Creating a Resume: How Should You Go About It?
Thanks to the current economic climate, most people will have more competitors for the choicest jobs than ever before. Because of this, their resume has to represent them like never before.
Creating A Strong Resume
Creating a resume is actually a pretty easy process. What’s difficult is deciding what type of resume you want to use.
- If you’re just starting out, you’ll want to emphasize your education (you have little choice!).
- If you are self-educated, you’ll want to emphasize the experience you received working on various jobs.
- If you’ve got significant education and experience in your field, you need to strike a balance between your education and your work history.
Creative Commons photo by Olivier Charavel
Maintain a Master Resume Information List for Creating Different Resumes
To start creating your resume, list anything and everything that you can possibly think of to put in it.
Save that file as your master, and, as the years go by, keep adding to it, even if you think you’ve got your current job for life — one never knows….
Then, depending on what jobs you’re going to apply for, delete certain portions of it that are not strictly necessary for that particular job.
Determining Length When Creating a Resume
How many pages should your resume be?
The typical response used to be that a resume should be no more than one page.
However, that is no longer the case. Because of the greater competition in most fields, employers want to know as much as they can about prospective employees before even seeing them for their first interview.
So, a one-and-a-half page resume is acceptable, as is a three page resume! Anything over three pages might be seen as a bit…over the top, however!
Some Final Resume-Creation Tips
In presenting your resume, keep it looking professional.
- Don’t mix different colored text, or different types of fonts, in the same resume.
- Use heavy weight paper, rather than cheap bond, but don’t go for colorful prints.
- The envelopes in which you submit your resume should be of matching color and weight.
- A “put together” look may not be noticed, but a mismatched look definitely will be, and not in a positive way.
