First and foremost, happy Friday! Fridays are great. They bring with them an air of hope, a spirit of freedom, and insanely cheap happy hour specials.
Friday also means that it has been a week since I started my new job. I will admit I had some jitters. After all it happened very suddenly, I have to learn new procedures, and I have to hope that my coworkers are cool. I also hadn’t held a regular full time job in some time. A week in and it’s all good though. I haven’t started really delving into the career development industry yet but I can share some tips I gathered from looking at endless resumes come into my inbox this week.
5 Simple Tips for Resumes
Keep them short.
I thought this was common knowledge but apparently I was wrong. Generally speaking resumes should not be more than one page. Yes, you heard right. One page. They should also have lots of bullet points and short sentences.
You have about 10 seconds to impress an employer with a sheet of paper and they are certainly not going to sift through 3 pages of paragraphs detailing all your experience.
(Note: For those of you who are freelance writers the case may be a little different. Sometimes clients want a slightly more detailed description of the kind of work you have done. You can find an example here.)
Make sure your contact information is correct.
Part of my new job is calling up potential candidates and scheduling interviews with recruiters. Coming from the person who has to get a hold of these people somehow, please make sure your contact information is correct.
I can’t even count the times I’ve had to do some investigative work just to find a correct number this week. And that’s just me. Most employers wouldn’t even bother.
Know what you are applying for.
Again, common knowledge that somehow isn’t all that common. Read what you are applying for people! I already had a guy call me this week all upset because he sent in his resume for a senior management position and then later found out that our agency only deals with entry level. If he had actually read what he was applying for he would have known he was wasting his time.
Don’t waste your time applying for jobs you don’t actually want. Also, make sure to read the details of the job ad. If you have questions don’t hesitate to call and ask.
Simple format is key.
Resumes should not have highlighted text, designs, funky colors, or perfume sprayed on them. Just saying. Keep it simple. Black 12pt Times New Roman is all you need.
Don’t lie.
Yes, people actually do this. They say one thing on their resume (like that they have a Bachelors), we schedule them for an interview, they come in and we find out they were lying. It wastes the employer’s time and makes you look like an ass hat.
So please, for the love of all things good and holy, don’t lie on your resume.
In case you missed it…
Check out my latest post for Brazen Careerist How Your Blog Can Land You a Job! I’ve gotten both clients and my current job partially in part to this here blog. It can happen to you too!
Also, Young Women Misbehavin’, the blog brought to us all by the Business and Professional Women’s Foundation, mentioned my recently posted Gen Y Manifesto! Check out their recent blog post Gen Y: Just another label? for a thought provoking post about Gen Y Women. All you women should also feel free to take BPW’s survey. They want to know how you guys tick so that you may be better served in the workplace. You’ll also be entered to win a $75 Amazon gift card. Click here for the survey.
And finally, if you haven’t already done so, head on over the Grad Meets World Facebook Page! I’m looking for more Gen Y blogs so feel free to “like” GMW and post your link on the wall. I will also be using the page more often to spark discussions and sharing.
Black Friday Post-Turkey Day Special!
I recently wrote a similar post because I, too, am in charge of reading through resumes. I could not agree more with your length tip.
http://www.therealpostgrad.com/2011/06/i-review-first-round-resumes.html
Glad I’m not the only one that has such a great time getting to read about peoples’ experience.