Seven Tips For Successful Resume Writing

Seven tips for successful resume writing; arm in sweater holding a pen writing; aggiestrong logo

September is a brand new start for brand new opportunities. No wonder many of us are busy writing and revamping our resumes as new windows of opportunities open up. But, resumes can be tricky and painstaking. What should I add, what should I take out, and what not to include are some of the few questions I come across. What I often tell my clients is to make it as personal as possible. Your resume should not look or sound like anybody else's. The same way you were created with unique features is the same way you should treat your resume. Subsequently, I put together my seven best practices. 

1.   Personal Address

In the interest of protecting your privacy and safety, I recommend that you do not put your home address on your resume. The city and province/state should be enough for your prospective employer until you have gotten the interview or even the job offer. In today's society, we have to start being a bit more vigilant in protecting our identity from fraud and/or theft or even predators. Besides, you can't go about distributing your home address to total strangers. 

2.  Phone Number

Make sure you are using a working phone number and answer all your calls when possible, unknown number or otherwise. Most hiring staff will not call you a second time. If you have a voice mail, please make sure it does not include a song, slangs, and silly verbiage. Make it as brief and professional as possible. For example, "Hi! You've reached the voicemail of (first and last name), kindly leave your name, number and reason for your call and I will call you back within 24hours. (And make sure you do). Thank you!" Be cheerful and vibrant and don’t forget to smile. Make sure you record your message in a quiet place and avoid sounding monotonous. Check your messages often throughout the day. 

3.  Email Address

Regarding your email address, try to create a user-friendly one. Preferably with your first and last name or a derivation of it. Choose a domain that is consistent and reliable in the event you have to switch carrier, i.e. Hotmail, live, or Gmail. Keep it clean, simple and professional. Thou shall not judge, but you know they're going to judge you anyway, so don't give them extra reasons to do so, and/or to write you off right off the bat. For this reason, using your name is the safest way to go. 

4.  The Objective

Now, about the objective, this is where you write a short statement about the position and/or area of work you are looking for.  Keep it simple and tailor it specifically to the position you are applying for. Thus, you should be revising, editing, amending your objective for every job you apply for so that it does not sound too generic. Your resume should never be treated as a “one size fits all” deal. Unless; of course, you want to lower your chances of getting called for an interview.  

Google image: When writing the story of your life, don't let anyone else hold the pen.

5.  Highlights/Profile

When it comes to the Highlights section, you really and truly want to put the emphasis in here. Make it as unique and specific to your skills and accomplishments as possible. This is the time to really do an inventory of all your skills, strengths, achievements, and accomplishments. It does not matter how minor you may think they are. Employers and hiring managers will assess them differently. So instead of saying the usual: reliable, responsible, dedicated and hardworking; give examples of how you demonstrated them. Say instead, especially if you are a recent graduate: Graduated with honors. This will translate to the hiring team as dedicated and hardworking without you spelling is out. As the saying goes, "actions speak louder than words". So instead of filling up your resume with a lot of flowery words and adjectives, use concrete examples to tell your story.  Also, make mention of any sports you play or group initiatives you participated in. This will demonstrate team spirit, shows that you are easy to get along, and emphasize collaboration and leadership abilities. For those reasons, use your skills to your advantage and cut the keywords and unnecessary jargons from your resume. 

Note that there is a big difference between Highlights and Profile on your resume. They are not one in the same.  The Highlights of Qualifications is an accurate and comprehensive bulleted list of your hard and soft skills and qualifications and should be written in order of your experience and education. I would say no more than 7 bullets. The Profile is used when there is no objective statement and is written in the form of a paragraph—like a short bio.

6.  White Spaces

Do your best to allow lots of white spaces on your resume, but not too much.  Remember, moderation in all things. White spaces show clarity, thoughtfulness, and organization of thoughts. As an added bonus, it makes the job easier for hiring managers and recruiting teams to skim through your resume and quickly assess the relevant information. It is best to not repeat skills or tasks throughout the resume. If you have done two or more very similar jobs for different employers, emphasize the different aspects of the roles in the different jobs.  If you have too many jobs or spaces in between jobs, use the functional format like the one in the sample below. This takes the focus off the lapse or jump ship effect and keeps it on your skills and qualifications. Also, leave out the months in your employment history. It takes care of any gap until the interview but be prepared to explain if asked and do be honest.

7.  Number of Pages

If your resume is more than one page long, change the font size and/or typeface to spread it over two full pages, or condense it to fit just one page. As a rule of thumb, font size should not be smaller than 10 points. A page and a half resume suggest that you have not put enough thought into your resume and could make you seem uninteresting or unskilled. If you have truly run out of things to say for a full second page, at least try to stretch it to a third full. If you do have two or more pages, ensure that your name and page number is on them at the top or bottom right corner. No page number on the first page. Your resume should be legible without squinting and very attractive to look at.  On a side note, "References available upon request" is now obsolete—no longer used.

The important thing I want to leave you with is, send the message you want them to receive. I trust you will find these tips very helpful in preparing for your job search journey and writing your story of qualifications called a resume. On a side note, only submit your resume to jobs that are in alignment with your desired goal—jobs you really want, with companies you really want to grow with. Otherwise could end up working in a dead-end job doing menial, mundane tasks you hate; with people who are likely to rub you the wrong way, while tying up your precious time. I wish you much success!

"DONT'T BE DISCOURAGED. DON'T GIVE UP!"

Functional resume sample

This is AggisStrong,
Until next time...
Be blessed...Be bold...Be strong...Be you!
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Andrene Gregory is a life coach with certification in LifeSkills training and Personality Dimensions. She helps adults live a strength-based life, regain their confidence and find the courage to navigate through challenging situations. Her unique approach to getting desired results includes personality assessment, self-knowledge, goal setting and action planning.

Andrene provided one-on-one coaching and group workshops. Find out more at aggiestrongulc.com