The Do’s and Dont’s of writing a resume.

A resume is the first thing a hiring manager sees.

It’s where you make a good impression, or you basically make yourself unhirable for that company. You might be surprised to hear there are many people that give ZERO effort when it comes to their resume and don’t seem to care how they come across to hiring managers. Maybe they don’t know how important it is – or maybe they just really don’t care!

The hiring manager can’t see the person applying so all they must go off is the resume. Most times recruiting managers must keep from spitting out their coffee laughing at some of the hilarious things people put on their resumes.

While others may spend hours making their resumes perfect or just hire a professional to do the job for them, not everybody does.

In fact, you might not even be a good writer!

That doesn’t matter though because in the section below I’m going to go over the ins and outs of formatting an amazing resume.

What’s the Best Format?

There are several different formats you can write your resume in, but that doesn’t mean they are all correct or presentable.

There are two resumes you probably have heard of:

First, Chronological resumes, which lists your work history in chronological order. The problem with this is it doesn’t work alone. It is harder to fish out your skills and achievements between the lines. The problem with this is that hiring managers have a lot of resumes to look at and don’t have to them to go searching for your best qualities.

Second, Functional resumes, which organizes your skills into categories. You still need to summarize your work, and this usually goes at the bottom of the resume. It doesn’t work by itself because it leaves no room for an explanation of how you got the experience and skills or when you got them. It leaves too much detail out, so hiring managers don’t really know what you’re bringing to the company.

Therefore, hybrid resumes, work the best.

These types of resumes incorporate the best of both formats. It highlights all the skills the person applying has but also implements enough work history to back it up.

It leaves the candidate looking well rounded and makes it easy for the employer to read.

It the best of both worlds!

The Do’s

1. Don’t Forget the Titles
   1. Don’t leave your title too vague, or not have one at all. The title makes it easier for the employer to know what position you’re applying for! Otherwise, the employer will have no idea where to begin, so why even start?

2. The length should be 2 pages or less.
   1. If your resume is too long, you’re just fluffing it up too much, to look good. It can make you seem like a try-hard.
   2. If it’s too short, it can make you look like you’re not trying hard enough, and you don’t care to put the time in.

3. Strong Resume Summary
   1. This is the pitch! It’s their first impression of you!
   2. Add compelling information and expertise.

4. Work History and Achievements
   1. Use action words to keep it interesting and so it reads fluently
   2. Leave it out if it has nothing to do with the job you are applying for!

5. Education
   1. It’s always a clever idea to add majors if you have any. College gives you one foot in the door before they’ve even looked at your experience.

The Don’ts

1. Spelling
   1. Don’t misspell words! It makes you look unprofessional. Do you want the job? Then make it obvious you care.

2. Don’t add personal information
   1. DON’T add credit card info.
   2. Don’t tell your life story, no employer wants to read a sob story.
   3. Don’t add anything that can leave you up for discrimination like race, religion or gender.

3. Don’t add useless work history
   1. If you add work history that has nothing to do with the position your applying for, it going to be overlooked and just take up meaningless space that could be used for better qualification.
   2. Defiantly don’t add jobs from over 20 years ago; highschool jobs have NO room in a professional resume.

4. Don’t be a try-hard
   1. Egos can break a good resume.
   2. Make sure you can back up your claims

5. Don’t lie
   1. It’s embarrassing to be asked a question about something you lied about and have no idea how to answer.
   2. Nobody wants a dishonest employee this could completely ruin your chances.

If you follow all the tips your resume will be one step closer to perfection.

If you put the time and dedication into writing a resume using this format you will defiantly get a callback.

Check out my other blog, write a resume that generates results, for more information on writing an eye-catching resume.