7 Ways to Make Your Resume Do Its Job
Job-seekers everywhere ask what hiring managers look for in a
resume. While the answer varies per industry and position, here
are some guidelines to follow - illustrated by some bloopers
that show what NOT to do! (And yes, all of these gems are real,
with only identifying details removed.)
Don't disqualify yourself
One resume I received for a writing position said "I have no
writing experience at all, but I was born in Scotland." In
other words, this person was telling me that, aside from
speaking English, he or she had no qualifications for the job.
You should never stretch your credentials beyond what they are,
but don't do the opposite and make it clear to one and all that
you can't do the job.
Use your resume to sell your strengths
One would-be writer said, "I am current responsible for
standardizing." In other words, while this person saw
herself as someone who could help an employer standardize the
work of many people and processes, which is often a good thing,
she undermined her claim by showing she didn't even standardize
what she had written to the rules of grammar. (She should have
said "currently.") So she got to stay current where she was!
Show you can do good work
In most documents you write, typos might not be critical. But on
resumes, where you're trying to explain how good a worker you
are, it's counter-productive if you don't check your work. One
resume I received claimed the author was "Able to set and
meet goals in a fast past environment." Now, "past" is a
perfectly good word, but what he meant was "paced." And his
spell-checker didn't catch the typo, since "past" is a word. So
this resume announced to hiring managers "I don't check my
work." Is that what you want to say on your resume?
Sell your skill set using logic
Sometimes people put silly things on their resumes that aren't
incorrect and might even be true. But they're still mistakes,
like the person who wrote, "Maintain 98% total quality
accuracy." It was meant to sound good, but what it means is
that she's promising to make errors 2% of the time. Maybe it's a
matter of perspective, but 98% fat-free milk is another way of
saying it has 2% fat. Sure, nobody's perfect, and you can't
claim that you don't ever make mistakes. But if you want to sell
a manager on how accurate you are, use logic, and come up with a
better way to illustrate your obsession.
Tell me what you can do for me
While many people think the purpose of resumes is to say what
you've done, the real purpose of a resume is to convince a
manager that you can do what they need you to do. You should
never, ever, stretch the truth, and you should never, ever,
speak ill of your former or current employers. (Managers don't
want to hire liars or back-stabbers.) So summarize the key
elements in your previous work in an interesting way that shows
how you tackle assignments. Write about what you did and how you
did it. And you don't need to include belittling details, like
the guy who wrote that the company he was trying to leave "is
a company started by a friend of mine." What that told me is
that the reason he got hired was because his friend, not him,
had initiative and started a company, and worse, that he was
paying back his friend by deserting him.
Don't overdo it
Stick to the facts and present them in a way that shows managers
you can do the job. Give examples, preferably using numbers if
that makes sense. And let the reader draw her own conclusions,
unlike the resume that said, "I am superior at ...". I
wanted to thank the writer for, um, sharing that information
with me, but that's not someone I wanted on my team.
Write clearly
Whether you are a truck driver or a neurosurgeon, work on your
resume until it's clear. Keep in mind that for most jobs,
several different kinds of people will read your resume before
you get an interview, ranging from secretaries to HR staff who
may not know your professional jargon, to hiring managers who
may or may not know the lingo of your specific profession. And
please, skip the buzzwords of the day, unlike the candidate who
wrote, "I am interested in a position where I can develop a
synergistic relationship." She must have read somewhere that
synergistic relationships were the buzzword du jour, but
couldn't say on her resume just who or what she intended to
develop such a relationship with.
Make your resume do its job
Your resume has a job - to get you an interview. So give your
resume the ammunition it needs to get that job done: stick to
the facts, present them clearly and persuasively, give examples
of your accomplishments to show what makes you stand out, and
ruthlessly hunt down any mistakes of typing, writing, fact, or
logic. Do this, and your resume will start to work for you!
For more information, see the
career books at TechWritingJobs.