Several years ago we put a number of college students through weekend job-finding seminars. One of the drills was having them write a resume in the afternoon, then refining it that evening. The students were amazed that after an hour and half they had put together rough resumes. We then spent time with each student critiquing and correcting what they had done. At the end of the evening, they were armed with resumes they had written. You can, too. The key is to get that all-important information about your interests, skills, and accomplishments on paper. Once that is done, you are ready to assemble the facts in a concise and readable format.
What You Should Know
Length. There is no one correct resume length. It can be a page, a page and a half, or two pages, depending on your experience. In a recent survey by the Employment Management Association of 240 people who make employment decisions, 75 percent said a resume longer than two pages is too much. Unless you are involved in a special job situation that requires a detailed history (or "curriculum vitae") of your work life, the maximum length should be two pages.
My feeling is that if you can apply for the job you want with a tight, well-written, one-page resume, it will be to your advantage. Career counselor Kate Wendleton, President of the Five O' Clock Club in New York City, sums up the length problem nicely. She says, "It has to be as short as it has to be, but long enough to tell the story." The best resume is one that makes an interviewer read what you have written.
Originality, Don't be afraid to be creative and original when writing your resume, as long as it is within the bounds of good taste and common sense. It's a personal advertisement for you, a marquee that touts your skills, a marketing tool designed to sell your talents to an employer.
Resume Preparation Services. As an experienced professional, you should be able to write your own resume. Although many companies offer resume-writing services - for a fee - we consider this a waste of your money and valuable time.
The reason? Only you have the information necessary to write your resume. Consequently, it makes sense for you to spend the time developing this information and putting it on paper.
The best way to write a resume today is with a computer and a printer. With a computer it's easy to correct typing mistakes and misspellings and quickly rearrange paragraphs.
A computer or a word processor also makes it easy to write different versions of a resume for specific job situations. In short, using a computer or word processor is a great time-saver.
Software Packages. If you haven't written a resume in a number of years, consider one of the many resume-writing software packages you can use with a computer. Although these software-produced resumes are usually directed to college students, they offer experienced professionals time-saving advantages in terms of design and layout. For example, they take the drudgery out of setting up a format and aligning margins and checking spelling. The programs give step-by-step instructions for preparing a resume, and prompt you by asking questions about previous jobs and the specific skills you used to perform them. Programs provide lists of specific job categories for those who are uncertain about what they want to do, and ask questions as to what job hunters like to do to help the decision-making process. They also explain and illustrate examples of different types of resumes.
For example, Career Navigator, The Computer-Powered Job Search System, developed by Drake Beam Morin, Inc., is a complete job-finding guide that includes four floppy disks and a detailed instruction manual. It is easy to use, even if you've never worked with a computer before. Under the section "Develop Your Job Search Tools," the user has seven choices. Let's select "How to Write Effective Resumes." This is what the computer monitor shows:
Action to take
Edit
Create
Delete
You want to create your resume, so you specify that section.
A resume form appears on the screen with headings: Objective, Summary, Skills Summary, Work History, Education, and Other. Fill in the required information from material you assembled earlier in the program. When you are finished, edit your material, delete or change, and then print it. You have a completed resume. It may still be in rough form, but now you have something to work with and refine.
The Perfect Resume Computer Kit created by Tom Jackson and Bill Buckingham also helps you build your resume, from thinking about your career direction to printing the finished product. It comes with two disks-The Career Consultant and the Resume Builder. The Career Consultant helps you formulate the resume by making you clarify your career direction, identify significant skills, and shape your resume. The Resume Builder is your permanent file of resume information, which helps you organize and design a variety of resume formats to suit your needs. This includes setting margins and arranging sections.
For example, here, is a paragraph from the kit.
Write Your Resume
Now it's time to develop the paragraphs that make up the body of your resume. From this you can create a Chronological, Functional, or Targeted resume. Your work in this section becomes the core material used by the Resume Builder disk in creating the final version of your resume.
If you decide to use a computer program to prepare your resume, read the software package label carefully to make sure it suits your particular needs.
