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| A typical employer will spend about 15 seconds reviewing your resume That's not much time to catch someone's attention. You need to design your résumé so that employers can quickly see what you have to offer them. |
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Your resume is a personal marketing tool used in securing an interview |
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It is a written summary of your education, work experience, professional skills, and interests. |
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It is a sample of your ability to organize and express yourself in writing, clearly, concisely, and neatly. |
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Resume preparation begins with self-analysis. What is your career goal? What are your skills, strengths, values, and interests? What is your experience? |
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Target your résumé to your audience. How does your experience match the employer's needs? |
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| Having said that, it still is your first opportunity to make the impression. Hence it’s important you get it right! |
| Some basics that have to be there: |
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Keep it short - one page, if possible. |
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Be neat; make sure that you use bullet points when necessary. |
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Be honest about your skills and work experience. |
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Ask someone you trust to check over your resume and make sure that they really critique your work. |
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Be sure to include your name, address, phone number, education, and work experience, |
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Be concise and use action words (developed, handled, organized, created, etc) and phrases when describing your experience. |
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| Research shows that only one interview is granted for every 100 resumes received by the average employer. Also 10 to 20 seconds is all the time you have to persuade a prospective employer to read your resume further. What this means is that the decision to interview a candidate is usually based on an overall first impression of the resume, a quick screening that so impresses the reader and convinces them of the candidate's qualifications that an interview results. As a result, the top half of the first page of your resume will either make you or break you. By the time they have read the first few lines, you have either caught their interest, or your resume has failed. That is why we say that your resume is an ad. You hope it will have the same result as a well-written ad: to get the reader to respond. |
To write an effective resume, you have to learn how to write powerful but subtle advertising copy. Not only that, but you must sell a product in which you have a large personal investment: you. What's worse, given the fact that most of us do not think in a marketing-oriented way naturally, you are probably not looking forward to selling anything, let alone yourself. But if you want to increase your job-hunting effectiveness as much as possible, you would be wise to learn to write a spectacular resume. |
You do not need to hard sell or make any claims that are not absolutely true. You do need to get over your modesty and unwillingness to toot your own horn. People more often buy the best-advertised product than the best product. That is good news if you are willing to learn to create an excellent resume. With a little extra effort, you will usually get a better response from prospective employers than people with better credentials. |
