Resume Tips

If you haven’t prepared or updated a resume recently, the task can seem overwhelming. It takes time, preparation and effort to produce a resume that clearly and succinctly documents your career history and highlights your most employable assets. Your resume should act like a menu, inviting the reader to further inquire about specific skills and accomplishments during an interview. When preparing your resume, carefully consider how you will discuss key elements and describe past experiences, in order to stimulate buying interest in what you’re selling – yourself!

Simply put, it pays to advertise, but don’t embellish.

1. As you begin creating your resume, think carefully about its appearance. Resume style and format are personal choices, but ask to see friends’ or colleagues’ to obtain good ideas on layout and font. Be wary of too much highlighting, bold text, and other distracting features, such as photographs and coloured ink. They can detract rather than add to the substance.


2. Begin by documenting academic achievements and relevant courses along with accurate dates of completion. Then state your career or professional history, using a format called reverse chronological (most recent position first), ensuring that corresponding dates are outlined for each role. A functional format is also an alternative.


3. Your resume should include functional and achievement-oriented information. On a worksheet, write down the essential elements or functions for that position (i.e. ingredients). Next identify any achievements or highlights during that period. These could include things you did or recommended, or an opportunity or threat you identified that had a positive impact on your organization.


4. Include a Career Objective or Summary that briefly outlines scope of experience, strengths, aspects of work most enjoyed, and other intangible personality traits not evident on a resume. This demonstrates that you are focused, serious and goal-oriented. The Career Objective or Summary should be no more than 3-4 sentences in length and situated after your contact information at the beginning of your resume.


5. Do not make your resume too word-heavy. Try to keep your comments simple and concise, using bullet points to draw attention to key pieces of information. The effective use of “white space” is also important; if you don’t use enough of this your resume will look busy and cluttered.


6. Do not write in the first person (i.e. avoid pronouns such as “I” and “me”).


7. Try not to exceed 3 pages in length, and avoid including specific names of references in the body of your resume. At the end simply state, “references provided upon request.”


8. Make absolutely certain there are no errors or typos in your resume. Check your dates, spelling and grammatical accuracy. Ensure you and a third party proofread the document several times.


9. Spell out less commonly known acronyms rather than assuming that others will understand their meaning.


10. Do not use titles (i.e. Mr. or Mrs.) in the body of your resume, and avoid providing personal information such as marital status, nationality, citizenship or number of children.