Critical Resume Tips: Key Resume Writing Advice -- #3

Q-Tips: Critical Resume Tips
Key Resume Writing Advice -- #3

These resume writing related tips -- choosing the best resume style, tips for highlighting career accomplishments, and more -- have been gathered from numerous sources throughout Quintessential Careers and organized here for your convenience.

One of the first signs that you may need a professional resume writer is that your resume simply does not seem to be working for you. If you are not getting called for interviews after sending out or posting your resume, it's possible that your resume could be improved. Of course, other factors also could be involved, such as whether you are following up after sending out your resume -- but your resume itself is a good place to start troubleshooting. Read more in our article Why Hire a Professional Resume Writer?

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It is very easy for a creative professional to make mistakes on a design resume, writes Jennifer Klein in her article for QuintCareers, Creative Professionals: Does Your Resume Reflect Your Design Skills?. The most common (and most detrimental) mistake I have seen made is that the design overwhelms the resume. Remember that while your resume should showcase your design abilities and not look like a traditional resume, it is extremely important that the content of your resume is still easy to read, well organized, well written and edited, and that the content is very clear in regards to your design abilities. Sometimes incorporating too many elements of design can become distracting, and sometimes the elements that you choose to incorporate might not look right. Just as you would ask for feedback from other design professionals on your design projects, I encourage you to ask for critiques on your resume from people in your creative field.

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The easiest way to get an employer's attention in your resume is to include in your summary the exact skills requested in the employer's job announcement, writes Sherri Edwards in her article for QuintCareers, Ten Resume Tips. The use of keywords at the very beginning of a resume will capture the employer's attention. Conversely, using a variety of skills that are unrelated to the position will detract from your value, not add to it. Using the employer's specific words will ensure you get attention, while paraphrasing with other language can be disadvantageous. Tagging "hard" (technical) skills on at the end of the resume may work for recruiters' electronic searches, but when the recipient/screener is actually reading your resume, your most important skills may be overlooked.

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More than 80 percent of resumes are searched for job-specific keywords. Therefore, if you apply for a job with a company that searches databases for keywords, and your resume doesn't have the keywords the company seeks for the person who fills that job, you are pretty much dead in the water.

The summary/profile sections mentioned above under Focus can be important for front-loading your resume with these all-important keywords. (Lack of front-loaded keywords decreases ability to match resume to potential jobs quickly at critical first- and second-level scanning. Many job-seekers would likely benefit from a section of industry-specific keywords, labelled with a heading such as Areas of Expertise, Core Competencies, or Key Proficiencies. To display your keywords, you might want to use a reader-friendly table, as in this sample resume or in this sample resume.

To read more about keywords, see our article Tapping the Power of Keywords to Enhance Your Resume's Effectiveness.

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If you are a creative professional, include all of your creative/design skills in the "Skills" section of your resume as these are important talents that will be required in any job for which you apply, writes Jennifer Klein in her article for QuintCareers, Creative Professionals: Does Your Resume Reflect Your Design Skills?. In addition to any software/computer skills that are typically included on the resume, include a category of design/fabrication/creative that lists your skills in those areas as well. You can also consider including a "Design Philosophy" on your resume rather than an objective, where you can make a statement about your design beliefs and/or style. (Make sure that if you do choose to mention a certain type of design expertise in your design philosophy that your resume represent that type of design. For example, if your design philosophy states you believe in modern design and straight lines, then the feel of your resume should represent that.) If you are in a field of design that also requires a portfolio, it is important to incorporate the design aspects of your resume into your portfolio to provide branding consistency. The same is true of a teaser sheet. Be consistent with your font type, graphic elements, color, and other elements. The portfolio, teaser sheet, and resume should all have the same "feel" to them.

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Use the right keywords in your resume, writes Deborah Walker in her article for QuintCareers, Is Your Resume Lost in the Great Internet Void?. More than ever, resumes are stored in a database and queried for keywords to indicate candidate match. If you aren't using the right words to describe your employment experiences, then your resume might be rejected before it's ever seen. Review the keywords your resume uses to:

Describe your dream job. Do your qualifications match the job description? Look closely at areas listing your technical skills, job responsibilities and core competencies.
Attract your desired industry. Are you using industry buzzwords? In other words, does your resume talk the employer's talk?
Attract your occupational field. Do the phrases you use prove your level of experience in your field? [Editor's note: See our article, Tapping the Power of Keywords to Enhance Your Resume.]

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A resume should be a statement of the skills a job-seeker would bring to a new job, as well as an outline of accomplishments in past positions, said human resources manager John Logan in the Q&A interview he did with Quint Careers. Because the resume is often the only data an employer receives from a candidate, the bullet points must provide context for past work; providing details like number of people supervised, size of project budget, estimated cost savings in dollars (or other appropriate specifics) helps an employer place each candidate in the context of the organization. "I find that most resumes do not provide enough details for me to understand the scope of the candidate's experience, but are merely a restatement of a job description, which is not helpful to me as an employer," Logan said.

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Always portray your skills in your resume as applicable to the job you seek. If you have good experience and you're seeking in a job in the same field you've pursued in the past, portraying your skills as transferable is relatively easy. But if you are changing careers and seeking to do something entirely different from what you've done in the past, or you are a college student or other entry-level jobseeker without much experience, you have a much more difficult task ahead of you. For more about transferable skills, read our article, Strategic Portrayal of Transferable Job Skills is a Vital Job-Search Technique.

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A design resume looks both like a resume and a piece of design, writes Jennifer Klein in her article for QuintCareers, Creative Professionals: Does Your Resume Reflect Your Design Skills?. Deciding what your resume should look like and what design elements to include is a main part of your job as the designer. Your resume could be one of your most important design projects -- the one that launches your formal career -- so take time to think and plan as you use your creative skills, balancing professionalism with a design that works and makes the reviewer take note. Here are three sample design resumes:

Design Resume Sample 1, showing judicious use of colored type, bullets, interesting font.
Design Resume Sample 2, showing use of outline type, screen-tinted background graphic.
Design Resume Sample 3, showing creative use of white space, branded, logo-like treatment of designer's name. Used with permission of Cory Smith, senior, Wentworth Institute of Technology, pursuing B.S. degree in Industrial Design.

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Your resume has to have a focus, says the Career Doctor Randall S. Hansen. Every job-seeker needs to be a specialist, a specialist that fits the needs of the prospective employer perfectly. Sometimes a job objective or summary of qualifications can give you the edge you are seeking. Learn more in our Resume and CV Resources for Job-Seekers.

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Years ago, we created "catchy" resumes, using sophisticated language, printing them on colored paper or even having them delivered by singing messengers to get the attention of the decision maker, writes Sherri Edwards in her article for Quint Careers, Dispelling the Myth About Resumes. Life, work, and the pursuit of employment have changed since then. When sent in response to a job announcement, the chance of a resume directly reaching the decision maker without going through a screening process is slim to none. "Catchy" has been replaced with "targeted" and "to the point." People spend many hours trying to break the recruiter's or or human resource specialist's code to determine what will catch their eye. It seems the real value a resume offers to a candidate may get overlooked in the process of becoming "catchy" or "cute" or packed with "keywords."

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What is a resume? It's a document that tells prospective employers all about you -- and why you would make a great employee -- so you want to focus it on your strengths and accomplishments, as well as your education and work experiences. It is designed to help get your foot in the door, to help you get the job interview. Teen job-seekers do not need to have a resume when job-hunting, but if you want to stand out from the crowd, then developing your resume will do so. Think you know how to write a great resume? Take our quiz and find out!

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What are the most important things to remember about writing an effective resume? They can be encapsulated in a six-letter acronym, FAKTSA, in which the letters stand for:

Focus
Appearance
Keywords
Transferrable Skills
Accomplishments

Learn more about these components in our article, FAKTSA: An Easy Acronym for Remembering Key Resume Enhancers.

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An article on resumes recently hit my inbox, writes Sherri Edwards in her article for QuintCareers, Dispelling the Myth About Resumes. It started with "The purpose of a resume is to land an interview. Nothing more, nothing less." I couldn't disagree more. Resumes serve a greater purpose than "getting your foot in the door." A carefully composed resume will not only nail each requirement stated in the job announcement, it will encompass the unpublished information learned through networking or conducting informational interviews. The process of researching and collecting the appropriate data for your resume does more than catch someone's eye. It is one of the most important steps in preparing you for an interview. After all, getting in the door is not your final goal. Getting the offer is.

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Have people told you your resume needs work -- perhaps friends, co-workers, professors, recruiters, or others? Sometimes these folks are trying to tell you your resume needs a lot of work, but they are too kind to tell you that. If you're hearing this message, it's probably time to re-vamp your resume -- on your own or with the help of a professional resume writer. Read more in our article Why Hire a Professional Resume Writer?

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Having the right hard skills will determine if the employer will read your resume, writes Sherri Edwards in her article for Quint Careers, Ten Resume Tips. "Soft" skills are important, but very difficult to measure/prove. In many cases, employers assume you have the related soft skills until they learn otherwise. Typically, soft skills can only really be determined with proof (quantifiable results) or when the employer actually meets you.

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Many resumes are duties-driven when they should be accomplishments-driven. Job-seekers should, for example, NEVER use expressions like "Duties included," "Responsibilities included," or "Responsible for." That's job-description language, not accomplishments-oriented resume language that sells. After all, if you were an employer and wanted to run a successful organization, would you be looking for candidates who can perform only their basic job functions, or would you want employees who can make real contributions? In these days in which most resumes are placed into keyword-searchable databases, you won't find employers searching resumes for words like "responsibilities," "duties," or "responsible for." Learn more about these components in our article, FAKTSA: An Easy Acronym for Remembering Key Resume Enhancers

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It has been said that a crafty, eye-catching resume is all that is needed to get your foot in the door for an interview. That may be so, writes Sherri Edwards in her article for QuintCareers, Dispelling the Myth About Resumes. Then what? How many times have you heard of a person having interview after interview, but never receives any offers? There is likely to be a good reason for that, and there is a good chance it can be tracked all the way back to their resume.

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Use the correct electronic version of your resume, cautions Deborah Walker in her article for Quint Careers, Is Your Resume Lost in the Great Internet Void? If your resume can't be opened as an attachment, then it can't be seen. Because of the threat of computer viruses many companies only accept resumes through their own online forms which ask you to cut and paste (rather than attach) your resume. Make sure you are sending your resume in a format that will work for the employer.

If a resume attachment is requested: Save your resume as a Word document (.doc or .rtf), which is the standard most companies use. It should retain the formatting that you used for your resume. But just in case the employer uses a different word processing program from yours, you should still avoid using too many fancy formatting options, such as columns, boxes, and tables.
If an email or online form is used: Use ASCII, plain text, or text only to remove formatting while preserving the content. Be sure to review your resume before sending it so that it is still easy to read and user-friendly. [Editor's note: See our article, Your E-resume's File Format Aligns with its Delivery Method.]

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In larger corporations, resumes will be entered into a keyword-searchable database, so job-seekers should know key skills and software packages and list them as appropriate, said human resources manager John Logan in the Q&A interview he did with Quint Careers. Having those key words on a resume will get a candidate into the search pool, but employers still have to review each resume to understand the depth of skills in desired areas. Job-seekers should remember that it's NOT about buzzwords, it's about having the skills that an employer needs. Employers should remember that resume databases are tools to help find candidates with required skills, but those databases cannot replace reviewing resumes against the job specifications. "Despite technology, I believe there is still some art in the employment process," Logan said. Database systems may not format a resume correctly, and appearances do count to interviewers. Job-seekers in creative fields (graphic design, advertising, performance, etc.) have more leeway in resume format.

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Your resume must showcase your accomplishments, says the Career Doctor Randall S. Hansen. Employers like specifics. They don't want to know you saved your former employer money; they want to know exactly how much money you saved. They want to know the exact size of the staff you managed, the amount you increased revenues, the level of customer satisfaction you delivered. Learn more in our Resume and CV Resources for Job-Seekers.

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Teens, there really is not a whole lot of mystery behind developing and writing a good resume. It does take some time and effort -- and a good set of eyes to spell-check and proofread it -- but if you are serious about making a statement as a job-seeker, then use our resume-writing worksheet as a guide for creating your resume.

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A sharp focus is an extremely important resume element. Given that employers screen resumes for between 2.5 and 20 seconds, a resume should show the employer at a glance what you want to do and what you're good at. In a study by Career Masters Institute, employers wanted resumes to show a clear match between the applicant and a particular job's requirements. A "general" resume that is not focused on a specific job's requirements was seen as not competitive. In a more recent study by CareerBuilder.com, 71 percent of hiring managers preferred a resume customized for the open position. Learn more in our article, FAKTSA: An Easy Acronym for Remembering Key Resume Enhancers

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One of the greater purposes of a well-crafted resume is more for the benefit of the candidate, rather than the employer, writes Sherri Edwards in her article for QuintCareers, Dispelling the Myth About Resumes. A candidate who has selected language that is used by the employer, and included specific examples of accomplishments that are relevant to the employer's needs has a far greater chance of using this information to his or her advantage during an interview. The candidate who has thoughtfully considered each piece of information included in the resume, and qualified and quantified his or her examples has most certainly done the hardest part of the preparation required to succeed in the interview. Without completing the connections between experiences and the employer's needs long in advance of the interview, a jobseeker's ability to present that information in a meaningful way and effectively lead the employer directly to those same conclusions during an interview is vastly limited. By using only relevant examples of experience, being very clear about why these examples have been selected for inclusion in the resume, a candidate has built the framework for the impending conversation. The candidate, not the employer, in essence, can control the conversation. The resume is used as the "agenda" or a "cheat sheet' for the candidate.

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When you suspect your resume needs an overhaul, you don't have to start right off the bat with getting your resume professionally revamped. Most resume-writing services offer low-cost or even no-cost critiques. By having a professional resume writer review and critique your resume, you can find out whether your resume needs just minor repairs -- or major surgery. Read more in our article Why Hire a Professional Resume Writer?

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In your resume, focus on accomplishments that set you apart from other job candidates. In each job, what special things did you do to set yourself apart? How did you do the job better than anyone else or than anyone else could have done? What did you do to make it your own? What special things did you do to impress your boss so that you might be promoted? What were the problems or challenges that you or the organization faced? What did you do to overcome the problems? What were the results of your efforts? How did the organization benefit from your performance? How did you leave your employers better off than before you worked for them? How have you helped your employer to:

make money
save money
save time
make work easier
solve a specific problem
be more competitive
build relationships
expand the business
attract new customers
retain existing customers

Learn more in our article, FAKTSA: An Easy Acronym for Remembering Key Resume Enhancers

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A well-constructed resume will include qualified and quantified information spoken in plain language that is relevant to the industry, and easy enough to understand by the lowest level screener, writes Sherri Edwards in her article for QuintCareers, Dispelling the Myth About Resumes. You must pass "go" before you move to the next level. Beyond being clear, the information provided is also an opportunity to begin building your value. Never assume that past titles or general statements will imply value, or secure a whopping salary.

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If you have stated a skill in the summary portion of your resume, you need to support it through an example of your related accomplishment in the experience portion of your resume, whether you are using a functional or chronological resume format, writes Sherri Edwards in her article for Quint Careers, Ten Resume Tips. Describing a specific incident, event, work experience, or project will show evidence or "prove" you have a specific skill. Fancy language may appear engaging, but for the discerning decision maker, it does not take the place of facts. Facts sell. Using concrete examples in your resume will also prepare you for your interview. Using vague statements may get you in the door, but at some point, you will have to come up with specifics to make it real. Better to do it now than assume you will be able to produce supporting details on cue during and interview without preparation.

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Include some design elements, such as rule lines, to give your resume graphic interest. Consider a bulleted style to make your resume more reader-friendly. In a study by the former Career Masters Institute, use of bullets was the 2nd-highest ranked preference by employers, and density of type (paragraphs rather than bullet points) was ranked highly as a factor that would inspire employers to discard a resume. Read more about ways to improve your resume in FAKTSA: An Easy Acronym for Remembering Key Resume Enhancers

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Some job-seekers hurt the appearance of their resumes by trying to squeeze a lot of information onto one page. Don't be afraid to go to a two-page resume. Two pages is totally acceptable and even expected for those with higher levels of experience. If you have doubts, read our article, The Scoop on Resume Length: How Many Pages Should Your Resume Be? If you have only a few lines of type on your second page, however, try to condense to one page. Number your pages and include your name on each page in case the pages of the resume get separated.

Find even more resume tips in Critical Resume Tips: Key Resume Writing Advice -- #4.

Check out all of our Quick and Quintessential Strategic Resume Tips.

Review all our Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search and Work Life.

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Q-Tips: Critical Resume Tips Key Resume Writing Advice -- #3

These resume writing related tips -- choosing the best resume style, tips for highlighting career accomplishments, and more -- have been gathered from numerous sources throughout Quintessential Careers and organized here for your convenience.

Check out all of our Quick and Quintessential Strategic Resume Tips.

Review all our Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search and Work Life.

Maximize your career and job-search knowledge and skills! Take advantage of The Quintessential Careers Content Index, which enables site visitors to locate articles, tutorials, quizzes, and worksheets in 35 career, college, job-search topic areas.

Q-Tips: Critical Resume Tips
Key Resume Writing Advice -- #3