How To Write A Great Resume
Your resume is the most important tool you can use to land a job. This means you must take great care in preparing it. Here are some tips to help you.
• Design your resume so that it is eye catching.
• Keep your resume concise. Avoid lengthy descriptions of projects of which you were only a member of the team.
• Check and proofread your resume after you have written it. Your resume must contain no spelling or grammatical errors.
• List your qualifications in order of relevance, from most to least. Only list your degree and educational qualifications first if they are truly relevant to the job for which you are applying. If you've already done what you want to do in a new job, by all means, list it first, even if it wasn't your most recent job. Abandon strict adherence to a chronological ordering of your experience.
• Make sure your resume is ‘aimed’ at the job you are applying for.
• Identify key words in the job ad and use these keywords in your resume.
• Create your image so that it matches the salary you are expecting.
• List your technical knowledge in an organized way. Your strengths must stand out clearly at the beginning of your resume.
• Don’t be shy about your experience. Cite numerical figures, such as monetary budgets/funds saved, time periods/efficiency improved, lines of code written/debugged, numbers of machines administered/fixed, etc. All these show progress and accomplishments due to your work.
• Use action verbs. Portray yourself as someone who is active, uses their brain, and gets things done. Use the past tense, even for descriptions of currently held positions, to avoid confusion.
• Don't sell yourself short. Your resume is your best advertisement.
• If you're over 50 or 60, remember that you don't have to present your entire work history. You can simply label that part of your resume "Recent Work History" or "Relevant Work History" and then describe only the last 10 or 15 years of your experience.
• Don't go too far back in your work history. About 10 or 15 years is usually enough - unless your "juiciest" work experience is from farther back.
• What if you never had any "real" paid jobs? Give yourself credit, and create an accurate, fair job-title for yourself.