Creative Ways to Improve Your Resume

Yahoo lists eight creative ways to improve your resume as follows:

1. Analyze the job post's wording. An easy way to make sure your resume gets you in the door for an interview is to echo the language in the job post.

2. Weed out fibs.

3. Get rid of the "objective statement."

4. Get rid of redundancies.

5. Cut unnecessary resume "stories."

6. Look for ways to use exciting language.

7. Turn your resume upside-down.

8. Write a draft in a different format.

Here's my take on these suggestions:

1. Yes, the wording on your resume needs to mirror the main points in the job posting. That said, I don't think you have to use the exact words -- as they suggest.

2. Of course. NEVER lie on a resume or in an interview. There's no room for it and your integrity is worth far more than getting a specific job.

3. I never use an objective statement anyway. Never have. Personally, I think they are useless and most of them are so fluffy that they don't say anything. And they take up valuable space as well -- space that could be used to sell yourself to the employer and get you a job!!!!

4. Of course. Is this really a "creative" way to improve your resume?

5. I think they mean "be brief and quick to the point", right? If so, I agree. You want to get as many accomplishments as possible on your resume, so give them "just the facts" for each one and then move on to the next.

6. I prefer "action" words to start off each accomplishment bulletpoint -- words like "led", "developed", "created", etc. To me, this shows that someone is a person of action, someone who gets things done. And how can you be more exciting than that? ;-)

7. This is a stupid idea. I don't know why they listed it.

8. Another stupid idea. The more a resume veers from the normal, standard format (jobs listed in reverse chronological order), the worse it is IMO. Their suggestion of "writing a letter" resume is laughable.

In all, I think there are only four good suggestions here (#1, #3, #5, and #6 are good, #2 and #4 are common sense, and #7 and #8 are worthless) and IMO they certainly aren't that "creative." They should have gone with "Four Ways to Improve Your Resume" and left it at that.

Comments

[Jess]

When you're working on a piece of art, it's helpful to turn it upside down to see that it still "makes sense" in a visually pleasing way. I assume that's what they mean here - make sure there are no funny gaps or long margins and the like. But I took several art classes in college ;)

[Elizabeth]

Actually, you should try to use the exact words if you're submitting online. Many large companies use search technology to scan for keywords in resumes. If you aren't using they words they're looking for, you may be out of luck!

[everyday tips]

I wonder if they meant by turning the resume 'upside down' they meant to really go through it with a fine-toothed comb or something? Or did they literally mean to turn it upside down for some reason?

When I got out of college, the 'objective statement' was a big thing. It is stupid because you just change it to fit whatever job you are applying for. You can't say "I want to be the best chemist ever" when I applying for a sales job.

[KMI]

I don't think #8 is a bad idea. The two main formats for a resume that I've seen are chronological and functional (and there can be blends of the two). If your resume is in one format and has been for a number of years, trying to write your resume in the other format can make you rethink what you include and how you say it.
As an example, suppose your current resume lists jobs and accomplishments in chronological order. To switch to a functional resume, you need to be able to answer "What are my skills? Where and how did I use them?" You might realize that in every job, you not only performed x accomplishments but also followed up to make sure everyone else finished on time. Perhaps you are the person everyone goes to for help with improving a presentation. Perhaps you consistently train people who are able to move up to new roles. If you only focus on each job by itself, you might miss these common threads.
Notice that the advice was only to write a draft in a new format, not submit it. Once the draft is done, you may not want to finalize it as an alternate resume. The exercise of thinking about the other format should give you additional resume items to include or a new way to describe then, and would hopefully help you identify more skills to discuss during an interview.

[BD]

Heh, I came here to write that Artists turn art upside down to catch mistakes, but Jess beat me to it. Turning anything upside-down enables you to see it differently and in a new light, so you often catch mistakes or things that are visually unappealing.

So no, it's not 'stupid' if you understand the concept.

[FMF]

BD --

So maybe I'm stupid for not understanding the concept. ;-)

But even understanding it now, I'm not sure the principle applies to/benefits you with a resume.

[MBTN]

FMF:

I think you are misunderstanding suggestion #8 as well. If you read the original article, it says to write your DRAFT in as a letter in order to put to paper your accomplishments and skills. Then once you have gotten all of this on paper, you take the snippets from your letter and use those in a traditional resume format.

This is what is known as brainstorming. You are just doing a brain dump of different ideas without thinking about the form. Then once you have all of these ideas, you cherry pick the best ones and then apply the standard structure around them.