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Whether
you just graduated, are returning to school or are looking for a new job,
within or outside your career, you need a resume. But not just a resume. You need a great resume. One which
will stand out among the rest and help you land that job which you're hoping
will make some positive impact on your life.
My first
tip of advice before you even start is to not get lost in the resume, but
remember what you're trying to accomplish. Not only does your resume reflect
you, but it also attracts or repels certain kinds of employers. Obviously you
want the good ones, and your resume can be that filter. That said, however,
you always need to stand behind what is on your resume because ultimately you are what makes the
difference in the interview and job.
Lastly,
you might be thinking "Writing a resume has nothing to do with
technology." Au contraire. It has everything to do with technology...
unless you write yours with a feather pen on animal hide.
The Most Important Part Of The Resume
What
would you consider the most important part of a resume? Your education?
Skillset? Experience? Vast knowledge in a specific area? In my opinion, all
of those are great, but none of them are the most important aspect of your
resume. The most important
part of your resume is your contact information. Think about it.
If you
were an employer looking through vast amounts, or even just a few resumes and
you stumbled upon one that "wowed" you, but included no contact
information, what would you think? What would you do? First off, a thought
might occur that they aren't attentive to details enough to even remember to
include it. Second, you might not have the time or even care to try to find
their contact information. Perhaps it was even in an email signature or
something and you have it somewhere, but you are likely to not put much
effort if they can't even do that much.
Next,
it's important where
it goes. As tempting as it may be, don't place your contact information (or
anything really) in the header or footer. The primary reason being that if
you submit your resume online to a transposing database, the header and
footer are likely to be missed in the scanning for key words and phases. This
is because most just scan through the body of the resume.
A One Page Resume? Really?
There is
a common thought out there that your resume shouldn't extend one page, unless
you are something special. And sadly, students in high school and
universities are learning this still. I cannot count the times I was told
this in school, even college. In fact, my last semester before I graduated I
was applying for a job and asked an instructor for her input on my already
stellar resume (I thought so, anyways). This was one of the things she told
me to do - only make it one page. But when looking at my resume, that was
clearly unrealistic. I had far too many valuable experiences to just cut them
out, even if they all weren't completely "relevant" to the job I
was applying for - which I'll cover later.
The
answer to your question is "No. You don't have to make it one page." However,
there are some guidelines to follow here:
- Don't add filler information,
larger font or extra spaces just to make it two pages.
- Don't make the font too small
and hard to read to make it fit to one or two pages.
- It should be equal. If it's
two pages, make it a full two pages.
- If it spills just over one
page, tweak your resume until it fits.
- Focus on content, not length.
Once you have quality content, then make the size adjustments.
As you
might see, they somewhat contradict each other in a way, but I think you
should understand it. These are the tips that helped me. I can't remember how
or when I learned them. It was likely a combination or the Internet, school
(very minimal) and personal experience through self-teaching.
Create A Clean, Easy-To-Follow Layout
In some
ways, this goes right along with how many pages you have. You definitely want
to customize the layout to the number of pages that you have. There are a
couple aspects in having an easy-to-follow resume. First, you must have a
nice template. You don't want something busy or obnoxious. Something that
makes it easy to find the information the interviewer is looking for. Another
side, however, is less about the actual template and more about how you
position your content.
Be
consistent. I can't emphasize this enough. If you do something one way in
an area of your resume, do it that same way throughout the rest of it. If you
change how something is positioned. If necessary, make that same change in
all other areas of your resume. You want your resume to flow, not have your
interviewer feel like they're in a chaotic abyss of words when reading your
resume.
As far
as choosing a template goes, there are tons of them. If you're using Word,
Microsoft has several. The
internet is full of ideas and there
are even ways to use LinkedIn to create your resume for you. Although, I
wouldn't necessarily condone only using that as your main resume, but it's a
nice option. What I did was get an idea from a resume I saw and created one
for myself, making custom tweaks here and there to my liking, while keeping
the basic layout the same. It doesn't matter what template you choose, as
long as it meets the requirements of being easily read.
There
are also a lot of ways to make your resume. From infographics
to clever designs to videos. However, though these are very cool, I don't
personally feel they're very practical... especially not for all careers
across the board. Some careers strive for creative individuals that stand out
from the rest - these are the kind of resumes that fit. All other careers
simply should have pretty basic resumes. That doesn't mean it has to be
boring to read. Just like a story, you want the interview to feel engaged
when reading it, to be impressed when they set it down... or better yet, not
be able to set it down, but to continue to look through it.
Be Concise, But Thorough.
Content
plays a huge role in whether your layout looks lean or not. You can have a
great looking template, but not an easy to read resume. This is likely due to
your content not being as clear and concise as it should be. Keeping things
as short as possible is important. Let me put an asterisk by that though. You
don't want a vague resume. Meaning, you want to be thorough and avoid short,
one to two word lines. It's ok to have sentences and explain yourself
in your resume. This was something I learned by myself as well.
In high
school, I felt as if they pushed your resume to summarize your professional
life. And to an extent you want it to, but not too much to the point that you
have dwindled down every skill and experience. In fact, many of
the cliched phrases and sayings for resumes are derived from this
very principle of "minimalism." Again, you want to be concise, and
certainly not redundant, but you need to make sure that you are also
explaining who you are, what you've done,and maybe even why you have done it.
Impress, But Be Honest
Obviously
you want your resume to stand out from the rest. You've gone to great
measures choosing a killer template, creating excellent content... oh,
content. About that. Reread everything you've got on your resume. How much of
that have you literally
accomplished? Have you specified your extent of knowledge in that
skill or experience? Let's say you have "Managed a team to create...
blah blah blah." Did you really manage the team? Or did you just observe
them? Perhaps you did help manage the team, but in that phrase, it sounds
like you were the sole manager. Were there others of equal stature whom you
worked with to manage the team? These are important things to include. I have
found myself being a little overzealous when writing/editing my resume and
often need to step back and look at things a little bit more realistically.
In the
image blow you can see I chose the word "assisted." There are a lot
more powerful words that sound better, but essentially that is all I did and
it wouldn't be right to set a bar higher than what my skill level depicts.
Also, the majority of the time, being honest will impress.
Forget References
Ok, so
don't literally forget them. But don't add them, not mention anything
referring to them on your resume. For a long time I added "references
available" in the footer. Then I read how that is not really necessary
since employers assume that you will have references, especially if you're
"sharp" - which your resume will often indicate. Employers
typically will ask for references later.
However,
depending on the situation, they do sometimes ask for references at the same
time of the resume (or sometimes, you just know they're going to want them
right away). In these situations, I do include three references which are the
most relevant to the job I'm applying for. I have a separate resume created
with my references already in it so all I need to do is swap out any
references, if I so desire, change their contact information and send it
away.
That is
an exception though. For the general resume that you might hand out and certainly
for any public resume of yours which you post to the internet, leave out the
references. If the employers like what they see, they'll contact you for
more. It also gives them a reason to
contact you for more, and indirectly tells you they're interested. The more
contact you have with them the better so you don't want to give them
everything they want right away, unless of course they directly ask for it.
Grammar, Grammar, Grammar
Grammar.
I can't emphasize it enough. I've said it four times and I still don't feel that
you quite understand what I'm getting at. Alright, so I'll assume that you
do. Honestly though, this is one of the most important aspects of your
resume. I'd almost say it's right below remembering to add and having proper
placement of contact information. If you don't have an outstanding skillset
expressed on your resume, but have flawless grammar, you're already above
average. It doesn't just show that you know how to make a resume, but that
you pay attention to detail. Detail that also will be expected on the job, no
matter what you do. If you have trouble with this, don't just do it on your
resume, practice it in every day life so that when you do get a job, you
don't disappoint.
As you
can see, even I mess up grammar occasionally. Although it doesn't happen
often.
One Resume Doesn't Fit All
I've
already mentioned this briefly when referring to having multiple resumes, one
with and one without references. However, it doesn't stop there. I highly
recommend you tweak your resume per job. Slightly adjust your objective to
match what you are expecting from that job and what they are looking for. Add
any skills that you have that may be more relevant to the job. Just adjust
the overall focus of your resume to that company. It should also relate to
the cover letter you write to them and include many of the same things.
Since
graduating, I've applied at several places which are very different. Not all
of the places were paying, some volunteer, like zoos, but many still
requested a resume. From an avian sanctuary to two zoos to several vet
clinics, my resume had a lot of tweaks. Had I not created multiple versions,
I would have been in a mess and would have been constantly changing and
editing what I wanted that particular organization to see.
Instead
of having to make the whole thing again, I recommend saving it as another
version, opening that version and making the changes, then saving it again.
That way you don't overwrite your other versions of resumes. I also recommend
having PDF and DOC versions of your resume. Personally, I prefer sending a
PDF version versus a DOC version. Most of the time that is what employers
want anyways.
Manage Your Resumes
After
creating resume after resume, you will soon realize that they need to be
managed some how. If you're somewhat unfamiliar with file management in
general, I
encourage you to read my article about that. In that article I talk about
naming your files according to what is included in them and also dating them.
This is especially important with resumes. It's nice to know what resume is
for what job. For instance, I have a resume for a vet assistant position, a
zoo keeper position and for working at an avian sanctuary. Plus, I have my
general resume. It would be impossible to keep all of these straight it they
didn't have a proper description.
Along
with describing, dating the file name is also important. Not just when you
initially created it, but as you update it, change the name to when you last
updated it. For me, I just go by month and don't really need to get more
specific than that. This has proven very helpful because I might have
forgotten about adding something recent to my resume, but will be reminded
when I see it hasn't been updated for two months.
Lastly,
put all your resumes in one folder. If you want to access these from other
places, online
cloud backup and sync applications like SugarSync and Dropbox
are excellent solutions. It also is in your benefit to use such programs
since they have file versioning and live updating to automatically detect and
save any changes you make.
Tell A Story
Remember
that your resume is basically a timeline of your professional life. At first
it may seem bleak, especially if you don't have much professional experience.
But be creative. Share about what life experiences you've gone through. Have
you done Eagle Scouts? What about volunteer work, specifically in your area
of interest? What extra curricular activities did you do in school? What
skills have you taught yourself through your interests in a particular
career? These are all things that you can include and should include on your
resume. There are so many more things as well, but hopefully those questions
will trigger some ideas for you to compound on and work with.
Conclusion - It's Only The Beginning
So
you've finished your resume. Congrats! Now I'm going to tell you that your
resume is an ever growing, ever changing, live document. It will never be
finished. For now, you are content with it. But soon you will think of
something else to add or do something else that should be put on there. This
is fine and you shouldn't get discouraged about the never ending resume work.
In fact, be proud that yours doesn't sit around outdated.
Your
resume is just the first part of your presentation. Like I said in the
beginning, you
are what makes a difference. Be sure that you can back up everything on your
resume, and if in doubt, allow a little leeway to go beyond what you wrote in
your resume. If you don't agree with something here, I am more than willing
to hear your argument and embrace different viewpoints.
Have you
developed a resume based off these guidelines already? How has this article
helped you in creating your newly refined resume? If you haven't created a
resume yet, are there any additional questions I can help with?
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