I've been working on my Resume for months now. Here is a summary of what I've learned:

1. Avoid referring to yourself via 1st person or 3rd person terms.
Rather than saying "I started this job in" just say "Began job in"... Employers expect Resumes to be professional and avoid reference to oneself; and instead speaking in an impersonal tone that presents achievements/skills/experience/education without personalization. Avoid words like "I", "my", "he", "she", etc. Leave out personal pronouns and only use the action words/verbs. This also includes your Objective.

2. Make sure spelling and grammar are perfect.
Employers expect your Resume to be flawless. It is their key impression of you, and if it's a poorly written Resume, it will reflect poorly on you. The best excuse you can give an employer to instantly toss your Resume out is to have simple writing mistakes on the Resume, as it can show them you are sloppy, careless, and/or uneducated.

3. Arrange information well and be succinct.
It is said employers scan Resumes for only 15 seconds or so. You want your best information to stand out on the Resume. It may be a very informative, detailed Resume with good information, but if it's filled with a lot of details that don't matter or the best reasons for hiring you are hard to find, you may not get an interview. Figure out what best puts you apart from other applicants on your resume and is the best reason for employers to hire you, and then try to put that information at the top. Is it your Skills, your Education, or your Achievements? Different people want their sections ordered differently. Also, if your Resume format doesn't make the best information stand out, even if the Resume looks fancy, you should consider finding a new format. The Resume should appear orderly and categorize information clearly; a chaotic format will reflect poorly upon you.

4. Be prepared to provide references/sources/proofs.
You should have a References page ready at any interview to provide Reference information to employers. You should also consider a Sources page which provides school/work address/contact information, which may be requested on applications anyway. If there are online sources or other sources which verify the information in your Resume, you may want to consider providing the info on a Sources/Verification page. And while you don't want to bring in a lot of folders, in a day where a lot of applicants are lying about their qualifications, you may want to consider bringing in a thin folder containing a few key items like education transcripts, a few key work papers, or awards/certificates.

5. Think outside the box for information you can include.
What will stand out positively to employers and set you apart from other applicants? If you have little work experience, you may want to focus more on your skills, education, volunteer work, awards/achievements, and even test results/awards for exams like the PSAE (Prairie State Achievement Exam) or ACT.

6. Keep information relevant.
If a job, club, skill, etc. is not relevant to the job, why include it? Think from a standpoint of what the Employer is looking for. Unless you have little to put on your Resume, you should keep an eye out for irrelevant information to keep off the Resume that will only clog up the Resume, making it harder for an Employer to find the vital information.

7. With jobs/education, keep information specific.
Try to include dates of employment or attendance, name of the position, name of the company, job location, job duties (or even better unique accomplishments), and if you have less to put on your Resume, possibly the total number of hours worked or miles driven and what the pay rate was.

8. Don't name your Resume something generic like "resume" because it may be hard for employers to find, assuming it's being transmitted through online means such as email. Instead, you should include something relating to your name or job title in the file name so employers can find it more easily.

9. Make sure your contact information is included and correct.
This should go without saying, but try to make it easy for employers to contact you by providing a phone number and email address, if you have both, and make sure to include the area code for the phone number. Also, realize that your email address reflects on who you are. You don't want one that shows immaturity to an employer, and should consider carefully which one to use. One that simply has your name and/or birthdate info should be a safe bet.

10. Check the margins.
You want the information centered well on the page(s). Make sure your formatting is correct.

 

 

 

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Thanks for the tips. I actually have to write a resume soon for college apps, so the stuff you wrote here will actually come in handy for me.

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