Tips for Candidates > Resume Writing

Your resume is a potential employer’s first insight into your experience and skill – it is the first impression! The goal of a resume is to obtain an interview. Create a resume that grabs attention and breeds results. A resume is an opportunity seeker’s chance to self-promote and should exhibit your accomplishments and skills.

Objective

• This should be concise and only be a few lines; identifying your professional goals and the value you can offer your target organization.

Format

• A clean, professional format is best. Make your resume easy to read, allowing your target audience to extract the information that is applicable to their specific opportunity as effortless as possible.
• Include company name, your title(s) and dates of employment, starting with the most recent. Include dates of promotions to highlight the progression of your career within an individual company.
• Only list the last 10 years of experience. If you feel your experience prior to 10 years ago is significant to the role you are seeking to obtain today, make a short, bulleted list including company name, title and dates of employment.
• Use bullets
• Bullet the functions of each role you’ve held for each company you’ve worked with by utilizing a chronological format versus a functional format. This allows potential employers an understanding of your career and skill development, particularly if you’ve worked in different industries which require specialized job functions.
• Be as specific as possible in the description of your functions. A vague resume with broad descriptions of your responsibilities can get your resume overlooked or lost amongst the many other resumes hiring managers receive. Highlight your contributions, achievements, accomplishments and areas of skill.
• Tailor your resume to the specific company, industry and opportunity you are targeting. For example, if you are interested in obtaining a Management position, highlight your roles as a supervisor or decision maker. If you are targeting a specific industry, highlight the industry experience you gained over your career that would make you the strongest candidate for the job.
• “The One Page Resume” – The days of a one paged resume are over. Today, most resumes are submitted on-line or via email versus fax, making the need to fit all of your accomplishments, experience and functions onto one page not nearly as important as ensuring the extent of your experience is presented. Trying to accommodate a career’s worth of experience onto a one page resume by omitting functions, minimizing font, expanding margins and compacting paragraphs does not do your accomplishments justice and makes your resume difficult to read.

Education

• Including your post-high school education is very important; however the dates that you’ve obtained your degree is not. Including the year in which you’ve obtained your degrees can “date” you and although a hiring decision should never be made based on age, it is best to allow the hiring manager to focus on the credentials you’ve obtained rather than when you obtained them.

Presenting a Resume In-Person

• Use white or off-white paper with a clean, simple font. You shouldn’t have to use colored paper or non-standard font to grab the attention of a potential employer. Allow your skill, experience, achievements and education highlighted in your resume to do that for you!
• Do not staple your resume together if it is more than one page. Number the pages if you are concerned with keeping your resume in order.

Keep your resume up-to-date and accurate. And always follow-up a strong resume with a strong interview!