I am often asked by clients who ask me to write a resumé for them, "What is the secret to writing a great resumé?"
The honest answer is that there is no "one" thing that you can do to make an employer notice your resumé above any of the others, but there are a number of things you can do to ensure that your resumé is as perfect as you can possibly get it, which will give you a much better chance of surviving the resumé screening process and getting to that all-important interview stage.
Many people struggle to write their own resumé for a number of reasons... perhaps their spelling and grammar can let them down, perhaps they aren't sure what relevant information to include, or it could be that designing the resumé, choosing the fonts and layout and then documenting their skills and experience is just too daunting. A number of the people I meet wonder why they are not getting interviews and why they often don't even get an acknowledgement that their resumé has been received. The simple answer to this is that if their resumé is badly spelled, wrongly laid out and is too short, too long or contains irrelevant information, an employer or employment agent will simply go straight to the next resumé. Today's jobs market is extremely competitive and the disappointing thing is that even when a candidate is fantastic, has all the experience needed for the role and presents very well at interview, if they have a resumé that lets them down then that potential future employer is never going to invite them to come in for an interview!
There are a number of key things you can do to help you get that all important interview and make sure that your resumé gets read and that the employer or agent says "Let's get this person in asap!" and we are going to look at those shortly, but the first thing you need to get right is the Layout.
A resumé is generally broken up into sections. A sample list of sections that make up the layout of your resumé is as follows:
Personal Details
Candidate Profile
Professional Experience
Education
Additional Information
Additional Information is usually broken into 2 or 3 sub-categories such as:
"Awards" if you have any
"Memberships" e.g.societies, clubs etc.
"Interests" e.g. Politics, Reading, Football, French Cuisine, Travelling
A word of caution when writing your Additional Information... unless you are applying for a job in a motorbike shop, as a motorbike mechanic or at a motorbike rally centre, do not write things such as "I love fast motorbikes!" I recently received a resumé from a lady who was looking to move into a new role in the fashion retail sector. In particular, the role she was applying for was in an upmarket department store in the ladies clothing section, particularly dealing with high quality and top designer brands. As she loved fashion design, it was her ambition to ultimately find a great job in this area. On her resumé she had written, complete with the exclamation mark at the end, "I love fast motorbikes!"
I pointed out to her that to a future employer, she could potentially be seen as someone who takes unnecessary risks in her job and possibly even her life. I told her that it was admirable that she was so passionate about motorbikes, but when applying for certain jobs in certain industries, less is definitely more. Wait until you get to interview stage and if you are asked a question such as "What are you passionate about?" then you can say "I love motorbikes, particularly mechanics - I am very interested in how things work and how to build something as complicated as an engine from scratch." This shows you are methodical, intelligent and interested in taking a project from conception to end stage - and not a hint of danger or risk anywhere. Using the right wording on your resumé is so important!
The candidate had no idea why she could not get an interview - she'd been sending that resumé to dozens of retailers in the hope of getting a job in fashion retail, but had never even received a reply.
Here are my top 5 tips when writing your own resumé...
Personal Information - don't overdo it
Many years ago it was normal to write every piece of personal information possible on your resumé, including your date of birth, how many children you had, whether you were single, married, divorced, separated, what the state of your health was, whether you had a full clean driving license or not... nowadays it is not necessary to write so much about yourself in your introduction. New laws brought into effect a few years ago mean that when writing your resumé, you do not have to disclose your marital status, your age, or how many children you have. Neither do you have to disclose medical information on your resumé, as many companies now carry out medical screening as part of the interview process and usually at offer stage.
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Some relevant information you do need to include is:
Name
Address
Email
Contact Number
Nationality
Nationality is an important one to include as, depending on where you are applying for a job, Visas may be required for some countries and employers generally like to know at the outset if this is something you are going to need to have in order to work with them.
Sell Yourself
You should include a Candidate Profile at the beginning of your resumé after you written your Personal Information section. A candidate profile is the one thing that can really sell you, even if you don't have years of work experience or you have done a bit of job-hopping over the years, as your candidate profile is the first thing an employer or agent will read. It does not need to be long - about 6 lines is fine, but it does need to be well-written and needs to describe your skills, your experience and what you can bring to a new role. Be sure to include anything relevant that you feel will set you apart from others. It can be written in either the first person or third person, but I always feel it reads best in the third person and appears as if someone who is an expert on you and how great you are, has written it.
A sample candidate profile would read something like this:
Mary is a highly competent and accomplished individual who has gained a wealth of experience during her ten year career as a Team Leader. During this time, she has received a number of awards, including "Outstanding Team Leader 2010" and she recently accepted an award for "Best Salesperson 2011". A graduate of Sales and Marketing from City Business School, Mary's interpersonal skills and leadership qualities set her apart from others and her proven track record in sales speaks for itself. Mary is currently seeking a new role in which she can continue to progress her career and to which she can bring her extensive skills and experience.
Never underestimate the power of good spelling and grammar
A badly spelled and grammatically incorrect resumé will have your potential future employer sighing with exasperation and chucking your resumé into the nearest shredder. I received a job application from someone recently and there were four spelling mistakes on the first page! If your resumé has spelling mistakes, an employer or employment agent will see you as someone who:
1. could not be bothered to check through their own resumé for mistakes, so how conscientious will you be if you actually get the job?
2. didn't care enough about the job you were applying for to ask a family member or friend to check through the resumé one last time, just in case
You can use Spell Check in whatever program you use to write your resumé throughout the drafting process, just to make sure you have not missed anything. My advice is, if you are not good at spelling and grammar then check through your document as many times as you have to, until it is word perfect and if you are still not sure about a particular word or sentence, then ask a friend or family member to cast their eye over it for you. I would hate for you to miss out on the job of a lifetime because you didn't use every possible opportunity to get your resumé completely perfect before sending it out!
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It's Quality, not Quantity
You would be surprised how many resumés I see that are either far too short or incredibly long - the hard and fast rule when writing your resumé, is focus on the quality of the information rather than writing pages and pages of information that is not relevant to what you are doing now and the kind of skills you have. A resumé should be ideally 2 pages but no longer than 3. If you have had a long career spanning 25 years or more, it is not necessary to list every duty or responsibility you had in roles going back 25 years or more. For jobs you held more than 20 years ago, it is sufficient to state the role you were in, the name of the company and the length of time you held that position. Then, if you are asked, you can expand on what you did in each role.
Also, unless you are a recent graduate with very little solid work experience, it is not necessary to list every single temporary or summer job you have ever had. I recently received a resumé where the person was in their forties and in a senior management position, but because he had not updated his resumé for a long time, every part-time job he ever had going back as far as when he was sixteen, including paper rounds and helping out in the local shop on Saturdays, was listed. His resumé was 7 pages long.
Be Consistent
Make sure that when you are listing your experience, you are consistent with the following:
Dates
You need to ensure that all of your dates are correct and correlate with the previous or next role. If there are gaps on your resumé you need to explain them. Don't leave it up to a potential employer to "guess" what you might have been doing between jobs. If you lost your job or took a career break, say so. It is not necessary to go into enormous detail - something like "From August 2011 to December 2011 following my redundancy I took a career break to consider my options and to search for a new role" will suffice.
Layout
Be consistent in the layout of your resumé. You need to use the same font size throughout and the same font type. Try to avoid using italics and do not use different colours to highlight things. Your future employer wants to see a clear, well thought-out and consistent resumé that is easy to read and easy to follow. Remember, agencies and companies are scanning literally hundreds of resumés everyday which is very tiring, so you want to make their job easier, not harder.
Content
The key thing to remember with content, first and foremost, is to make sure that absolutely everything you are saying on your resumé is the truth. Never exaggerate your role or try to make it appear as if you were leading a team of 20 people when the team consisted of you and two other guys who were at the same level as you.
Remember, there are ways to describe your skills and experience without going overboard, so if you feel your content is making you look as if you did much more than you really did - delete it and start again! Likewise with your Education and Qualifications - be honest and truthful about what you do and don't have, in terms of your qualifications. Some clients come to me and they don't have any college education at all and are worried that this may go against them, but when I explain that their skills, maturity and experience are what may give them the edge over say, a graduate when it comes to getting an interview, they are delighted.
The most important thing to remember about your resumé, is that it is a reflection of you - who you are, what you do, the experience you have and the qualities you can bring to a new role. So, when you sit down to write your resumé, remember that your resumé is effectively your advertisement and it will hopefully be seen and read by the one person you really want to impress - your new employer!
About The Author...
Tania Mallett is the Owner of Here To Help Business Support Services based in Dublin, Ireland. She worked at senior executive level in large multinationals and across many industries for over twenty years, supporting busy and often very stressed executives and now provides specialised and bespoke support to start-ups, SMEs and entrepreneurs. Her belief is that everyone should love their life and her goal is to make life easier for people - both in their business and in their life.
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