Write clearly

Whether you are a truck driver or a neurosurgeon, work on your resume until it's clear. Keep in mind that for most jobs, several different kinds of people will read your resume before you get an interview, ranging from secretaries to HR staff who may not know your professional jargon, to hiring managers who may or may not know the lingo of your specific profession. And please, skip the buzzwords of the day, unlike the candidate who wrote, "I am interested in a position where I can develop a synergistic relationship." She must have read somewhere that synergistic relationships were the buzzword du jour, but

Don't disqualify yourself

One resume I received for a writing position said "I have no writing experience at all, but I was born in Scotland." In other words, this person was telling me that, aside from speaking English, he or she had no qualifications for the job. You should never stretch your credentials beyond what they are, but don't do the opposite and make it clear to one and all that you can't do the job.

Use your resume to sell your strengths

One would-be writer said, "I am current responsible for standardizing." In other words, while this person saw herself as someone who could help an employer standardize the work of many people and processes, which is often a good thing, she undermined her claim by showing she didn't even standardize what she had written to the rules of grammar. (She should have said "currently.") So she got to stay current where she was!

Show you can do good work

In most documents you write, typos might not be critical. But on resumes, where you're trying to explain how good a worker you are, it's counter-productive if you don't check your work. One resume I received claimed the author was "Able to set and meet goals in a fast past environment." Now, "past" is a perfectly good word, but what he meant was "paced." And his spell-checker didn't catch the typo, since "past" is a word. So this resume announced to hiring managers, "I don't check my work." Is that what you want to say on your resume?

Sell your skill set using logic

Sometimes people put silly things on their resumes that aren't incorrect and might even be true. But they're still mistakes, like the person who wrote, "Maintain 98% total quality accuracy." It was meant to sound good, but what it means is that she's promising to make errors 2% of the time. Maybe it's a matter of perspective, but 98% fat-free milk is another way of saying it has 2% fat. Sure, nobody's perfect, and you can't claim that you don't ever make mistakes. But if you want to sell a manager on how accurate you are, use logic, and come up with a better way to illustrate your obsession with quality.

Tell me what you can do for me

While many people think the purpose of resumes is to say what you've done, the real purpose of a resume is to convince a manager that you can do what they need you to do. You should never, ever, stretch the truth, and you should never, ever, speak ill of your former or current employers. (Managers don't want to hire liars or back-stabbers.) So summarize the key elements in your previous work in an interesting way that shows how you tackle assignments. Write about what you did and how you did it. And you don't need to include belittling details, like the guy who wrote that the company he was trying to leave "is a company started by a friend of mine." What that told me is that the reason he got hired was because his friend, not him, had initiative and started a company, and worse, that he was paying back his friend by deserting him.

Don't overdo it

Stick to the facts and present them in a way that shows managers you can do the job. Give examples, preferably using numbers if that makes sense. And let the reader draw her own conclusions, unlike the resume that said, "I am superior at ...". I wanted to thank the writer for, um, sharing that information with me, but that's not someone I wanted on my team.

Write clearly

Whether you are a truck driver or a neurosurgeon, work on your resume until it's clear. Keep in mind that for most jobs, several different kinds of people will read your resume before you get an interview, ranging from secretaries to HR staff who may not know your professional jargon, to hiring managers who may or may not know the lingo of your specific profession. And please, skip the buzzwords of the day, unlike the candidate who wrote, "I am interested in a position where I can develop a synergistic relationship." She must have read somewhere that synergistic relationships were the buzzword du jour, but

Show you can do good work

In most documents you write, typos might not be critical. But on resumes, where you're trying to explain how good a worker you are, it's counter-productive if you don't check your work. One resume I received claimed the author was "Able to set and meet goals in a fast past environment." Now, "past" is a perfectly good word, but what he meant was "paced." And his spell-checker didn't catch the typo, since "past" is a word. So this resume announced to hiring managers, "I don't check my work." Is that what you want to say on your resume?

Sell your skill set using logic

Sometimes people put silly things on their resumes that aren't incorrect and might even be true. But they're still mistakes, like the person who wrote, "Maintain 98% total quality accuracy." It was meant to sound good, but what it means is that she's promising to make errors 2% of the time. Maybe it's a matter of perspective, but 98% fat-free milk is another way of saying it has 2% fat. Sure, nobody's perfect, and you can't claim that you don't ever make mistakes. But if you want to sell a manager on how accurate you are, use logic, and come up with a better way to illustrate your obsession with quality.

Tell me what you can do for me

While many people think the purpose of resumes is to say what you've done, the real purpose of a resume is to convince a manager that you can do what they need you to do. You should never, ever, stretch the truth, and you should never, ever, speak ill of your former or current employers. (Managers don't want to hire liars or back-stabbers.) So summarize the key elements in your previous work in an interesting way that shows how you tackle assignments. Write about what you did and how you did it. And you don't need to include belittling details, like the guy who wrote that the company he was trying to leave "is a company started by a friend of mine." What that told me is that the reason he got hired was because his friend, not him, had initiative and started a company, and worse, that he was paying back his friend by deserting him.

Don't overdo it

Stick to the facts and present them in a way that shows managers you can do the job. Give examples, preferably using numbers if that makes sense. And let the reader draw her own conclusions, unlike the resume that said, "I am superior at ...". I wanted to thank the writer for, um, sharing that information with me, but that's not someone I wanted on my team.

Write clearly

Whether you are a truck driver or a neurosurgeon, work on your resume until it's clear. Keep in mind that for most jobs, several different kinds of people will read your resume before you get an interview, ranging from secretaries to HR staff who may not know your professional jargon, to hiring managers who may or may not know the lingo of your specific profession. And please, skip the buzzwords of the day, unlike the candidate who wrote, "I am interested in a position where I can develop a synergistic relationship." She must have read somewhere that synergistic relationships were the buzzword du jour, but

HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
<a href="http://www.casualarticles.com/article/35639/casualarticles-7-Ways-to-Make-Your-Resume-Do-Its-Job-Tips-to-Avoid-Mistakes-and-Get-that-Interview.html">7 Ways to Make Your Resume Do Its Job: Tips to Avoid Mistakes and Get that Interview!</a>

BB link (for phorums):
[url=http://www.casualarticles.com/article/35639/casualarticles-7-Ways-to-Make-Your-Resume-Do-Its-Job-Tips-to-Avoid-Mistakes-and-Get-that-Interview.html]7 Ways to Make Your Resume Do Its Job: Tips to Avoid Mistakes and Get that Interview![/url]

Related Articles:

The Fastest Growing Company in the World

So you want to have the fastest growing company in the world. Any one coach or entrepreneur can tell you it takes teamwork, time management, organizational, innovation and execution skills. Almost always right, but what does it take to make a great company in today's world? Why are companies like Microsoft expanding and companies like GM decreasing. Is it technology, partly, innovation, partly but not completely. What makes the best companies rise to the top? It is the S WORD.

Trade Show Advice

We have worked with countless exhibitors over the last decade, and we have witnessed many mistakes that could have easily been avoided. This article will attempt to offer general advice that should help your company have a successful exhibiting experience.

Personalized Trade Show Displays, Trade Show Booths and Tradeshow Exhibits Get Noticed

Do your tradeshow exhibits and tradeshow booth present your products, services, and your company image that you want to communicate? Lets know more on these.

Bookmark it: