Headhunters guide to writing a professional Resume.
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You already know that a resume is one of the most important documents that you will create in your professional life, so let’s keep it that way – professional. If you feel the need to include photographs, hobbies, marital status, number of kids or the fact that you like to take long walks on the beaches of Oahu, then please pause reading this and pour some COLD water over your head so you wake up. When reading a resume, people want to know how your skills match with what they need to fill. You don’t want to distract your reader with information that does not matter.
A resume is usually broken into three categories – summary, experience and education. That’s it. I’m assuming you already have your name and contact information on your resume at this point. If not, then please start by doing just that. Also, as a general rule of thumb – don’t use differnent fonts, colors, highlight sentences, or feel the need to bold every buzz word that you can think of on your resume. Don’t provide your social secruity number on a resume. Ever. Don’t provide compensation history on your resume. Don’t provide names and phone number of people that you plan on using as a reference on your resume. All these things don’t belong on your resume.
Summary
This is the first section of your resume, after your name and contact information. This should be about 2-5 sentences long or a bulleted list and should provide a snyopsis of your background, skills, number of years and your ackopmlishments. A lot of self help books may suggest starting your resume with an “Objective”. I always stay away from that and advise people to not use that term because it has a very high possibility of being misunderstood.
For example – if you state that your objective is to become a sales manager in the next 2 years or a team lead or whatever it may be but the job that you’re applying to may not have that possibility – instantly your resume goes down on the list of potential applicants. Why? Because the hiring manager is saying to himself that even if I hire this candidate, in 1.5 to 2 years this person will leave because we don’t have room for the candidate to grow into the sales manager or team lead role. I had a candidate that was great but would not change his resume to remove his objective of becoming a real estate agent. He was applying to a technical position with a client of mine. I told him I had a doubt that he was going to be considered but that I would send his resume to the hiring manager because his skills were great. I presented his resume to the hiring manager and guess what? The hiring manager called me back and laughed at the resume because the candidate wants to become a real estate agent which means he’s not going to be as committed to the job at hand. My doubts were confirmed.
Stay away from things that you can’t control. How other people react to your ‘objective’ is somthing that you can’t control. Stick with things that can control. By presenting a summary of yourself at the start of your resume, you’re controling the reader and making them focus on your current skills set.
Professional Experience
This is the most important portion of your resume. If you need to take 2-3+ pages to present all your relevant experience, then please do so. Forget what your college career counceler told you about keeping your resume to one page only. If you got the goods, show it off. However I would suggest to not exceed more than 5 pages. I’ve seen resumes as long as 12 pages and to be honest, after 4-5 pages I stop reading – I’ll glance at the rest to see if I can catch errors (which I’m very good at) or name of companies that you have worked at.
This can be challenging for people with 10+ years of rich experiecnce that they want to present. If you’re in this boat, then I suggest that you have two copies of your resume. One that goes back 7-10 years from the current date and another that covers all your experience. At the end of the first one you can make a note that you have more experience and a more detailed resume can be furnished upon request.
When creating content for this section of your resume, you always want to start with your most recent position and go back chronologically. If there are small gaps between employment – there’s no need to say anything about it. However, if there are longer gaps like 6 months or more, then you may want to insert a line about why there is a gap. Never, ever lie on your resume. Ever. Because it will come back to bite you in the ass. This section can be a paragraph for each position that you’ve had, but if it become longer than that, then break it into a bulleted list. It’s easier to read and the resume looks well formatted as well. I’m a big fan of bullet lists on resumes! Follow the same routine for each position that you have had.
Education
Use this section to tell the reader where you went to college and if you have a graduate degree, provide this information as well. If you have over 3-5 years of experience, and no college degree then this section does not really apply to you. With your level of experience, you don’t have to state that you have a high school education. If you’re an entry level candidate with no college degree, then definately provide your high school information. If you are currently enrolled in a program, please mention it. If you were enrolled in a college but did not graduate and don’t plan on going back – do not put that on your resume.
The last line of your resume should always read “References will be furnished upon request”.
There – it’s that simple. One of these days, I’ll put up some Resume Templates that folks can download and use for free. If you would like to be notified when these templates are available, please subscribe to my newsletter. That way, you’ll know when these templates are available for you to use. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions!
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