1. Position title and job description: Provide your title, plus a detailed explanation of your duties and accomplishments. Since job titles are often misleading, or their functions vary from one company to another, your resume should tell the reader exactly what you’ve done. Separate Duties and Accomplishments with different sub-headings.
2. Clarity of dates and places: Accurately document your work history and educational credentials. Don’t leave the reader guessing where and when you were employed or earned your degree.
3. Explicitness: Let the reader know your past employers’ nature, size, and location and what their business is.
4. Detail: Specify some of the more technical or involved aspects of your past work or training, especially if you’ve performed tasks of any complexity or significance. Also, be sure to include any accomplishments or sales numbers that show a hiring manager how you saved time, money, busted quota, in a nutshell overachieved.
5. Proportion: Give appropriate attention to jobs or educational credentials according to their length or importance to the reader. For example, if you wish to be considered for an engineering position, don’t write one paragraph describing your current engineering job, followed by three paragraphs about your summer job as a lifeguard.
6. Relevancy: Confine your information to job-related things or demonstrate a pattern of success. Concentrate only on subject matter that addresses the needs of the employer.
7. Length: Depending on your years of experience should determine the length of your resume. 0-5 years should be one page. 5-15 years should be able to be covered in 2 pages. 15+ years of experience may take three pages, but if you can do it in two without leaving out critical details, I would err on the side of a two-pager. If your content is strong, you won’t need more than two pages.
8. Spelling, grammar, and punctuation: Create an error-free document representing an educated person that pays attention to detail. If you’re unsure about the correctness of your writing (or if English is your second language), consult a professional writer or editor or an online tool like Grammarly.
9. Readability: Organize your thoughts in a clear, concise manner with loads of detail and accomplishments. Remember, most resumes will be viewed on a mobile device. But don’t overthink it because no resume has ever landed on the New York Times Best Seller list; however, a poorly written or long-winded resume will virtually assure you a spot on the bottom of the pile.
Finally, we conclude that the best INVESTMENT in your career is a professionally written resume. While we don’t write resumes here at Ventech Search Group, feel free to reach out, and we can recommend a few reputable resume writing companies.
However, if you decide to do this on your own, I suggest you write several versions customized for the different roles you may be applying for. And last but certainly not least, have someone proofread your resume before taking it to the market.
