Your resume is a personal sales letter; your own direct marketing tool.  Marketing tools are most effective when focused on the audience.  Focus on the needs of the employer, not your personal objectives.

Your résumé must answer the following questions:

• What are your strongest areas of skill and expertise? Knowledge? Experience?
• What are your greatest strengths?
• What are your key accomplishments?
• What can you offer the prospective employer?

 Review the Job Description

Analyze the key words that employers provide in the job description.  Your résumé must address the specific requirements of the job.  Keep the employer's central question in mind:

What makes you the best candidate for the job?

 Keep it Short and Specific

Most résumés are too long.  Do not write one more word than necessary.

Try to keep it to one page but don't limit yourself

If you get the interview, you want the interviewer to look and talk to you, not shuffle pages. 

Avoid generalizations

By the time your reader gets to the end of a long résumé, he or she will have lost your key messages in the details.

 Don't Sell Yourself Short

Don’t understate your achievements.  Put positive information in the best possible light, without going over the top.  Most employers want confident, enthusiastic, hard-working employees with skills and achievements.

Highlight what you have to offer, without lying or stretching the truth 

Make sure you can back up everything you say.

 Use Power Words

Keep it concise and to the point.  Begin sentences with strong, active verbs (see Power Words).  Use phrases rather than full sentences.  Vary the words: don't use the same power word twice in the same paragraph.

 Break it up

Use a maximum of 5 or 6 lines of text in any one block or paragraph.

 Watch Verb Tenses

Resumes are written in the past tense except for your current position.  If a task or accomplishment has been completed, it should be in the past tense.  If the task is still underway, it should be present tense.  There is no future tense in a résumé; your future is with the prospective employer.

 Presentation

Keep it clean and uncluttered.  Do not place the word résumé (or Curriculum Vitae) at the top of the résumé. 

• Use clear and distinct headings.
• Use a bold typeface and bullets.
• Limit the number of fonts and styles (bold, italic, oblique).
• Use rules (lines) sparingly.
• Limit the colors (black and dark colors only).  Do not use color highlights.
• Print on quality paper. It will be in someone's hands, and it might make a difference.

Your name, address, telephone number and email address (and fax number, if you have one) must be displayed prominently at the top and center) of every page in a large, bold typeface, without being overwhelming and garish.

Be sure the phone number on the résumé will be answered by a person or an answering machine during business hours (Monday through Friday 8-5pm).  If you don't have an answering machine, get one.  Check your email more frequently than you usually do.

Do not under include the following:

• citizenship
• health
• marital status and children
• photograph
• previous salary
• reason for leaving previous jobs
• scholarships
• second mailing address
• social security number
• supervisor's or manager's names
• addresses of former employers
• References

 Style

Write your résumé in plain language without being folksy or conversational.  Avoid abbreviations and acronyms.  Use technical and industry-standard terms only if you are confident the reader will understand.

Keep it short.  Make every word count.  Write clearly and concisely.

Keep the average sentence between 13-18 words.  Begin sentences with strong, action verbs.  Avoid passive verbs (is, are) like the plague.  

 Technique

Draft

Begin with a rough draft.

Review

Re-read and review it.  Read each sentence and each word carefully.

Edit

Cut each long sentence and long-winded phrase.  Sharpen the focus. 

Proofread

The importance of proofreading cannot be stressed enough.  Your résumé must be error free.  No typos.  A single error almost certainly dooms your chances.   Read the draft several times.  Read it aloud.  Have a friend read it, if possible.

Use the spell checker in your word processor but don’t trust it; too many words slip through the cracks.  Check the spelling (especially names), punctuation and grammar.  Check the consistency in the use of capital letters and names carefully.

 Customize Your Résumé

In the days of offset printing and Xeroxing, one résumé was more than enough trouble to produce and the cover letter would help customize it for each employer.  In these days of electronic and desktop publishing, adapt your résumé to suit each targeted job.  Send a Cover Letter along with your resume.

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