Do’s And Don’ts In Writing A Resume

For the job seekers among us, it is important to write the perfect resume. Yes, you may not be able to write perfectly, but you should at least do something that approaches perfection. And that means knowing what to put and what not to put in your resumes.

So, what should you remember?

The Good:

-          Write your job experience in reverse chronological order (that includes your current/last job). It’s up to you if you want to leave your short, irrelevant jobs, but it also depends on who you are applying to.

-          Put your education record to the end of the page. Unless you are a new grad, what you studied or majored in doesn’t really matter in the eyes of the recruiter.

-          Quantify your accomplishments. Instead of ‘managed a department’, why not say ‘managed a department of 20 auditors’. That not only puts a specific number down, it also adds credence to your management skills.

-          Identify your strengths. What are your strongest skills or assets, the things you usually do in all the jobs you’ve done? Put that into your resume as well.

-          Write your description of each skill or accomplishment you made. It doesn’t matter if it is in bullets, full sentences, or snippets. Just be consistent with all of them.

The Bad:

-          Paragraphs. Frankly speaking, no one reads full paragraphs anymore, including the HR staff. If you want to get their attention, minimize paragraphs and go straight to the point.

-          Ambiguity of job titles. Recruiters hate guesswork. If you do have a strange-sounding company title, don’t forget to add a description to it (e.g. Social Marketing Diva – Social Media Marketing Specialist).

-          Information overload. Leave out extraneous facts. Birth dates, religion, hobbies, weight, social security number, marital status, links to Facebook pages or personal blogs, names of children, sexual orientation or life mission statements, leave them out. Really. No one needs or wants to read that in the recruitment office.

-          Lazy proof-reading. Grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, consistency, etc.  are the banes of resumes. Read your work, read it again, have your friends, sister, or even a teacher look over your work. Make sure your resume is free from mistakes.