To prepare your final resume, start with name, address, objective, and then state military, educational, and personal background. Now prepare employment statistics: dates, companies worked for, titles, and so on. Now mention the major variables, your detailed experiences, accomplishments, and background on companies, specific jobs, and the like. In the first draft, put in everything you may want in your final draft. Don't worry about the length, format, and so on, at this time. Get it typed.
Set the draft aside for two or three days. Then aim to get your resume down to proper length. How do you reduce a three-page draft to two? A small part of the excess can be eliminated by reducing margins, type style, and the like - but you may pay a great price in readability. Practically the whole reduction must be in content - by eliminating low priority items and by getting the same ideas across (often more effectively) in fewer words. Use short words, crisp sentences. Avoid the passive voice. Compare your wording with accomplishment statements shown in most of the resumes included here.
Once you have the proper length (with few exceptions, two pages are maximum), zero in on the format. Make sure the things that you want to get attention stand out - your objective, your key qualifications. By use of indentations, capital letters, short paragraphs, numbers (use numerals, not words), you can get your message across most effectively.
Some questions to ask yourself in critiquing your resume
Answer each of the following questions after carefully thinking about it in relation to your resume.
- Have you carefully evaluated whether a chronological or functional resume is best for you?
- Does your resume clearly answer the most important questions readers will ask themselves? What is your job objective?
- Are the three or four most important items of your background clearly shown in the critical zone?
- Have you played down your principal liabilities (if any)? If chronological, are your last five years' experience (what an employer is most interested in) adequately emphasized?
- Is the bias shown in your resume oriented to an employer's likely needs?
- Have you shown positive accomplishments in almost all of the principal functions you'd be expected to have for the job?
- Does your experience imply you have almost all of the personal attributes required? Compare your resume carefully with your job description.
- Do your accomplishment statements start with action words?
- Do they include measuring sticks of accomplishment (numbers, qualifying adjectives, etc.)?
- Are you getting all the mileage you can out of your accomplishments?
- Is the length of your resume right? Ask yourself, does an ad with a lot of text have more impact on you than one with less that tells you what you need to know? A two-page resume should be sufficient. If you have a long and truly outstanding record, three pages is permissible. A one-page resume can also be effective in the blind-prospecting phase of your campaign. If it's too long, be selective in what you present and work on the wording.
- If chronological does your record show increasing responsibilities and accomplishments?
- Have you excluded unreasonable restrictions on your job such as "Location-New York City area"? Including any restrictions might make a poor impression on employers in other areas at a time when you want to make the most favorable impression possible. As opportunities develop, you can impose such a limitation when you evaluate offers.
- Does the concluding date on your resume imply that you are working? Don't show "1974-present year." Show "1974-present." Use present tense when talking about your latest position. "Assistant Production Manager." Not "Was Assistant Production Manager."
- Do the names of the companies you have worked for and your job titles describe the scope of your responsibilities? Don't assume employers will recognize the name and size of a company, particularly in this era of mergers. Something like "United Conglomerate (formerly XYZ Corp.)" may be needed to clarify it.
- Does the title of your job fully describe your responsibilities? Executive Vice President was the title of the chief operating officer of XYZ-Italy. His boss was located in Paris and called V.P. European Operations (and President-Italy, President-Northern Europe, etc.). Why not use Chief Executive Officer (as Executive Vice President)-XYZ-Italy?
- Have you described your experience in simple understandable language? Short sentences? Forceful, but simple, words? Absence of technical jargon - are you sure readers will understand or like to communicate using these words? Are any abbreviations universally known? Make sure proper names are understood. "Holland Prize" means little - "Holland Prize (awarded to three seniors for outstanding scholarship and leadership)" tells a lot. Review the resume samples and see the simplicity of the writing - short sentences, simple words.
- Does your resume have eye appeal? Type that's easy to read? Is it uncluttered? You probably will have more impact with four 2-line paragraphs than 12 lines of densely packed type.
- Have you differentiated in typing between your company, your division, and your position? You want each to have immediate impact. If you don't show each typed differently, it makes it more difficult for the reader to identify your prior positions.
