Have you ever wondered how to get your resume to the top of the stack? Well for my Leadership and Professional Development class I wrote a paper on just that concept. I offer it and its resources to you here in hopes that maybe you will gain something from it as I did.
Researching how to write a winning resume is similar to researching how to bake a chocolate cake. There are countless articles, blogs, books, and seminars on how to write a perfect resume; however the majorities only give the basics that should be inherently obvious but often are not. The consensus is that a resume should include firstly contact information, education, experience, and extras. These extras can include any combination of the following, or none: awards, test scores, gpa, honors, volunteer work, skills, licenses, certifications, organizations (professional, scholastic, charitable), and achievements.
After perusing dozens of the above mentioned sources, it was relatively simple to identify the sources that were outdated or just completely ignorant in the advice. There was an enormous amount of advertising for various professional services to author a “Perfect Resume”, as well as a large volume of bloggers that believe that the ability to author a blog certifies one as an expert in whatever subject(s) discussed therein. Some true gems did stand out in the mud, a comprehensive and thoughtful guide (with some healthy self-promotion added-in) from the career coaching Rockport Institute , some solid un-trussed up advice from industry experts at the career focused media company JobDig.com, insight from executives through CNN Money/Fortune, and lastly from the Alumni Career-Services Organization at UC Berkeley, among others. Some resources were found on transitions for non-traditional students at an online community called StudentsOver30.com; however the resources, though valiantly attempted, were found to be lacking of substance.
Consistently stated is that an individual must stand out, this is accomplished easily enough, however to do so successfully is a more difficult endeavor. Standing out must be done in a manner that catches the positive attention of the unfortunate individual tasked to review the thousands of resumes that have been received regarding a single opening. In the current job market there is an assumption that it will be a computer system that conducts the first screening. A general rule for successful resume authorship is to create different editions for each position applied for. With the increasing reliance on screening software additional attention must be paid to ensure that the keywords used in the posting are reflected in the resume that is submitted (Safani & Lochner, 2012). If the job description lists specifics the resume submitted should reflect those specifics. If there is no first have experience with a specific, do some research and reference the specific and condition it with something such as “familiarity with”, “currently studying”, or even “interest” (Kowitt, 2009). Many individuals are familiar with keywords, however most of the so-called buzzwords recommended in the majority of online sources and outdated printed sources are now a negative, and these include generic, overly used superlatives. According to a 2010 article by US News & World Report a listing of the top fifty worst buzzwords to use on a resume include: team-player, motivated, highly-skilled, out-of-the-box thinker, detail-oriented, and trustworthy, among forty-five others. On the other end of the vocabulary spectrum expert resume writer Jessica Holbrook Hernandez advocates the use of action verbs, throughout the text presented in a resume. To illustrate, some examples include: generated, pioneered, directed, orchestrated, re-engineered, mentored, formulated, championed, and so on. Within the same article, Hernandez recommends deleting any occurances of an “opening that lacks power and punch” (Hernandez). Berkeley’s article titled Writing a Winning Resume, advises to “Add Value to Stand Out from the Crowd” and to “Be Concise, but Powerful” (Kovach).
A resume is not the same as an application. A theme that is repeatedly affirmed in multiple sources is the concept of treating a resume as if it is an advertisement for a product. This is an essential concept that is often overlooked. An individual is selling a product (themselves) through advertising (a resume) to the discerning customer (hiring manager/screening software). When viewed through this lense, the idea seems so spot-on that it would not be out of the question to feel slightly mortified that this perspective was not previously utilized. A resume does have current and/or historical professional and academic information, however it is not meant to be a life story in a frustrating format. Only include relevant experience, do not include personal hobbies unless it obviously would have a strong positive impact in regards to job qualification (i.e. a health and fitness enthusiast when the position is editor or contributor for a Niche Magazine, or a hobbyist hacker trying to break into a creative tech giant similar to Google or Facebook). Do not be vague or generic, this relates to the negative buzzwords previously mentioned, if one is truly an out-of-the-box thinker, give a brief, specific example within the position it occurred that illustrates this positive attribute. There are three traditional formats for a resume, chronological, functional, and a hybrid. According to an informational Pamphlet from Robert Half Finance, a global staffing magnet, out of 150 senior executives surveyed from a selection of 1000 of the largest companies in the United States seventy-five percent prefer a chronological resume, with only eight percent having no preference (Robert Half International, 2010). Ultimately the best format is the one that best advertises the candidate and the skills possessed to the target employer. A resume should not be longer than a single page, not cluttered, disorganized, or a work of fiction. There are some exceptional circumstances that break the length rule, but do not assume membership in this small group. A more common exception is in the world of Academia, however then it is not technically a resume but a Curriculum Vitae, or CV. A common misconception is that the two are interchangeable; generally a Resume and a Curriculum Vitae are mutually exclusive items. Non-traditional resumes can be excellent attention grabbers, but they need to be appropriate to the position. A very creative example was a design graduate that used fabric and sewed her resume. She was hired at the first job applied to in 2008 and as of January of this year is a senior designer at Prolific Interactive, a mobile application development firm (Shields, Anthony, The Top 10 Viral). While very creative, recreating this is certainly not practical, nor applicable to the majority of circumstances. ResumeBaker.com discusses some options that are more practical, the infographic resume, the video resume, the LinkedIn profile, and the portfolio resume. Generally these cannot replace the traditional resume, but can be easily combined and used as a “‘spicy’ addition to a traditional resume” (ResumeBaking.com, 2012). Lastly, regarding format, the general consensus is to use a very basic and traditionally professional font (i.e. Times, Calibri, Arial, and Courier); do not use script, calligraphy, or artistic fonts.
Writing a resume that will “Win” an interview takes time, effort, careful thought, research, and a little bit of luck. There are countless resources available to American job-seekers, many of which can be found free and online. As previously stated there is a large amount of junk online as well, but it is easy to weed through if a little bit of common sense is used. Whole books are written on writing a winning resume, Amazon.com pulls up 10,216 with the search “Resume Writing”. There are also free examples and templates, not only online but within Microsoft Word. The job market changes and evolves like everything else, so it would be wise to check the currency of any advice or examples. A sample resume from 1964, or even 1994 will most likely not be suited to 2014.