Resume writing can be confusing and frustrating, because it is unlike any other type of writing we’ve done before. There are bullet points instead of paragraphs, action verbs instead of complete sentences,etc.
An effective resume is often the difference between being offered an interview and receiving an email that the company is moving forward with other applicants. In order to help in your resume writing, I’ve complied a list of the top resume tips that I give to students during resume reviews.
- Be consistent with formatting. If you emboldened your position title for one experience, make sure to embolden all your position titles. Have a friend or family member look over your resume to double check for formatting consistency.
- Quantify your accomplishments and be specific. A descriptive line that reads “Trained new employees and was promoted” is not very specific or descriptive. Try something like “Promoted to Team Leader after successfully training over 20
new employees”.
- Double check for typos and verb tense. A resume can get put in the ‘no’ pile if there is just one spelling error, because it shows that a candidate might not have attention to detail skills.
- Start each descriptive line with an action verb, such as “Edited”, “Developed”, “Managed”, or “Facilitated”.
- Focus on your skills, accomplishments, and abilities, rather than tasks. Task focused descriptive line: “Worked on a team”. Skills focused descriptive line: “Developed effective verbal and written communication skills by working on a team of a 15 colleagues”.
- Instead of dividing the sections in your resume into “Work Experience” and “Volunteer Experience”, consider having sections based on related experiences. Employers don’t care if you got paid or not, they care about the skills and knowledge you gained. Try section headings like “Leadership Experience”, “Agronomy Experience”, and “Communications and Outreach Experience”.
- When emailing your resume, save the document as a PDF and make sure the title of the document has your name and the title of the position you’re applying for.
Those are good tips. Resume writing gets pretty stressful, especially in this economy. For me, the hard part is knowing how to tweak it for the different employers. I like your tip about starting with action verbs.
Another tip I would add is catering your resume to each job you apply as best you can. That’s one of the eight interview lessons I read on http://buystock.net.