Building a slick, effective and professional resumé that will get you interviewed

There are literally hundreds if not thousands of schools of thought on what constitutes a strong and effective resumé. You could submit your current resumé to 100 different employment agencies and recruiters and ask them what they would change and would probably get no less than 200 variations on how you should revise it.

A resumé is an advertisement, and an advertisement by definition is a request to accept offers. As far as advertisements go, you can have a slick professional and technically adept presentation that highlights the benefits of a product or you can be this guy. I recommend leaning towards the first option.

PART I: THE HEADING

The heading usually includes important information such as your name and your contact information. Contact information includes e-mail address, phone number and physical address. Physical address is important if you are applying for a position out of town or for a position that says “local candidates only.” If you have concerns about privacy, it is acceptable to only include the city, state and / or country, and not the street address. A Post Office Box is also acceptable.

PART II: SUMMARY

We have talked about the Achievements section, which I will get into in a little bit. The Summary is just that, a quick 5-10 second way to highlight career achievements and any other relevent information that makes you stand out. Certifications, work experience, supervisory experience, extraordinary (professional or job-related) abilities all belong here.

Following the instructions so far, the first 2 sections should probably look something like this as we prepare to list our Achievements:

PART III: ACHIEVEMENTS

Refer to this article here for more details on the Achievements Section. This is the single most important section and I highly recommend spending the most time on this section and putting serious thought into it. Achievements should be quantifiable and measurable. Vague or non-measurable accomplishments ought to be left to the Experience section or the Summary if they are significant enough. 5-10 achievements are ideal.

PART IV: EXPERIENCE

By now, hopefully you have filled the first page with (quantifiable) achievements and ready to work on page 2 of the resumé. The heading on page 2 should only include your name and the page number. This is important in case page 2 gets separated from page 1 in a pile of printed resumés. Yeah, in the age of .pdf and .doc files, this is less likely, but you don’t want to be mismatched with page 2 of someone else’s resumé whose work experience is Whoopee Cushion Tester and Nigerian Prince Scam Telemarketer.

Contrary to popular belief, this is not the most important part of the resumé. Not to say it isn’t important, but this is going to be the details that tie to the summary. If you have 10 years of sales experience, your work history better list 10 years of sales experience. If you have 5 years of supervisory experience, the Experience section ought to display this as well.

Always list your most recent jobs first in reverse chronological order. If you are still currently employed make sure to indicate “Present” on the date range.

To help visualize a simple experience entry here is an example, which I will break down:

CARLYSLE MOTORS (EASTWEST CITY, IN) 2015-Present
Sales Manager
Led team of 5 sales people. Supervised and trained sales personnel. New and used car sales. Backup to Warranty Sales Manager.

First, we have the company name followed by the location. Indented afterwards is the date range of employment.

The next line indicates the title(s) while under employment. You can either list multiple titles on one line or you can include multiple entry for each of your titles below the company name with a brief description below each.
As with everything else, it is best to put the most recent items first and list in reverse chronological order.

The 3rd line of an experience entry should not go more than 2 lines maximum. Be succinct and list what your areas of responsibility were without going into two much detail. Leave the details for the 1st face-to-face interview or maybe the phone interview.

Note the description above. It is brief, succinct and to the point. There is no question that our guy, Sal supervised sales for 5 years, trained new salespeople, worked in both the new and used cars departments and backed up the warranty department as well. All of this was listed in just 21 words!

One final touch. I like to bold the title so as to draw attention to it since that what is the Hiring Manager reading your resume is going to look for this first. Also, right justify the dates worked as that is the other thing that the Hiring Manager is looking at, which will make it stand out. Anything you can do to improve the Hiring Manager’s life will help your cause.

SECTION 5: EDUCATION

Nothing particularly flashy is required here. Just the school attended, the location, the degree earned and the year attained. Here is an example:

WOSSAMOTTA U, Frostbite Falls, MN
B.A., Marketing 2004

SECTION 6: COMMUNITY WORK / OTHER SKILLS

This is an important section. This is where you get you to show that you are a real person with a life outside of work with other talents. Any community work either at a church, charity, museum, camp or whatever is awesome. If you brought water to orphan penguins in Antarctica, then you probably should list that.

In addition, if you have a unique talent like playing in a band, opera singing, demolition derby racing or some other interesting hobby, list it here. Not only is this interesting but it will spark conversation in an interview and help you to make a connection and be memorable to whomever reads your resumé. The Hiring Manager is going to want to talk to you because you are that damn interesting!

Those are the 6 sections in a nutshell. I have a few other tips:

– Don’t include a reference section. Also don’t include “References available upon request.” You are wasting space and telling the world what everyone knows already.

– Be consistent in your headings and labels. If they are all caps and bolded or underlined and italicized, this should be uniform throughout the resumé. Even if you think you did this, go back and check again before sending it out.

– Send a resumé in a .pdf format not Microsoft Word. Some companies have older or newer versions of Word that may not translate perfectly upon opening your resumé. You should be able to print your resumé from a word document to .pdf or find a free site that will do this for you such as smallpdf.com.

– Spell check is your best friend.

– Proofread it again anyone, even if you spell checked.

– Run a grammar check even though your job descriptions in the experience section uses sentence fragments. You still might be able to pick up upon verb tense or other errors.

– Avoid using passive voice. Example: Active voice is “Grew Sales by 25%.” Passive voice is “Sales were grown by 25%.” Grew Sales by 25% indicates that you did it. Sales were grown how? By sunlight, water and prayer? Perhaps aliens came down and grew car sales to expand their fleet for the oncoming invasion.

– Don’t use 1st person. Avoid using “I” or “me.” Yes, you will be writing in incomplete sentences without a subject, which may make your High School English teacher squirm. You are writing in “resumé-ese”. This is your ticket to run afoul of some grammar rules. Use your ticket wisely!

– Print your resumé on paper and check your font size and margins. Make sure the page break is in the right place.

– Now view your .pdf before you send it out and check it over again for the font size, margins and page break.

– Use the same heading style on your Cover Letter for continuity. Use the same font on your cover letter as you do on your resumé.

– Make sure your fonts are uniform throughout the resumé as well. Again, if you vary the size for a heading, be consistent throughout.

– Have some printed resumés handy and ready to give out if called into an interview. Keep some in your car just in case. Keep them in a nice portfolio and print them on nice paper.

– Finally, have another person look over your resumé and check it for mistakes. It is easy to overlook things if you look at them too long and too hard.

Now you should have an effective and strong resumé. Now go apply for some jobs! Happy hunting!

And here is a suggested portfolio:

And some sharp looking resumé paper: