Don't Let Your Resume Hold You Back
A dear friend of mine in New York City is attempting to brush up his resume. While he has years of project manager & supervisory experience in varied industries, his resume reads like a coroner's report.
While trying to help him make it more appealing and noteworthy, I have come up with the following general suggestions, and you may find them useful as well.
-Don't list your job duties in the same terminology they were outlined to you on a job description. Write about your role in that position in the voice of someone who enjoyed doing that job. Overly technical jargon like "organized promotional materials to display in the venue" says "stacked some fliers and hung some posters without a soul," not "created & cut monthly special event teaser trailers for 35mm projection at busy art house movie theatre," which happens to be what that job entailed for him.
-If you have moved away from your hometown, your high school is probably irrelevant. If you have college or trade school credentials listed, and you graduated from high school 7-12 years ago from a Stony Pebble High School in Port Arthur, Missouri, that high school line can just stay home. No one honestly cares by now. However, if your high school is regionally known for something really impressive, go ahead.
-Formatting makes a huge difference. This should be a no-brainer, but I am appalled every so often looking back at resumes of my own I have submitted to places. I feel like every time period I go to update my resume, it gets stronger. Check out some design inspiration if that's what you're into. Take a break and walk away from your resume for a week and come back to it. You will see it with fresh eyes, much like the persons you will be sending it to. Print it out. Look at it on paper. Trust me on this one.
-Don't be afraid to integrate any gaps of employment with a positive experience you had during that time. I spent close to a year not working. It was my senior year of college, and I left a great job at Tesla (after only 8 months; totally tragic) to go attend a study abroad program in Italy and a religious trip to Israel. At the end of my blurb about working for Tesla, you bet I mention getting that scholarship for travel abroad which prompted me to resign. My friend spent a year watching a friend's kid while his friend got his feet on the ground. That shouldn't be a gap in the resume; that's a line item. "Family Management" or "Professional Manny". Whatever term suits your audience's sensibilities and the tone of your resume the best. Did you spend a year living off of couches while you toured the country tracking down locations and people that made appearances in your mother's diary? Spirit journey, hello! Hope you wrote about it somewhere and can provide a link to a blog or some photos. Believe me, the things you do in between working for wages reported on a W-2 can say so much good about a person.
Those are really my top 4 tips for writing a better resume. Do you have any really great advice for someone revamping a resume? Share it in the comments.