There are two basic resume formats: the “chronological” format and the “functional” format.  In the chronological format, you list your employers in date order, beginning with your most recent employer and working backwards.  With the functional resume format, you list all your skills and education first, emphasizing those aspects of your resume.  You then list your employment history after that, as a simple list of prior employers with only the dates of employment.

As you might imagine, the chronological resume is the most common and the correct one to use for the majority of people.  It’s also the format most preferred by hiring managers.

The functional resume is best used if you’ve had a lot of different employers and have changed jobs frequently.  You can somewhat downplay a spotty work record by using a functional resume format and concentrating on your skills and education.   If you’ve changed jobs frequently and are using the chronological format with poor results, try converting your resume to a functional format.   You may find that you get a better response.

For more information about these formats and when to use them, please see the resume section of our website at:  http://www.job-search-steps.com/make-a-resume.html.

Once you’ve decided on the right format, there are some important points to consider when presenting your information.

First, use bullet statements for the majority of your material.  Your summary statement should be a sentence or two with some bullets.  Each job on your resume should have a very short paragraph to describe the job and then several bullets for your experience and accomplishments.  The same goes when listing your education, certifications, and very specific technical skills.  These should be presented primarily as bullet points.

The reason to use bullets generously is that it creates “white space” on your resume and makes it much easier to read.  A well organized resume with half or more of the content presented as bullets will stand a much better chance of being read.

Second, use bold and underlining sparingly, but do use them.  I like to see the applicant’s name and the names of previous employers in bold because it saves me time as I scan a resume.  I like to see position titles underlined for the same reason.  To see a good example of how bold and underlining should be used, see our chronological resume sample at: http://www.job-search-steps.com/chronological-resume.html.

Finally, I shouldn’t have to say it (but I will!), proofread your resume thoroughly.  Don’t depend on the spell checker/grammar checker  in your word processor, as it will almost certainly miss words that are spelled correctly but used incorrectly.  Proofread every word manually and then have a trusted friend proofread it again for you.   Then, as a final check, read your resume out loud to yourself, as this will help you catch awkward phrases.

Now that your resume is tuned-up and polished, good luck with your job applications.

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While everyone’s situation is different as far as number of years of experience, education, skills, etc, there is one simple statement that I can give you about resume length: shorter is almost always better.

I know this sounds counter intuitive, but as I’ve said many times, you have less than 30 seconds to capture the hiring manager’s interest with your resume.  A tightly written, well organized resume that takes advantage of every word will stand a much higher chance of doing that.

Here’s the hard cold fact: If you haven’t convinced me that you’re a great candidate on the very first page of your resume, I probably won’t read any further.  And even if you have convinced me, if I have to continue reading an additional three or four pages I’m going to start having doubts.

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve received resumes that are multiple pages in length, rambling on to three, four, five pages or more.  In today’s tough job market, where ’m reviewing 40 or 50 resumes for each opening I have, I simply cringe when I come across resumes like this.

If you’ve read my advice on other posts, you know that you must tailor your resume for each job to which you apply.  This means that, among other things, you must stress experience and skills that are specific to that job and leave out those that are not.  If you’ve done this, your resume will likely already be tight and focused.  And brief!

And by brief, I mean one or, at the most, two pages.  Here are some guidelines:
•     If you’ve had three prior employers or less, keep your resume to one page.
•    If you’ve had more than three employers, or your particular field requires detailed skills that need a longer resume to list, make your resume two pages (but no more).

Even if you have 20 or 30 years of experience, you shouldn’t be going back more than 10 or 15 years, which you can easily do in two pages.

Please believe me when I tell you that a tightly written, very focused two page resume stands a much better chance of getting you considered than a five page novel documenting every detail of your career.   This is particularly true because you should also have a killer cover letter with your resume.   But that’s a topic for another post.

Read Part 4 of Tune Up Your Resume

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About 80 to 90 percent of the resumes I see include a “Job Objective” or “Career Objective” statement at the top.  It usually goes something like this:

“Obtain a XXXX position in the YYYY industry, with a dynamic company that will enable me to reach my full potential and achieve my career goals.”

If you have something similar to this in your resume, I have to tell you that it’s essentially a waste of valuable resume space.   As a hiring manager, It tells me nothing about your experience, skills or accomplishments, or why you are more qualified than the other 50 or 60 resumes I’ve received.

At best, I simply ignore job objective statements.  At worst, something will jump out at me as inappropriate for my particular position and now I’m reading the rest of your resume with a negative attitude.   In the statement above, for example, what if I don’t consider my company to be particularly “dynamic”?  Right from the start I’m wondering if you’ll even be happy here.

My advice is that you replace your job objective statement with what I call a “Summary Statement”.  The purpose of a summary statement is to give a brief recap of your experience and accomplishments, in terms that makes them directly related to the job for which you’re applying.

The format should be two or three bullet statements about your accomplishments, containing keywords relevant to that exact job opening.  This should be followed by one or two sentences about your skills and experience, again loaded with keywords for that specific job.

The summary statement should appear right at the top of your resume (after your name and address information, of course) and before anything else on your resume.   For a good example of what a summary statement should look like, see our web page at: http://www.job-search-steps.com/chronological-resume.html.  Note the summary statement at the top of the sample resume.

I’ve said in previous posts that your resume has about 30 seconds to catch the interest of the hiring manager and ensure the rest of the resume gets carefully read.  With a summary statement, you’re making an immediate statement about how well your experience and accomplishments fit that particular job opening and are giving the hiring manager a reason to continue reading.  You’re also increasing your chances of landing that elusive interview.

Continue reading about tuning up your resume…

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If you too have doubts about the effectiveness of your resume, perhaps it’s time to tune it up.  I have several recommendations for improving your resume and in this post I’ll talk first about my favorite one, which is this: state your experience in terms of accomplishments, not just activities.

Here’s what I mean.

Let’s assume you’re a sales representative in the Widgets industry and you’re looking for a new position.  You’ve prepared your resume, complete with a variety of “bullet statements” about your experience.  One of your typical bullet statements reads something like this:

“Responsible for all sales and customer service in California, Oregon and Washington.  Promote 14 different product lines and provide technical service and support to over 80 customers.”

Looks good?  While at first glance this might appear to be a good statement that indicates solid sales experience, the problem with it is that it’s incomplete.  As a hiring manager, it tells me what you did but NOT whether or not you were successful at it.  It other words, it tells me nothing about your accomplishments.  Take a look at the following rewrite.

“Increased sales last year in California, Oregon and Washington by 19%.  12 of my 14 product lines grew at twice the overall company average.  Added 9 new customers and increased the “very satisfied” customer service rating from 71% to 92%.”

This is now a much more powerful statement because it frames your experience in terms of accomplishments, not just activities.  I estimate that only about 20% of the resumes I read include specific accomplishments.  The other 80% merely give a laundry list of duties with no indication of whether or not those duties were performed effectively.  The 20% that do take the extra step of telling me their accomplishments are always the ones I consider first.

In today’s very competitive job market, the person reading your resume may spend less than 30 seconds in deciding whether or not it gets put in the “candidates to consider” stack.  If your resume isn’t getting the results you want, give it a tune up and add accomplishment to your experience wherever possible.  It may just make the difference between getting an interview and getting passed over.

Read Tune Up Your Resume Part 2.

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At the very beginning of your resume, it’s important that you include specific references to the requirements for that position.  First, you should include a few bullet points listing your experience and/or accomplishments relating to the job requirements.  Then, follow this with a short paragraph that outlines your overall experience and skill set, specifically tailored for that job.

For an example of how this should appear in your resume, see the sample resume at:  http://www.job-search-steps.com/chronological-resume.html.  Notice the bullet points at the top, followed by the short paragraph of overall skills and experience.  This is where you want to include references to the job qualifications, worded exactly as they appear in the job posting.

Most job postings follow this general format: they give a brief overview of the job responsibilities, followed by a more specific listing of the qualifications required.  Folks, this is gold – they are telling you exactly what they want to see in your resume!  If you give it to them, you’ll greatly increase your chances of getting an interview.

What you should do is print a hard copy of the job posting and then read it several times in detail.  Highlight or underline the specific skills and experience requirements and use those exact words in your resume.

For example, let’s say an opening for a computer software developer states the requirements as follows:   “experience in developing Java applications, .Net applications, and working with Oracle relational databases”.  You’ll need to specifically use the terms “Java”, “.Net” and “Oracle relational databases” in the bullets at the top of your resume.  Then, work in as many of the other skills mentioned as you can (assuming, of course that you have those skills) into the overview paragraph following the bullet points.

This way, the Hiring Manager sees immediately that you are qualified for the position and that your resume deserves some attention.

As a Hiring Manager, I usually have dozens of resumes to review for a particular opening.  I will freely admit that if I don’t see something in about the first half of the first page that tells me that person is qualified, I stop reading and go on to the next resume.  In today’s hyper-competitive job market, I simply get too many resumes for each opening to spend the time plowing through each one to determine if that person has the necessary skills.

So please, don’t make me do this!  Tell me right up front why you are a good fit for my particular opening and I’ll be much more likely to put your resume in the “To be Interviewed” stack.

Sadly, only perhaps one out of every five was considered for an interview.  The other 80% probably should not have even been submitted.  Are you surprised?

I’m now going to reveal to you the single most important thing you can do to your resume to increase your chance of getting that elusive interview: customize it to specifically match every position to which you apply.

This is a simple concept that should be followed by all job applicants, but – amazingly – it isn’t.  The vast majority of resumes I receive are obviously written once and submitted multiple times.  I can always tell these because they seldom emphasize the exact skills in my job posting and usually include many skills and experiences that have little or no relevance to my specific opening.

When I hear people tell me they’ve sent out hundreds of resumes and have yet to get an interview, I always remark that it must be terribly time consuming to write that many custom resumes.  I usually get a blank look and a reply something to the effect that “I spent a lot of time making my resume perfect so that I could use it for any job I apply to.”

And that’s my “aha” moment!

No wonder they aren’t getting interviews.  Instead of letting their resume explain why they are a good fit for that exact job, they are expecting Hiring Managers to figure that out for themselves.  Remember: you have about 20 seconds to grab the Hiring Manager’s attention with your resume.  If it’s not quickly obvious that you’re a good match for that job, your resume is tossed aside, as is your chance for an interview.

Yes, it’s also important to have a properly formatted resume with no spelling or grammatical errors, but that’s the 20 in the 80/20 rule.  80 percent of the effectiveness of your resume lies in how well you sell your qualifications as being a great match for each specific job.

If you want to greatly increase the chance that your resume will result in an interview, you must carefully analyze the skill and experience requirements from the job posting.  Then, customize your resume to include and highlight as many of those EXACT skills as you can legitimately claim.

I’ll go into more detail about exactly how to do this in another post.

It used to be that almost everyone fudged their resume in some way. Perhaps they would embellish their work experience. Perhaps they would exaggerate on their education. Whatever the case was these little white lies where not uncommon.

These days it is certain that the truth stretching continues, but there is one huge difference. With all the advances in technology, it is far too easy to catch someone in a lie on their resume. In fact, many of the top companies in business today will pay a few bucks to have a resume they like searched for falsities. So, the risk is certainly not worth it.

Furthermore, being honest with an employer will allow you to be who you are. Even if you could gain employment by telling a lie or two, how long could you possibly sustain those lies? Maybe for awhile you would be okay, but eventually the truth would likely catch up to you and you may end up losing the job in the end anyway.

Instead of even thinking about what lies to tell on your resume, focus on what your real strengths are. Once you realize your greatest attributes, you can then seek out opportunities where you will naturally flourish.

Besides, even without technology, the business world may not be as big as you think. You never know who knows who and getting caught lying on your resume can lead to you being black listed from many opportunities. That’s because those in business tend to talk and may warn that your dishonest resume is out there.

Being honest with yourself and all potential employers is simply the right thing to do. Being honest on your resume gives every set of eyes that views it a true look at who you are and what you have to offer. Once you do get a job with the truth, you can be confident that you will succeed and you will be able to do so with the truth on your side.

One of the easiest ways to accomplish resume distribution is by working with online services that will do the hard work for you. You can use free services if you choose to, but you should also look into some of the pay services as well as they will often get your resume out to a broader audience.

You can also use existing contacts that you already have and get your resume out using them. Simply e-mail all your friends and colleagues your resume with a quick note saying that you are looking for a job. While they may not be able to help you, they may know someone who can and they may send on your resume. Once again, the more eyes on your resume the better.

Finally, you should be sure to carry lots of copies of your resume with you. You just never know who you might run into when you are out and about. If you always have resumes handy then you are always prepared. You can also make use the resumes that you have with you and drop them off at businesses where you are interested in possibly working.

It only takes one potential employer to see your resume and offer you a job interview. That interview can then be followed with an actual job if you play your cards right. However, none of that will happen if you don’t get to work and do all that you can to get your resume in front of as many people as you possibly can.

However, whatever needs to be said needs to be said in a clear and concise way in order to be effective. Your resume should convey your best traits and spell out what all your qualifications are, but it needs to be done without putting the reader to sleep.

This is likely why a lot of resume writing experts will say to keep your resume to one page if possible. This forces the resume to be condensed to the point that you really won’t be able to go too far off the deep end with your explanation of certain contents of the resume.

Of course, it is okay to make your resume longer than one page if you do need to but, you should keep it as short as possible. Too many times a resume will be several pages in length and this tends to come off more like a book as opposed to a resume to the person who has to view it. If the resume is too long, the potential employer is likely to be put off and simply not read it.

Think of your resume as a preview to who you are. You certainly want to give some key points about yourself and what you have to offer, but most of all you want to pique the interest of the person reading it enough that they call you for an interview. Once you secure an interview, you can then get into more detail about who you are and what you have to offer.

Writing a resume in an off-putting tone can have horrific effects on your chances that a potential employer will call you for an interview. That’s because the potential employer that reads over your resume has to actually enjoy what they are reading in order to be interested enough to call you for that interview.

In order to avoid your resume being tossed in the trash in a matter of seconds, pay close attention to the tone of your resume. Does your resume read like someone from Harvard Law wrote it? If so, you could be coming off way too pretentious and some potential employers may view this as a sign that you may think you are too good for a certain position.

On the flip side, check and be sure your resume doesn’t contain a tone that is too relaxed. If your resume reads as though it was written with little care then a potential employer might view you as someone who doesn’t care about anything. If they think you don’t care about your resume then they will likely think you won’t care about your job either.

Of course, your resume tone should be in direct correlation with the job you are trying to get. If you are attempting to gain employment as an executive then you probably want to stay away from using too relaxed a tone and also avoid using any slang in your resume.

Keep your tone in direct proportion with the job you are after and write to the level you think they would want to see. If your resume is a general one that targets no job in particular then you still need to be wary of your tone and go for a middle of the road tone that will pleasing to all.