Importance of RESUME CONTENT

The Importance Of Resume Content

When writing a resume, remember that it should tell the story of your career history. An ideal resume should:

- explain what you are looking for in a position

- show a brief list of your skill set

- show a consistent work history with continued increasing responsibility

- convey your computer skills

- provide your education

- advise any special training you've obtained

- advise any special accomplishments you have achieved

- provide a way to contact you

It is sometimes very helpful to refer to a professional resume book for detailed assistance that covers many job types.

Ensuring you have a quality resume that covers all of the above, greatly increases you're chances of getting called for an interview. But remember, the quality of your resume work history is most important. Now that you know what to put when writing your resume, let me give you a brief description of each of these resume items. A more detailed description of the importance of each will be discussed in future posts to this blog.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Resume contact information should include a phone number. Make sure that if you can't answer, you check the voice mail often. Provide an email address that you check frequently. Hiring Managers must have a way to contact you. Do not add personal email addresses that reflect poorly on you. 

OBJECTIVE:

Consider what you are looking for in a job/career and write a clear statement that explains it. Do not copy a friends resume objective because you think it sounds good. Your objective should tell a hiring Manager what YOU are looking for in a job/career so that they can match you to open positions they have to fill. Vague, irrelevant and extremely fancy objectives with too many buzz words could get your resume tossed aside quickly.

SKILL SET:

Provide a bullet point list of any skills you have obtained that are relevant to the type of job you are seeking. Don't list menial skills. 

WORK HISTORY:

List each company you have worked for along with the title of the position you held and your month and year of employment. Be sure to list them from current (or most recent) to oldest. Under each position include a bullet point list of all relevant job duties. Your work experience should reflect a growing increase in responsibility. Any gaps in your resume work history, specifically repeated gaps, could cause doubt with the Hiring Manager regarding the length of time you might stay with them. Make sure you plan your job changes to always ensure consistent employment. One layoff may be overlooked, especially in a poor job market, but consistent layoffs tell them your prior employers saw you as a dispensable employee and again, could cause your resume to be tossed aside.

EDUCATION:

Provide the name of the school, course of study, college degree and year of completion for each level of school you have completed. If high school is the highest level you have completed simply list the information for that school. If you have completed any college, leave high school off and list all colleges attended. Some employers look for degrees and some don't, as there are benefits to both. Some companies prefer a higher education and some prefer on the job experience

COMPUTER SKILLS:

List all computer software you have worked in and are comfortable with. You don't have to be proficient in each of them. You can explain your use of each in more detail at an interview. Do not list software for the sake of listing them because it could backfire on you. The purpose is to get a feel for how computer proficient you are and how quickly you might learn a new system.

TRAINING, SEMINARS and CERTIFICATIONS:

List all additional job training, career seminars and certifications that are relevant to the position you are looking to obtain.

ACHIEVEMENTS:

List all achievements you accomplished that are over and above what your job duties required. 

Lastly, proof read! A resume error can cost you the job! Use spell check and grammar check, then print it and have at least one other person proof it for errors. If a company's first impressions of you are errors, odds are you won't be considered for an interview.

References should not be included on your resume. If there is adequate room to add "References provided upon request" at the bottom then do so, but it's not necessary. References should be typed on a separate sheet of paper and provided at the request of the prospective employer.

Resume objectives are very important. If your resume doesn't have an objective or your objective doesn't state your goals in an effective manner you may miss out on relevant job opportunities. An objective assists employers in matching your goals with theirs. Obtaining a job that will assist you in meeting your goals will be difficult if your resume objective doesn't accurately portray what those goals are.

Writing A Resume Objective Isn't As Hard As You Think. What's your goal? You do have a goal, right? Sure you do. Everyone has a goal. Your goal may be different from your friend and your neighbor, but we all have goals when it comes to our career. Your goal is your objective. It doesn't have to be extremely fancy; professional yes, but overly fancy no.

Ask yourself these questions about your career:

1.    What is my expertise and for how long?

2.    What am I doing now?

3.    What are both my short-term and long-term goals?

4.    Is what I'm doing now relevant to either of my goals?

5.    What am I personally not getting out of my current situation that I need? (Consider: commute time, employee benefits, salary, relevance to education and background/skills)

6.    What is the 'NEXT' step I need to take in my career to reach my goal?

7.    How long will it take to accomplish this? Or How long do I plan to work in the next position/for the next company?

8.    What type of company do I want to work for to meet this goal? (Consider: industry type, company size)

9.    What can I offer my next employer?

10.  When this step is complete, what's step is after that?

If you take a moment to sit and think this through you will have your objective. Now you just need to get it on paper. Not all of what you determined with the above questions need to be put in your objective. The answers to the above helped you plan your big picture/long term career goal. Your resume objective should primarily concentrate on your answers to questions 6 and 7, but will have aspects of many of the other questions as well.

Remember, you have 10-30 seconds to make a favorable impression and tell the employer if you are a good match for them. You have to make sure an state your goals, while also telling them why you would be an asset to them.

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