This article gives concrete and extremely helpful tips on how to load your resume up with keywords. A keyword-rich resume is an essential piece of your job search materials! Resume Keyword Optimization: Set Your Resume on Fire! – from New Grad Life. For assistance with making your resume keyword-rich, contact The Essay Expert’s about our Resume Services.
Dr. Sander Marcus offers some spot-on observations about how to make sure you resume makes the impression you want it to make. It’s not easy to get past the eagle eye of a resume reader! If you want help in doing so, contact The Essay Expert. Here’s the article: Top 7 Reasons Why a Potential Employer Won’t Read Your Resume and What to Do about It.
I couldn’t agree more with these tips from Terry Alleman at OccupationalZen. 7 Elements of an Exceptional Resume Part I and Part II.
Just for kicks, can you spot the misused semicolon in the excerpt below? To find out more about proper use of commas and semicolons, read Part 1 and Part 2 of my article on the subject.
“How do you prepare a resume with the resilience to survive the onslaught of elimination drills conducted by employers these days? How do you ensure your resume will stand out from the other 500-plus applicants? Although it is true that your resume is a record of your past achievements, your training, skills, and abilities; first and foremost, your resume is a marketing tool.”
I recently read two good articles on the topic of how long your resume should be. The first, How Long Should My Resume Be? is from Great Resumes Fast. The other, Resumes for Executive Jobs – Tips on Length, Formatting and Style was written by Matthew Rothenberg of TheLadders and posted today on EmploymentDigest.net.
My guideline is that if you are a new graduate, your resume should be one page if at all possible. If you have 10 years of work experience, it will probably be two pages. I recommend always having a one-page resume at the ready if you are expecting to work with recruiters.
I disagree a bit with the formatting advice from TheLadders. I do not like underlining or changes in font size as a formatting tool. I much prefer the option of “Small Caps” which you will find under the font menu. It’s a great way to create emphasis.
Remember, even though you probably won’t include graphics in your resume (other than perhaps some nice lines and tasteful shading), your resume is a work of art. Print it out and make sure it looks professional! It’s likely that if you underlined a lot and multiple font sizes you will change your mind quickly about your artistic choice when you look at the document in hard copy.
Choosing the right wording on your resume is very important. Some words pack a punch, and some leave the reader wanting more information. This week, we’ll focus on two verbs that don’t have much power.
On this list of resume power verbs posted at Jobskills.info, you will find the words assisted and helped. Unfortunately, if you rely on lists such as this one, you may be sorely deceived.
On another list, “Power Verbs for Your Resume” from The University of Iowa’s Pomerantz Career Center, the verbs assisted and helped are listed under a very specific category: Helping. That is the only place where these verbs belong! You should delete these words from your resume and use more powerful verbs. Take a look at some examples below.
Telling us on your resume that you assisted somebody with something is only as informative as you make it. Honestly, I do not care that you assisted on a film shoot. I want to know that you held a camera or a boom; that you ordered pizza (or handled catering orders); or that you troubleshot in emergency situations.
It is essential that you don’t get fooled into thinking that Assisted and Helped are always power verbs. They often just lead to vague and uninteresting bullets.
Example #1 – Compare:
a. Helped artists and network personnel.
b. Accompanied artists to television appearances and mediated between the artists and network personnel.
Example #2 – Compare:
a. Assisted with small claims cases.
b. Handled all phases of collection and litigation of small claims cases. Attended small claims court; directed court clerk and court commissioner regarding what action to take on firm’s cases.
Version b. in both cases is much more interesting and descriptive than version a.
There are limited situations in which it can be appropriate to use the words assisted or helped. For example:
a. Helped disabled adults to perform simple job tasks at their job locations.
b. Assisted elderly residents with their personal and financial recordkeeping.
Note in these last two examples, that although there might be other ways to phrase the bullets, we are not left wondering, “Well, what did you do exactly to help or assist?”
Take a look at your resume. Did you find the words “Helped” or “Assisted”? If so, can you be more specific about what you did? Draw us a picture. We want to know.
For more resume writing assistance, go to The Essay Expert’s Resume Writing Services. We can help you choose the right words for a powerful resume that gets results.
