Resume Tips

Here’s a great story with some very useful tips that you can use if you’re job hunting!

One of our recent clients, Phil Austin, after attending our LifeWork Renewal workshop and a few Job Resource Clinics, soon found himself on “the other side of the table” at his new job: reviewing resumes for another open position within his company! Reviewing over 200 resumes gave Phil a very different perspective of resume writing than that that he had just months prior. He wanted to share some of his new insights and tips with all of you (in his own words!):

1. Add some color! To a reviewer going through dozens of black and white resumes, color is a blessing and makes you want to take your time reading.
2. If applying for any kind of tech or administrative assistant type job…DO NOT format your resume using spaces.
3. Learn how to use tables, margins, indenting, bullets etc… in MS Word or your word processor of choice.
4. Watch the typos! Have your resume proofread many times over if necessary.
5. Be Personal! Name the company in your email body and cover letter. Tell me you read up on the company. Connect personally to SOMETHING in the job description or company website.
6. Make sure the page breaks happen at appropriate spots.
7. DO A CUSTOM COVER LETTER. It shows that you have an actual interest in this job.
8. DO AN EMAIL BODY which AT LEAST mentions the company name (and ideally something very specific about the job).
9. Use consistent formatting of text in the email & cover letter. If it has multiple fonts and colors, it looks copy/pasted and as though you put minimal effort into it.
10. (I LOVE this one!) USE A PROFESSIONAL EMAIL ADDRESS. daddymac17@yahoo.com or catlover2121@hotmail.com just looks terrible. Emails are free! Sign up for a new one on Gmail even if you’ll only use it this one time.
11. Give some thought to layout and WHITESPACE. Brevity allows for more space and is thus easier on the eyes. Don’t leave out any important points…just keep things succinct. Don’t CRAM your page with text.
12. Make your resume NO MORE than 2 pages, and if you’re into the second page with only one paragraph, either flesh it out and use the better part of the page or shrink it to 1 page.

On a final note: when I emailed Phil today to ask if I could share his tips on facebook, he told me that his wife got an interview recently and was told it was because her resume had color! So, there you go!

…..thanks for sharing, Phil!