Tips for a Top Resume

Forbes has an interview with a top job recruiter and lists his top tips for a great resume. They are:

• Avoid the fancy-schmancy layout, font, and other special effects. Stick to traditional font of Times New Roman, 9 to 12 point size, and black type against a white paper.


• Prepare it in a simple Word format that can easily be viewed on most computers.


• Use a reverse chronological order.


• Get rid of objectives and summary and all that silly stuff.


• Skip personal information such as married with three kids.


• Stories sell. Numbers, statistics, percentages get attention if you put in bold type. Increased profit by this 28%. Came under budget by 30%. If you were born and raised on chicken farm, note it on your résumé.


• Fuzzy key words and phrases should be avoided.


• Get the photos off your résumé. You are looking for a job, not a date.

In other words, you want your resume to be the standard, formal, middle-of-the-road document. No bells or whistles, simply information that tells what you did and how well you did it (which hopefully is "very well").

A few extra thoughts from me:

• I like and recommend the black ink on white paper look best. I've tried grey and beige paper, but neither looks as good IMO.


• Focus on action words. After I list the title of each position and the dates I held it, I have bullet points listed with accomplishment after accomplishment. Each of these bullet points begins with an action word like "led", "created", "developed" and so on. These snippets demonstrate that I'm a person of action who can accomplish a wide range of tasks (and do them well.) This is exactly the point you want to make.


• I don't like objectives, summaries, or anything similar on resumes either. IMO no one reads them anyway so they simply take up space you could use to sell yourself.


• Personal info is a clear no-no -- unless it's something truly amazing and neutral. Example: you won the Olympic gold medal or raised $10 million to fight cancer. Other personal info (spouse, kids, etc.) can only hurt you (in most situations), so why include it?


• I'm not so sure about the "stories" he lists above, unless it's a story about how you made the company $1 million last year. Yes, stories are interesting, but do I really care that you were raised on a chicken farm? Not really. And maybe I hate chickens and everyone associated with them. Plus, how do you really tell a story in the short, bullet point format of a resume? Hard to do well.


• Make every word work. That's why you need to eliminate fuzzy words -- because they take up space that could be used on words that advance your cause/employment.


• Photos? Really? Do people really submit photos with their resumes these days? I guess if you were very attractive it COULD help. But even if Miss America or Mr. Universe included a photo, wouldn't it bring into question their professionalism (which is never a good thing to raise doubts about in a hiring process)?

To note, these are tips for "standard" jobs. Of course you may want more flair if you're a designer or include photos of you're a model. But for 99% of the jobs out there, I think these tips are solid and won't steer you wrong.

Comments

[Josh Stein]

The one line on my resume that has ALWAYS started every single interview..."So, about that undergraduate degree...what?"

I am a CPA. My undergraduate degree is a B.S. in Geography/Cartography.

[JM]

I think photos are more of an international thing. I've seen resumes with photos from people who aren't originally from the US. I'd imagine it's standard in some other countries.

[Emily]

I think this is all stellar advice. Above all, make sure the resume is selling you, not just giving a history of your life.

[08graduate]

"Prepare it in a simple Word format that can easily be viewed on most computers."

As this advice implies, Word has all sorts of incompatibility problems across versions. I'd suggest exporting to PDF instead. Everyone has a PDF reader, and PDF gives stronger guarantees that your document will look the same no matter what software is used to open it.

Also, it makes sure that no one will modify your resume before distributing it internally. This is particularly useful as a defense against third-party recruiters who might try to put lipstick on it.

[Emily Hunter]

It seems crazy to me that the hiring professionals would want something that's boring and run of the mill. I tend to design the resumes that I do for people around the skills that they have, as well as trying to make it as short and sweet as possible. I know that I'm relying on folks to really make it shine in the interview, and I figured that the 'standard' cluttered resume was hard to read. Thank you for the clarification.