Taking your resume from good
to great can make a difference

With recruiters and employers receiving hundreds of resumes you must make sure that your resume hooks an employer's attention within a 10-second glance. So when writing or reviewing your resume, always look at it from their point of view. What do they want to see? What is irrelevant to them? What will develop interest and excitement about you as a potential candidate?

Length

Keep it to two pages maximum. According to most recruiters, any longer and you risk losing your audience.

Bulleted Information

Use bullets with short sentences rather than lengthy paragraphs. Resumes are read quickly, therefore make key phrases stand out.  Bulleting information will help the reader view your accomplishments at a glance. 

Use Action Words

Action words like prepared, managed, developed, championed, monitored, and presented will make your resume to stand out. 

Highlight your Strengths

What is most relevant to the potential employer is your strengths. Resumes are typically reviewed in 10-30 seconds, so put forth the effort and determine which bullets most strongly support your job search objective. Put the strong and most relevant points first where they are more apt to be read. This is your hook for the reader, the rest of your resume reels them in.

Use %'s, $'s and #'s

Symbols like %'s, $'s and #'s stand out in the body of a resume.

Match Your Skills to the Needs of the Company

Review the job postings that interest you and use the keywords listed to match them to the bullet points in your resume. Using a customized resume instead of a one-size-fits-all version will greatly decrease your chances of being screened out.

Personal Details

Provide only relevant information here that supports your candidacy for the particular job. Include education if not in a separate section, memberships, language/technical skills and other topical interests.

Editing

Proof read for typos, spelling and grammatical errors and then ask someone else to double-check your document for you. People do notice mistakes, to the detriment of your application. 

Formatting Guidelines

The font size should be no smaller than 10 point, typeface such as Times New Roman, Courier or Arial. Keeping your fonts standard will help combat conversion issues from PC to MAC and from one program version to another.