Your resume is one of your most important marketing tools. But remember, no matter how good your resume is, your resume will NOT get you a job. However, if it’s spelled correctly, the chances are much higher that you can gain the interest of a recruiter and be invited for an interview.
As a senior recruiter for both small businesses and large corporations, I have reviewed thousands of resumes during my 15+ years of recruiting and human resources experience. My experience is that applicants often tend to overlook these most important aspects that could make your resume more effective in attracting the attention and interest of recruiters and hiring managers.
Summary purpose: market and sell your background, skills, achievements and experience to those who need your expertise or a problem you can solve.
Resume role: to create interest, to show that you really have the necessary skills and experience, and to get a recruiter and/or hiring manager interested enough to invite you for an interview.
Top 10 tips for writing an effective resume (from a recruiter’s point of view):
1. You can (and should) have more than one resume! Create a separate resume for the top two or three main areas of your experience. (For example, one resume for marketing, one for sales, one for engineering). Each resume should highlight specific examples of your accomplishments, skills, and experience from your current and previous roles that directly relate to that particular area of expertise.
2. Two pages long, max. Condense, condense, condense! Imagine that each word costs you $100 and you will write less, allowing you to fit your most important information on two pages. (Exception: Physicians and other published professionals often need a few more pages to list their credentials and published work. But even those should be as brief as possible.) Ask someone whose opinion you trust to proofread your resume and edit it where necessary before you submit it.
3. Choose an appropriate format. The best and easiest resume format to review is chronological (starting with the most recent job and date and working backwards through your work history). However, a functional resume format is often suggested as an option, especially for those who have been out of the job market for a while or want to change careers. But it can raise red flags that could prevent your resume from being reviewed further. Recruiters know that a functional format is often used to hide gaps in employment dates. Also, details of skills and experience are grouped into separate functional areas, rather than under each particular job held in the past. In many cases, due to the time and difficulty involved in reading a functional resume, recruiters often skip over them and move on to the next one.
4. Focus your attention on the most important “real estate” on your resume: the upper half of the cover. Why? Because today’s recruiters are inundated with resumes, especially in these tough economic times when so many are out of work. Recruiters often manage anywhere up to 50+ jobs at a time, each with hundreds and hundreds of resume submissions. The average time an experienced recruiter initially spends scanning a resume to determine if it is relevant to the position is approximately 7-15 seconds. If the top half of her resume doesn’t quickly differentiate him and sell him as a viable candidate with recent skills and experience relevant to the specific job he’s applying for, the recruiter will simply move on.
5. Develop a keyword-rich resume. Be sure to add the main keywords for your skills and experience, as well as keywords for your industry and organization throughout your resume. Recruiters use various types of search tools in ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems) where they type in the top keywords for the specific job and the qualifications for the position to search for related resumes. They also conduct searches for similar keywords online on major job boards and even on some social networking sites. Only resumes that contain those keywords will appear in their review box and those are the only resumes they will review for consideration. If your main keywords are not on your resume, it is very likely that your resume will not be reviewed, even if it is highly rated.
6. Create a short bullet point summary. At the top of the first page of your resume, list 5-7 bulleted sentences that highlight your most compelling skills, experience, achievements, training, and education. This summary should be located somewhere within the top third section of the resume below, but close to your name and contact information. Critical: Avoid “fluff” or trite phrases like “good at multitasking” or “detail-oriented”, etc. The reader’s eye should be able to quickly scan the summary section and determine at a glance that your resume is worth reading to the end.
7. Quantify and qualify your experience. Recruiters and hiring managers place a high value on proven achievement and results. The more you can quantify or qualify your bullet points in each of your job listings, the more strongly you will be perceived as a person of action and results. After each statement, ask yourself, “What did I accomplish?” or “What was the result?” Try to tie a quantifiable result to the end of each statement if possible, such as “and as a result, the company saved X$” or “increased revenue by X%”, or “sold the most widgets on the team and was selected as employee of the year.
8. Focus on your most recent and relevant employment information. Recruiters and hiring managers want to know what you’ve done most recently that’s relevant to the position they’re hiring for. Write most of the information on your resume about your skills, experience, and accomplishments during the last 5-7 years of your work history. Unless your experience beyond that point is unusually helpful in making your case, minimize that information to save valuable resume space. Beyond 7-10 years of employment history, you can list one or two line entries for each position held. Save the rest of the details of those positions for the application form and interviews.
9. Post the Key Credentials, Certifications, and Educational Experience sections in a prominent location.Typically, a bachelor’s degree should be located near the end of the resume under the education section header. However, do you have an advanced job-related degree, such as an MBA, Ph.D., or other certifications or credentials that you want to make sure a recruiter or hiring manager sees? Place them at the top front of your resume, just before or after the summary section. Why? If you bury them at the end of your resume, they may never be seen. (See Tip #4)
10. List of Organizations, Associations and Affiliations of which you are a volunteer or member. This often overlooked information can be a great way to show an employer that you stay up to date with information and contacts in their industry. If you volunteer for positions, especially leadership roles, be sure to include those as well. This information is especially important for those applying for positions with sales and marketing and financial services companies who need to demonstrate that they already have an established network. Place this section of information near the end of your resume.
This last tip is a bonus. However, it is THE most important tip of all for writing an effective resume.
Always tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth on your resume…always! Never misrepresent what you did or be tempted to tell a “little white lie” on your resume or to a recruiter, period! Be especially careful about the job titles and job responsibilities you list. Make sure the job title and responsibilities you put on your resume can be verified if someone calls your current or former employer or colleagues and asks for you. False and misrepresented statements, no matter how innocent they may seem, are a violation of integrity and can come back to haunt you many years later. You could even be fired as a result! It just isn’t worth it.
Use these ten tips to tweak and refine your resume and then you can send it off with confidence!
(c) Copyright 2009 Dresser Search and Consulting, Inc.
