6 Resumes

I’ll decide within 30 seconds whether to
continue reading your resume.

Chapter Overview

Your resume is a paradox. It won’t get you a job, yet it’s unlikely you’ll get one without it. This chapter will reveal the purpose of your resume from a reader’s perspective and help you prepare a resume that shows who you are, what you want, and why someone should consider you.

The main sections in this chapter include:

The purpose and importance of your resume.

How others will use your resume.

The different resume formats you can use.

Putting your resume together.

Techniques for consultants and engineers.

Milestones.

If you’ve ever gone to a bookstore to buy a book on resumes, you’ve probably left muttering to yourself, “How can there be so many books about resumes, and how do I choose the right one?”

Let’s start by reviewing some of the more common misperceptions about resumes:

There’s one right way to prepare a resume that works for everybody.

Resumes possess a magical ability to help you land the job of your dreams.

Interviewers will have actually read your resume before they interview you.

Illustration by Simon Meyrick-Jones. Used with permission.

You must have a resume to get a job. (This last one is not, as it might seem, a contradiction to the second sentence of this chapter.)

I’ll deal with these misperceptions in this chapter.

The Purpose and Importance of Your Resume

Companies spend millions of dollars preparing brochures about the services or products they offer. If they designed their brochure to tell you everything about their company and the services or products they offer, it would be so lengthy you’d never read it—hence, the brochure wouldn’t convince you to use their products or services.

To get you to read it, they keep it tightly focused on the main features, with just enough about the benefits of their product or service to entice you to contact them for details.

Your resume is like a brochure. It should focus on the main features and the benefits of hiring you. It should tell the reader just enough for them to want to know more. The analogy in the following figure will help you visualize the purpose of your resume. It illustrates how you might decide to buy a book compared to how a reader of your resume might decide to meet and/or interview you.

A Book From Your Perspective	Your Resume From an Employer’s Perspective
Does the title and subtitle attract your attention?	Does the position and industry where she wants to work match what we want?
Does the table of contents, highlights, or testimonials suggest that this book might be what you’re looking for?	Do her capabilities—skills and achievements—indicate she possesses the skills and experience that are of interest to us?
You buy the book and begin to read it. If it’s well-written and holds your attention, you finish reading it.	We begin to read the rest of her resume. If it’s well-written and holds our attention, we finish reading it.
You finish the book and conclude it was worth reading. You tell others positive things about it.	We like what we read in her resume and think we should meet and/or interview her. We may also tell others in the company positive things about her and share her resume with them for their opinions.

Using this approach to prepare your resume will be an extremely important step, because the information you develop and the way you present it in your resume will enable you to:

Perfect your personal 30-second sales pitch—the “elevator speech”—so you tell others the same message that’s in your resume.

Focus on and confidently verbalize your key strengths, which are consistent with the three strongest skills you list on your resume.

Tell credible and memorable achievement stories, which are consistent with what you describe in your resume and demonstrate the skills and experience you offer an employer.

Exude a feeling of confidence knowing your resume is an accurate reflection and a powerful statement of what you want, can do, and have done, and is consistent with what you tell others.

Affirm your chosen career objective (or highlight why you may need to consider other career options).

How Others Will Use Your Resume

Because you don’t always know who will be reading your resume and what they will be looking for, here are four basic objectives of your resume:

1. Communicate what kind of a resource you can be to an employer.

2. Tell them enough about you to entice them to contact you for an interview or more details.

3. Provide a documentary statement supporting a decision to employ you.

4. Induce key people to pass your resume along to those who could consider employing you.

Next, let’s look at how others will use your resume under different situations.

Situation 1

You send your resume to a recruiter or employer in response to an advertisement or a job posting on the Internet, or speculatively.

Step 1. Your resume is used to screen you out.

The person who receives your resume, typically a junior-level clerical person, spends less than 30 seconds finding reasons not to consider you. For example, she can’t understand what you want, your past experience isn’t comparable with the position they have, your resume contains misspellings and grammatical errors, or it’s too long or too busy.

Step 2. Your resume is used to screen you in.

If you make it past the initial screening, someone with experience at reviewing resumes will quickly look at yours, looking for the skills, experience, education, and so forth they seek. If she doesn’t immediately see what she wants, she’ll screen you out.

Step 3. Your resume is reviewed for specific skills and experience.

If you reach this stage, someone who knows more about what the employer wants will read your resume. The focus at this stage is to identify the strongest candidates with the industry-specific skills and experience the employer wants.

Step 4. Your resume is used to facilitate an interview.

If you’re among the top five to 10 candidates, you’ll probably receive a phone call. You’ll be asked about your skills, experience, education, and other specific job requirements.

Situation 2

You’ve approached a potential employer through one of your contacts. You’ve spoken with them about what you can do for them, and they ask for your resume.

Your resume is used to facilitate an interview.

An employer reviews your resume, sees it supports what you told them, and arranges an interview.

Situation 3

You’ve had discussions with an employer you already know or through an introduction by one of your contacts.

Your resume is used to substantiate a decision to employ you.

An employer is considering making you an offer but wants to support the decision by obtaining and checking the details in your resume. Or the employer may make you an offer contingent upon reviewing your resume and completing background checks.

Situation 4

Your resume is requested by someone you met through one of your contacts or from someone you met through networking.

Your resume is used to make evaluations about you.

Others will use your resume to understand what you’re seeking so they can match it with an appropriate opportunity, should they become aware of one. They may also forward your resume to someone else who may have or know of an opportunity.

The Different Resume Formats You Can Use

Knowing the purpose of your resume and understanding how others will use it gives you the background information you need to consider when deciding which format might work best for you. The four different resume formats are:

1. Targeted.

2. Functional.

3. Chronological.

4. Combination.

I’ll review these formats over the next several pages, and provide the pros and cons of each from the perspective of employers and recruiters:

Targeted Resume

What’s Unique About It

Begins with your skills, experience, and achievements as they relate to a specific company. You follow this with a summary of your employment history, education, and anything else you think might be of interest to the specific company.

When You Might Consider Using It

Can be effective when you know the position and company where you want to work, and you want to focus their attention on your skills, experience, and achievements relating to the position and their industry. Employers and recruiters accept the targeted format if you’re making a classic vertical career progression or the employer has already made a decision to employ you. It can also work to your advantage when you don’t want the reader to focus on your skills, experience, and achievements in a different industry.

Pros

You focus the readers’ attention on the skills and experience that are relevant to the position, their industry, and their company. If you’re changing industries, the targeted resume makes that change difficult to discern.

Cons

Some employers and recruiters don’t like targeted resumes because it’s difficult for them to match your skills, experience, and achievements with a specific employer. The targeted resume shows only your last position at each company, making it impossible for them to see your progression within each company. They know they’ll have to talk to you to clarify your experience.

An example of a targeted resume is shown on page 111.

Functional Resume

What’s Unique About It

Emphasizes your skills and experience by functional area, not by where you gained your skills and experience. Follow this with your work history in summary fashion.

When You Might Consider Using It

Can be effective when you’re making an industry change, and want to focus the reader’s attention on specific skills and experience, such as if you have a technical background and want to bring out your non-technical (or soft) skills and achievements. Useful if you don’t have a clear career path in one industry or if you’re transitioning from a non-commercial type of employment, such as government or military, or you’re returning to work after an extended leave of absence, such as caring for an ailing family member or raising children.

Pros

You focus on demonstrating to others the skills and experience you bring to the table by using memorable achievement stories that demonstrate what you’ve actually accomplished. You focus the readers’ attention on what’s most important about you and what you have achieved for others (and can do for them) and minimize when and where you did it.

Cons

Some recruiters and employers don’t like functional resumes because it’s difficult for them to match what you did, and when, with your employment history. They must contact you to get the additional information they need.

An example of a functional resume can be found on page 112.

Chronological Resume

What’s Unique About It

Shows your work/career history in reverse chronological order, starting with your most recent position and working backward. Within each position, you describe what you did and what you accomplished.

When You Might Consider Using It

An ideal choice for those making a classic vertical career progression within one industry.

Pros

The chronological resume format is the most widely used. Employers and recruiters prefer it because they can quickly focus on and review your career progression to see what you did, and when and where you did it.

Cons

The chronological resume format is retrospective. It assumes you want to continue in the same functional area and industry. If you want to make a career change, have made such changes in the past, want to change industries, or have experience in more than one industry, the chronological resume format highlights inconsistencies in a classic career path and puts you at a disadvantage with employers and recruiters who are most often looking for continuity.

An example of a chronological resume is shown on page 113.

Combination Resume

The first three resume formats are distinctly different from each other and, as such, are considered basic formats. Wanting to be different, people often merge one or more of the strengths of the three basic formats into one, called, naturally enough, a combination format.

The “Big Three” of outplacement companies—Right Management, Lee Hecht Harrison (LHH), and Drake Beam Morin (DBM)—have developed their own combination resume formats that their job-seeking clients use. The downside to this, however, is that, because recruiters see many resumes, they soon learn to identify which ones are the products of the outplacement companies and quickly know which candidates are out of work.

So, why is that an issue you might ask? Recruiters are often wary of candidates they know are working with an outplacement company because they also know that outplacement companies are eager to get their clients into any new job as quickly as possible (a key metric of their success by the companies that hire them). If they are a retained search recruiter (more on this in Chapter 7) working on a senior-level position, the recruiter knows that their corporate client will be less enthusiastic about a candidate who is not currently working.

Before I explain how I suggest you prepare your combination resume, let me use an analogy that might help you see it from a broader perspective as I see it. Let’s say you go to a new restaurant that recently opened that you don’t know anything about. They give you their extensive menu that covers breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You look at all the choices and wonder, “They certainly can’t be great at everything. I wonder what their specialties are.” If you see some dishes that say “Featured,” “Specialties of the House,” “Signature Dish,” or are in boxes, have stars, or larger print to make them stand out, you can quickly grasp which ones are likely to be the special ones for this restaurant. If you don’t see anything highlighted and you’re still curious, you might ask the waiter or waitress which dishes are their specialties, which ones are they known for, or which are the most popular.

Targeted Resume

Functional Resume

Chronological Resume

Now, put yourself in the position of the restaurant’s owner. Wouldn’t you want to draw your customers’ attention to the items on your menu that are your particular specialty, you’re most proud of, and the raison d’etre rather than the ones you think you’re just okay at?

A chronological resume that doesn’t highlight what’s most important about you and what you want is similar to the menu analogy. By now, however, you probably have a pretty good idea about what you think you want and what you’re good at, and you even have some achievement stories that support what you say are your strengths. If you don’t fall into one of the limited situations where one of the three basic formats may be best for you, I recommend you use a combination format that I think is best.

Keeping to the same structure as I’ve used for the basic formats, here is my view of a combined targeted and chronological resume:

What’s Unique About It

Combines the targeted and chronological formats; shifts the focus from a retrospective to a prospective view. It makes a positive statement about what you’re looking for and highlights your key strengths and achievements. Your work history follows this in reverse-chronological order.

When You Might Consider Using It

Whether you’re making a classic job change or changing careers in a function or industry.

Pros

It quickly and very clearly focuses readers’ attention on the job you want, why you’re qualified for it, and demonstrates your skills and experience through achievement stories.

Cons

If you don’t prepare my combination resume format correctly, employers and recruiters will simply ignore what you’re trying to emphasize and go directly to the chronological work history.

My format sends the following very powerful messages about you:

You’re in charge of your career.

You know what position you want.

You’re clear on the industry in which you want to work.

You know the skills substantiating why you’re qualified for what you want.

You can support your skills and experience by describing achievement stories that demonstrate them.

If you are to take full control of your job or career search, your resume must direct the attention of the reader to where you want to be, not where you’ve been. You also need to attract and retain the attention of the reader.

Having owned an executive search firm where I worked with other recruiters, I’ve come to accept that recruiters are linear in their thinking and have incredibly short attention spans. They’re usually under a lot of pressure to find that unique needle in the haystack their client wants.

Let me share a very typical scenario about how recruiters and employers work when you send your resume to them, as described in Situation 1 earlier in this chapter (page 106). Because you’re not the only person sending a resume, you should assume the recruiter or employer is receiving hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of resumes. As a result, he needs to focus on what he needs to know as quickly as possible—not on what you would like to tell him.

If your resume leads with, “I am looking for a senior management position in a growing company,” few recruiters or employers will take the time to figure out what kind of a position you want and what kind of industry experience you have.

First, companies don’t have “senior management positions.” Companies have positions with titles like CFO, vice president of sales and marketing, and so on, which identify their expertise within a specific functional area. These positions may also be “senior management positions,” but only the functional title is in the minds of the employer or recruiter reviewing resumes.

Second, companies are not “growing companies.” They’re fashion retail companies, industrial equipment manufacturing companies, food and beverage retail companies, and so forth. They usually think their industry AND their business are unique. Some of them may also be “growing companies.”

Now place yourself in the shoes of the recruiter or employer reviewing thousands of resumes. You can only spend a few seconds to find the candidate’s job function and industry experience. If you can’t locate these two pieces of information immediately, you’ll probably discard the resume. Remember Step 1 in Situation 1 (page 106) where your resume is used to screen you out?

If you pass Step 1, you move on to Step 2 and Step 3, where recruiters and most employers will take only another few seconds to find the answers to the following six basic questions:

1. Who are you, where do you live, and how do I contact you?

2. What do you want?

3. What do you bring to the table?

4. What is your work history?

5. What is your university degree, and what certifications do you have?

6. What else is important about you for the job?

I’ll expand on each of these six questions and link them by number to my combination resume example at the end of this section.

1. Who Are You, Where Do You Live, and How Do I Contact You?

If you don’t provide this information in a manner that’s easy to find and understand, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. Make it simple for them to contact you quickly by showing your name, mailing address, telephone number, and e-mail address. Resumes that say “Name Confidential” without full contact details are usually discarded.

2. What Do You Want?

Use a header such as “Employment Objective” or “Career Objective” and, in one sentence, describe the position you want, the industry or business, and the location where you want to work. Be as specific as possible. Make sure your stated objective is in agreement with your 30-second elevator pitch—what you tell others when asked what you’re looking for or what position you’re seeking.

Don’t use a vague reference to a position, such as “senior management position.” Describe the exact position you’re seeking. If you use “Chief Financial Officer,” recruiters will know that could also mean “VP Finance.” Alternatively, you could play it safe and use “Chief Financial Officer /VP Finance,” or even “chief financial executive position.”

Don’t use a vague reference to the industry or business, such as “a growth-oriented business.” Be precise. Companies and their recruiters think their industry, and perhaps even their specific business within the industry, is unique.

If location is an issue, state your preferred location. If you already live where you want to work, it’s probably safe to exclude mentioning location. If you live on the East Coast and you will consider positions on the West Coast, for example, you should state the breadth of locations you will consider.

Recruiters often tell executives not to include a career objective in their resume, explaining that they’ll read the resume and find out what the person should be doing based on what she’s doing now or has done in the past. Besides, they reason, most people only make a generalized statement that doesn’t say anything. If you’re making a vertical job change and want the recruiter to decide your career path for you, then you can leave your career objective off. But if you want to make a career change, want something specific, or just like the idea of being in charge of your career, then don’t let others make decisions about what’s best for you—tell them.

3. What Do You Bring to the Table?

Companies hire for skills and experience first. Here you need to make two sections: one that lists your key strengths (your skills) and another that proves it (achievements that demonstrate your skills).

Key Skills: Using bullet points, list your top three strengths—no more than three. If you list more, the reader likely will ignore them all or question your objectiveness. When you’ve listed your three strengths, review them to make sure they answer the following questions: “What am I really good at?” “What am I known for by others?” and “What would others say I am really good at?” Although I suggest you call this section “Key Skills,” it really reflects your top three strengths. Remember the distinction between skills and strengths in Chapter 3: talents, skills, and knowledge? You want to show what you’re good at doing, like doing, and want to do. When you think you have your top three, confirm them with someone who knows you well, such as a former colleague or your significant other.

Achievements: Your achievement stories will leave the biggest impression on the reader because they’re memorable and credible, and they demonstrate your skills. Review both the skills and achievement sections to make sure they complement and support each other. Include up to three achievements (or accomplishments) from prior jobs. Use bullet points so you keep your statements brief. Start each with a verb (for example, “Restructured Sales and Marketing organization, resulting in a 40% annualized increase in revenue over three years.”). Your achievement stories will cause the reader to think about positive traits and characteristics that you probably possess without you even having to mention any. When they tell others about you, it will be the achievement stories they’ll tell, not your list of skills (or strengths). For more help on how to write about your achievements, refer back to Chapter 2.

4. What Is Your Work History?

Use a title such as “Employment History,” “Work History,” “Career History,” “Work Experience,” or “Professional Experience”—something that your chosen occupation or profession easily recognizes. For example, if your experience was in the legal profession, you’d probably use “Professional Experience.” Employers and recruiters will examine your career path, looking for a logical career progression. If it isn’t there, you’ll need to deal with this issue in a cover letter.

List your most recent employer first. Start with the employer’s name and the city where you worked, followed by your most recent position. Show beginning and ending month and year for each position, even for different positions at the same company. Recruiters and employers need this information because they’re looking for gaps in your employment. If they don’t see the month and year, you can be sure they’ll ask for the dates early in an interview.

If you’re unemployed, show the last date of employment in month and year. Don’t show your most recent employment end date as “Date” or “Present” and then, in an interview, try to explain that you haven’t updated your resume. Interviewers will see through that as a misrepresentation on your resume and your statement as a lie.

If the industry isn’t readily apparent by the company name, give the company’s industry and size (such as “$400 million manufacturer of sports apparel”). Describe your responsibilities, starting with a verb such as created, managed, or developed, not “Responsibilities included…” Include any lesser achievements not shown in the previous section.

Show your most recent employer and position on the first page so recruiters and employers can find it quickly. Putting this information here also forces you to be brief with your skills and achievements. Show earlier positions in reverse chronological order and continue on the second page.

Because an interviewer will probably ask you how you found each job and why you left, mention if you were headhunted by a recruiter or recruited directly by management. It enhances others’ perceptions of you. If you left an employer to further your career, include a statement about why you left (such as “Left this company to take a more senior position with more career potential”).

Briefly summarize employment more than 10 years earlier by listing the employer, the highest position you attained, and the dates of employment (here you can limit the dates to year only, such as 1995 to 1998 instead of March 1995 to December 1998).

5. What Is Your University Degree, and What Certifications Do You Have?

Education: List, in the following sequence, the degree, the name of the institution, city, state if not obvious, and date you obtained your degree. Leave the date off if it’s more than 10 years ago.

Professional qualifications or certifications: If the abbreviation or acronym is not universally familiar, spell it out and enclose the acronym in parentheses.

NOTE: Do not include company training or evening classes unless they resulted in an industry-recognized certificate of technical proficiency. A one-day course on management techniques will not be viewed positively. A long list of courses may cause the reader to question how you can do any work if you’re taking so much training or why you’ve needed so much extra education or training.

6. What Else Is Important About You for This Job?

Include other skills (for example, foreign language proficiency) or involvement in activities that would be of interest to a prospective employer and are clearly relevant to the position you’re seeking or the industry in which you want to work.

Don’t list sports, hobbies, or any organization that implies a religious, political, racial, or ethnic connection, unless that involvement would improve your prospects with the person reading your resume and with the organization. Omit age, marital status, children, health, and so forth from your resume unless the position is an overseas assignment where your residency status would be an important issue.

Following are two examples of my recommended resume formats. (See pages 120–123.) The numbers in this section are keyed to the first resume example.

Putting Your Resume Together

The first five chapters have dealt with preparing you to create your resume by showing you how to:

Clarify and take charge of your employment objectives so they’re consistent with your values and goals.

Recognize and describe significant achievements from your career, which demonstrate your capabilities, your passion for success, and what kind of a resource you’d be to a prospective employer.

Describe your preferred skills by identifying your skills and prioritizing them for the main ones you prefer to use.

Review your career path and explore other career options you might not have considered previously.

You now will begin to put your resume together for a trial run. You shouldn’t send it out yet, as you’ll need to do some test marketing first. You may decide, if you choose self-employment, you really don’t need a resume. What you might need instead is a bio or even a brochure. I’ll help you through the discovery process and show you how to test your resume in the following chapters.

Step 1: Gather the Information You Need.

Start by taking an inventory of your career. This will be an in-depth look at your past. Look at what you did and achieved in school, and where you volunteered outside work or participated in associations.

You’ll use some of the information in your resume, and some you’ll need for an interview or when completing an employment application.

Worksheet 6.1 Personal Information Inventory

Complete the Personal Information Inventory, which helps you gather all the information you will need to prepare your resume, respond accurately to interview questions about your past experience, and facilitate completing an employment application.

Step 2: Select the Resume Format That Will Work Best for You.

Unless the targeted or functional formats work best for your situation, I recommend you use the combination format that I’ve described in the previous section. I know it works because my clients tell me so. They know it works because employers and recruiters complement them on their resume. The comment I hear most often is “a powerful resume.”

Step 3: Get Your Resume in Sync With Your Message.

Your resume will be the benchmark against which people evaluate you, even if you’ve spoken with the recruiter or employer in advance of providing your resume. If your message or interview answers aren’t completely consistent with your resume, the interviewer will question your integrity and forthrightness, and wonder whether the resume or the interview reflects the real you.

Make sure your resume is an accurate
reflection of you!

Illustration by Steven Lait.

If you obtained an interview solely on the strength of your resume, the interviewer will typically use it to delve into and test its accuracy and integrity. Your verbal statements and representations must be consistent with what your resume reflects.

If, on the other hand, you obtain an interview through a referral (I’ll cover how you can do this in Chapter 8), the interviewer will use your resume to substantiate what someone else has said about you. If your resume isn’t consistent with that, you’ll probably no longer be a candidate and you will have compromised the integrity of the person who made the referral.

Step 4: Connect the Dots for Transferable Skills and Experience.

If your work experience cuts across a range of industries, you may feel your breadth of experience puts you in good stead because you bring a range of industry experience many others probably don’t have. You would be wrong!

Employers and recruiters will attempt to stereotype your experience. This will make it difficult to make a career change, if that’s your goal. It won’t be a problem if you’re making a classic career path change either vertically (a promotion) or horizontally (a similar job-to-job change).

The economy also influences how employers and recruiters view your industry experience. In an expansionary economy or during booming economic times, the employment market will be strong, and qualified candidates in a particular industry might be scarce. During these times, employers and recruiters won’t be as concerned about the breadth of your experience. In fact, they may even rationalize it as being a good thing. (Shouldn’t they always think like that?)

In recessionary economic times, or when the economy is flat and the employment market weak, lots of candidates are looking for new opportunities. During these times, focus on your strongest industry experience, because you’ll be competing with many others who have all their experience in the same industry, as well as those who are looking to transfer their skills from one industry to another.

Employers and recruiters typically use resumes to identify people whose skills and experience come closest to the skills and experience the employer desires. In their minds, the ideal candidate is one who already has successfully done at another company what they want done—the achievement story.

When trying to promote your skills and experience gained in one industry for a different industry, use terminology and examples that relate to the industry you’re targeting in language people in the different industry understand. Connect the dots for them, because they won’t make the connection from your industry to theirs on their own.

If you’re making an industry change, you won’t be very successful just sending your resume to employers or recruiters, even if you enclose a cover letter explaining how your skills and experience relate to their industry. You’ll need to expand your network of contacts to include those in the industry where you want to work.

I’ll cover how you can successfully use your network to make career changes in Chapter 8. I’ll help you create letters that will enhance your ability to connect successfully with key people who can help you make the transition to another industry in Chapter 9.

Step 5: Get Feedback on Content and Context From Those Who Know You.

You only need one version of your resume for the following reasons:

It needs to be ready to send to others on short notice without significant modification.

If you micromanage the text for each person you send or give it to, it will become very difficult remembering which version you gave to whom.

You create unnecessary confusion in an interview if your verbal responses are different from what’s in your resume.

Someone may receive two different versions and will wonder which one is the real you.

There could be times, however, when you might want to re-order the sequence of skills or achievement stories when you know an employer is looking specifically for that skill or experience.

Admittedly, every opportunity you pursue could be different, and you do need to address what’s most important to the employer or recruiter. That, however, is the purpose of a cover letter.

Your resume should be an accurate reflection of you. If
you find you need to constantly change your resume, you
don’t yet know who you are, and neither will anyone else.

You wouldn’t send your resume to someone in an envelope without a cover letter, would you? Cover letters provide a personal introduction with targeted information (such as referrals) that you can’t include in your resume. (I’ll discuss how to prepare cover letters and what to put in them in Chapter 9.)

Worksheet 6.2 Resume Checklist

When you’ve completed a first draft of your resume, review it against/fill out the Resume Checklist.

Resume Checklist

Check the following points before sending out your resume. Remember: Content is king!

Content:

When you’ve finished your resume, have someone who knows you well read it and ask him if it fairly reflects who you are.

Does your Employment Objective clearly identify the position, industry, size of company you’re interested in, and where you want to work?

Have you prioritized your skills and achievements, showing the most important first?

Are your skills and achievements relevant to the position you’re seeking?

Have you avoided the use of traits and characteristics?

Do your achievement stories demonstrate your skills?

Have you avoided the use of any jargon, clichés, colloquialisms, unfamiliar acronyms, and hyperbole?

Have you excluded non-occupational information, such as marital status, hobbies, religious associations, and personal interests, that aren’t relevant to consideration for employment?

Did you include awards or certificates that exhibit exceptional performance or commendations?

Have you included other information, such as foreign language skills, involvement on boards, or other activities or interests, that might be of interest to a potential employer?

Did you omit names and contact details of references? (When employers want that information, they’ll ask for it.)

Does your resume clearly answer the six basic questions: Who and where are you? What job do you want? What skills and experience can you bring to the table? What have you achieved? Where did you do it? What else do I need to know about you that you consider important?

When you read your resume, can you say, “This is me, and others who know me will agree?”

Structure:

Have you used a very simple layout for your resume? Using tables, boxes, and unusual symbols doesn’t always translate well to different versions of word-processing software or even different versions of the same software.

Did you use bullets and short phrases to describe your skills and achievements and limit them to no more than three each?

Are all sentences short and to-the-point?

Have others who don’t know you very well read your statements and clearly understood what you meant?

Have you avoided introducing more than one thought in each sentence?

Have you avoided ALL references to I, me, or my?

Appearance:

Did you limit your resume to no more than two pages?

Did you use a serif font (like Times Roman), type size preferably 12-point, but no less than 11-point? Serif type fonts are warm; sans serif fonts (like Arial) are cold.

Have you left one-inch margins around the paper?

Did you single space?

Have you used bold only for major captions, like section headings, names of employers, and job titles?

Have you avoided italics? Italics may not scan accurately, and it may not translate well when converted to different word processors or versions of the same one.

HAVE YOU AVOIDED USING EXCESSIVE CAPITALIZATION, AS IT IS HARD FOR OTHERS TO READ?

Other considerations:

If you mail your resume, use a good smooth white or off-white bond paper and matching envelope. Avoid using linen or other rough-textured paper because the printed images often smear when mailed.

If you mail your resume, enclose a cover letter and use a standard #10 letter envelope. Fold your letter and your resume together so when they’re unfolded, the resume is behind the letter.

When creating an electronic version of your resume, use Microsoft Word document format (used by most recruiters and employers) or rtf (rich text format). Be cautious when using the latest version of software as companies are often slow to upgrade.

When you have others review your resume, limit the review to two or three people who know you well and ask them to focus on the content not the format. Don’t ask recruiters and others to review your resume, because you’ll get a different perspective from everyone you meet. It seems everyone thinks they’re an expert at preparing resumes!

If you’ve followed the guidelines in this chapter, and the content in your resume is an accurate reflection of you, you’re finished with your resume.

Techniques for Consultants and Engineers

Consultants and engineers usually struggle over how to prepare a resume that highlights the extent of their projects in a two-page resume. In my search practice, I vividly remember receiving resumes of five, 10, 15, even 18 pages.

Consultants and engineers typically prepare chronological resumes and list their projects in that order, frequently duplicating similar work as they include all their projects.

If you’re a consultant or an engineer and your work experience is project-based, prepare a combination resume format highlighting your key skills and most successful projects. Supplement your resume with an attached list summarizing your projects by industry, function, or other broad category.

Here are some general guidelines and formatting options that will help you decide how best to show your experience.

Consulting

Consulting projects typically are short-term and may be in the same or similar areas of expertise. Group these projects by areas of expertise, disciplines, or some other similar grouping and combine them into as few sections as possible, without losing the distinction between the projects.

Don’t list individual projects that are the same or similar unless there’s a valid reason to do so (such as the magnitude of the project or the name-recognition value of the client or customer). For example, you might summarize projects in one paragraph covering financial applications and in another for HR applications.

Alternatively, you might choose to list the different types of projects individually under a major heading for financial applications and then list those that are HR-related applications.

Engineering

Engineering projects typically are longer-term. You can group projects as above for consultants, or you can group them chronologically or by project type. For example, list them chronologically with a description of the time frame, the client, your role, and the nature of the project.

Alternatively, group them by type, such as Commercial Construction, Refinery Construction, and so forth, and then list the individual projects chronologically within the major types.

Two examples of supplemental resume attachments for consultants and for engineers follow on page 132.

Consulting Projects Summarized by Project Type

Engineering Projects Summarized by Date

Milestones

The following milestones recap what you need to do to complete this chapter. Include those items you are unable to complete in your summary-level open-items list.

1. Complete Worksheet 6.1: Personal Information Inventory. You’ll use the information you gather for this form to prepare your resume, help you prepare for interviews, and provide information you’ll need for employment applications.

2. Prepare your resume using the format that will work best in your situation.

3. Review the six questions employers and recruiters want answered in your resume, and make sure your resume answers those questions.

4. Does the opening statement in your resume mirror what you say in the “elevator pitch” you use when networking?

5. Have you limited each of your three key strengths to as few words as possible and only one sentence?

6. Have you limited each of your achievements or accomplishments to no more than four lines?

7. Do your achievements demonstrate your key skills?

8. Have you limited your skills and achievements to no more than six bullet points in total?

9. Have you limited the text of your skills and achievements so that your most recent employment begins on the first page of your resume and includes at least one paragraph of text?

10. Have you considered summarizing your employment over 10 years prior to your current job if you’re short of space?

11. Have you reviewed your resume with your career coach, mentor, spouse, and/or colleagues who know you well and addressed the modifications and clarifications they suggested?

12. Have you reviewed your resume with a personal reference at your most recent employer, and does she agree with the statements you make?

13. Have you given those whom you plan to use as references a copy of your resume and reviewed it with them?

14. Complete Worksheet 6.2: Resume Checklist.