The Only 9 Resume Tips Youll Ever Need - Money Under 30

The Only 9 Resume Tips Youll Ever Need - Money Under 30 The Only 9 Resume Tips You'll Ever Need To land your dream gig in todays cutthroat job market, youll need a resume that blows hiring managers out of their chairs. To help, I scoured the Web for nine tips that will help you rock rewriting your resume. Sell Your Achievements Whats the most important content on your resume? Its not your education, or even your past employers. Aside from perhaps your phone number (so you can actually get an interview), the most important part of a winning resume are achievements. If youre just out of school, your degree is certainly an achievement. But if youve been out for more than a year, what else have you done? Be as specific as possible. Toot your own horn! Use Bullet Points Hiring managers receive dozens, if not hundreds, of resumes every day. You want yours to stand outfast! Putting bullet points on your resume will make the document easy to scan and more likely to catch somebodys eye. Skip the Template Your resume should be uniquejust like youso skip resume templates. Read up on what a resume should include, but never just cut and paste your info into somebody elses idea of what a resume should look like. Engage Action Verbs No, its not a flashback to high school English classits a drop-dead rule of great resume writing: Use action verbs! Verbs that pack a punch and are descriptive all by themselves like organized, managed, analyzed, created, planned, oversaw, etc. Note: To avoid going overboard and sounding ridiculous, pick six resume action verbs to start with and add more carefully. Tell a Story The best resumes have a theme and tell a story, even if they are just a collection of bullets. Even if you have held several jobs in different areas, what is one thing that motivated you at each. What similarities do all of your accomplishments share. Keep it Short; Really Short These days more than ever, less is a lot more. Were all strapped for time, so the faster you can get your point across, the better. So keep your resume short. If youre still under 30, it should never be more than a page. Avoid Clutter Since you want to keep your resume short, you definitely dont want to clutter it with things you dont need. What dont you need on your resume? Mission statements or objectives, excessive keywords, photos, and jobs you held for less than a year (youll probably have to explain those, but save it for the interview). Getting rid of clutter is especially important at the top of your resume. Dont waste that valuable resume real estate with a generic mission statement! Avoid Resume Design Blunders Even if your resume is perfectly written, hiring managers may still overlook it if your resume is miserably designed. Learn to avoid the seven deadly sins of resume design or, even easier, stick with simple black type on high-quality (but not showy) white paper. Use a simple font (but not the boring old Times Roman). Finally, if you send your resume electronically, always include a simple text-based version. You never know how your formatted resume will look on another computeror if a hiring manger will even care enough to open an attachment. Improve Yourself, Not Just Your Resume These days were taught from a very early age to do more, more, more just to add bullets to our resumes. The sad reality is, the more we try to accomplish, the poorer well perform at each task. And what good is an awe-inspiring resume if were really just mediocre at a lot of things? With that in mind, focus on improving yourself, not your resume. Youll be far happierand more successfulbecause of it.