In today’s job market, jobs of any kind are at a premium. With the unemployment rate climbing each day finding a good job requires more than simply filling out an application. A resume is a basic requirement for job searching, and a good effective resume will improve your chances a great deal.
It may seem confusing if you’ve never written a resume, but I’m going to clear that up for you and help you put together a resume that will get you an interview and hopefully a job. The first thing you need to know about a resume is that it is different from an application. While applications may ask for every school you attended, how much you made per hour at a job more than 5 years ago and for phone numbers and addresses of all your previous jobs, a resume is more of an outline of your professional life.
You will need to include any degrees or certifications you have earned because these help you show your qualification for the job. Along with that should be any important goals or achievements such as being employee of the month for 6 consecutive months, breaking a sales record, or any other important business related achievement. These should all be included as close to the beginning of your resume as possible. There is a reason for this, just as newspapers charge more for above the fold advertising, you want a potential employer to see all these important selling points about you and want to read more.
Generally an employer may look at your resume for around 30 seconds before adding it to a pile to call for interviews, or to a file that won’t get interviewed. How you word your resume and how it looks can make a big difference to your chance of getting an interview.
When it comes to your job experience, you don’t have to put the exact day you started and quit each job, just the length of time you were there and what you handled personally to make the company a better place, either by improving customer service or organizing a volunteer team of employees. Employers want to hire people who are committed to their positions, who will go above and beyond their actual job duties to improve the business.
When you have finished writing your resume, put it away for a day or two. Then take it out and read over it. At this time, make changes like cutting out the “fluff” anything that doesn’t relate to your career or job field should not be included in your resume. Also look at the terminology you have used and make some changes. Use words like collaborated instead of worked with. Simple things like this can make or break the success of your job search. The goal is to write a resume that reflects your professionalism, from the contents to the layout your resume should be clean, straightforward and informative without being too detailed.
You want your resume to make an employer want to interview you to ask you in person about your objectives and plans for the future, or to discuss how you managed to improve the overall sales over a 3 month period by implementing a service plan. Don’t tell the whole story in your resume; leave your potential employer something to ask about when they interview you.