually going to meet with you. After the computer has sorted, sliced, and
diced you, a man or woman not unlike yourself, will sit across the desk as you
hand them a "real" copy of your résumé. A copy which is pleasant to
look at, straightforward, and dare we say it, unique in some way.
Another irony of the situation is that large to mid-size
companies are using this scanning technology while the majority of the
businesses, now and in the future, will be the smaller organizations which look
to foster the personal touch. But with almost every business being on-line, it
is inevitable that going "paperless", at least initially, is the wave
of the future.
My best advice is to be aware of this new trend and use it to your advantage,
find ways of being unique and standing out from the countless drone résumés
that will be the norm. Make sure that someone has an actual copy, a tactile form
of your information and make sure that the content is outstanding.
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