Eleven Tips for Resume Writing
Dominique Koukol

1. Pay attention to detail. Be consistent in abbreviations and formatting of phone numbers, bullets, etc. Use fonts consistently such as bolding and italics. Proofread for spelling, grammar and consistency of verb tense. Know the difference between its and it’s. this is often misused in resumes and cover letters.

2. Use a professional sounding email. Do not use something silly or too personal…professionals will not feel comfortable responding to hotmamma@gmail.com. If necessary set up a free email box just for job search correspondence through hotmail or Yahoo! and make the address professional sounding.

3. Include a contact number other than work. Do not include only your work number and include a number where voice messages can be left. Recruiters and hiring managers need the convenience of leaving messages.

4. Be focused. If writing an objective or profile or summary, focus on the desired position. Make your objective match the position. Better yet, if you are comfortable, combine the objective with a professional summary or profile. Write a brief statement of what you have to offer combined with what you are seeking. These statements are much more informative and interesting than a sole objective statement.

5. Focus on relevant accomplishments in the “Experience” section. The point of the resume is to market you as the solution to a need the hiring company has. Therefore, to create a resume which stands out, you must focus on accomplishments as much as or even more than experience. This helps the reader envision you in action, succeeding in meeting the need the vacant position presents.

6. Present your experience and accomplishments as challenges and solved problems. In your detail you can state the skills you used in solving the problem.

7. Quantify and Qualify your accomplishments. If you achieved something, by what percent did you improve it or how many did you complete? What was the impact to the bottom line?

8. Use appropriate key words. Your resume is often initially screened by resume software. If you want to pass the screen your resume must contain the selected key words to show its relevance to the posted position.

9. Use bullets and short statements to make your resume more readable. Bulleted statements are more easily read than longer paragraphs. When using bullets, make sure the bullet size matches the font size. When writing for readability, complete sentences are not necessary. Also avoid using the pronoun “I”. A resume can be written in the form assuming “I am a(n)”…. Before each bullet point. This helps with consistency of verb tense and ease of reading.

10. Alternate the use of bolded and un-bolded points. In alternating bolding with regular font, both sets of bullets are more easily read.

11. Use the appropriate formatting. Some web site submissions require text-only or ASCII format. If the website does not allow for attachments or indicates your resume will be scanned, text-only or ASCII formatting is required. A nicely formatted word document with lines and fancy fonts and bullets will be misinterpreted by the scanning software and make your resume unreadable.

Download A Quick Outline Resume Checklist for Gauging the Effectiveness of Your Resume to use as you draft your resume.

For more tips on resume writing, and how to write an effective marketing piece which gets you past the "electronic" screening process and land you interviews, check out the e-book The One-Day Resume:  How to Write the Interview-Winning Resume In One Day or Less.

Featured Tips and Articles

• Research Before You Write
• Research Before You Write, Part II
• Career Objective or Professional Summary?
• Resume Writing Help, Writing a Quality Resume in a Day
• Key Words, It's the Price of Admission
• The Key to Key Words: 8 Tips for Identifying Key Words for your Resume

Research Before You Write
Dominique Koukol

Below is an excerpt from my book “The One Day Resume”

Before writing a resume, there is a lot to “take stock” of. You need to know what your preferences, strengths and skills are. You need to know the kind of company culture you want to work in.  Once you have a good idea of these factors, it is time to understand well the requirements of the job. It’s not as obvious as it seems, so read on for some enlightening information. 

In taking stock of a job, the required skills must be closely considered. There are two kinds of skills needed for most jobs; some are technical skills and some are behavioral skills. The technical skills are the skills that involve concrete, often measurable actions…. They often sound like this on a job description:  ATP – Airplane Multiengine Land; “Types 65 words per minute”; “Advanced user of Microsoft Access”; “Working knowledge of consultative sales skills”; “Knowledge of pre-fabricated splinting”. 

Behavioral skills are a little trickier to identify than technical skills. Companies value these skills highly. They value them so much so that they will spend thousands of dollars contracting someone like me to teach them how to accurately assess these attributes in a 30 minute interview. If they are willing to spend this kind of loot to get it right, we’d better pay close attention to it in our resumes and cover letters.  

Behavioral skills are those “soft skills” that not only get you hired, they get you promoted. They also show up in job descriptions. They usually are mixed in with the technical competencies or may have a section of their own. Behavioral skills look like this on a job description: 

“Demonstrates decisiveness”; “High energy sales professional”; “Able to manage complex, cross-functional teams”; “Results driven”; “Able to thrive in high pressure situations”.   

Interview Wining Side Note: If you are a savvy job seeker, you will take note of these phrases in job descriptions and even research further to the specific company’s web site, where you will find loads more of them in the description of the company and their products and services and work force. I also look at a variety of job postings across the company. Often I will find the same phrases repeated across positions. This indicates it is a behavioral attribute the company values. Now you are hitting “gold”, because you are gathering insight into the values of the organization, and that translates to “candidate and company fit”, which now begins to separate the sheep from the goats on that resume pile in front of the hiring manager. It’s a sure-fire bet they will start looking for these preferences up front with your cover letter and resume. The ones who have the right skills and also match the company culture and values well are the ones that stand out.

BACK TO TOP

Research Before you Write, Part II
Dominique Koukol

There is one more set of “price of admission” competencies you need to research to really help your resume resonate with the employer. These are the cultural competencies. Every organization has its own spoken brand as well as a culture which supports that brand. Companies which excel in their performance within their markets are successful in creating an organizational culture for their employees which support their public perception and their organizational goals. 

Companies who are very successful at this go out of their way to hire employees who are a natural fit for their company culture and identity. Candidates who successfully demonstrate congruence in their values and skills as the company’s culture, will garner more attention from the hiring manager.  

So how do you research this?  There are several areas to piece together this information. Most of it can be found on the company’s web site. Let’s take a look at some of these options: 

• Read the information on the home page and other areas of the web which is specifically set up for the customer. How do they represent themselves to the customer? Do they pride themselves on customer service, or economical travel? What ever elements are highlighted to the customer is the brand they are identifying themselves as. It could be image (NIKE), Innovation (APPLE), Customer Service (Southwest), Economy (Wal-Mart), or Employee Satisfaction (Costco)…… what ever it is, read enough publications regarding the company and their desired brand will become evident.

• Read the company’s mission, vision and/or values statements. This is a great place to find out what a company values in it’s culture. Some even have behavioral standards published.

• Read various job postings. Look for recurring statements or themes across job postings.

Companies often set up procedures and practices which support the culture they are determining themselves to be, so it is important to be able to highlight them on your resume. Take stock in what the company’s culture is and then take stock in your own values and skills and note what a good match is. Make sure you highlight this in your resume and cover letter.

BACK TO TOP

Career Objective or Professional Summary:
A guide to determine the “best fit” for your Resume

If you run after two hares, you will catch neither.

In other words-- focus – - This definitely applies to your resume.

Generic “one size fits all and broad based resumes just don’t cut it. Employers are looking for specific job and industry experience…. And you can showcase that, starting with the Objective Statement or Professional Summary.

This guide is to help job seekers differentiate between the objective statement and professional summary, determine which best suits your situation and get you started in writing an impactful objective statement or professional summary which entices the reader to read further into your resume. [Read More...]

BACK TO TOP

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Resume Writing Help, Writing a Quality Resume in a Day

Dominique Koukol