Tips for Writing an Effective Resume
Contrary to popular belief, a resume is not a presentation; it is the ticket to a presentation. A resume needs to sell an employer on wanting to interview someone. The average time spent initially looking at a resume is about 30 seconds, which isn’t a lot of time to make a good first impression.
It's important to take the time to create a customized resume that specifically highlights the experience that is relevant to the job.
An effective resume will be consistent, concise, and clear, easy to read, and relevant. The easiest way to target a resume (without rewriting the whole resume) is to include a Summary of Qualifications or Career Highlights section at the top of the resume. This will require a review of the job description and ensuring the resume accurately reflects the required qualifications based on professional experiences.
There are lots of opinions out there about what a professional resume should look like. Phoenix Staff recommends:
Implementation order:
1. Name & Contact information (at least include a valid phone number, professional email address, and LinkedIn profile)
2. Summary of Qualifications/Career Highlights (Bullet points or paragraph form is effective)
3. Technical skills (list languages, platforms, methodologies, etc. in order from strongest to least strongest as they relate to job requirement)
4. Professional Experience/Work history (from most recent or current in reverse chronological order spanning 10 years.) - It is often understood that relative experience may be more than 10 years, and if so, adding a notation at the end of the of the 10 year period reading “Additional relevant work history available upon request” is perfectly acceptable.
5. Education & Certifications (most recent degree or certification (CISSP, PMP, etc.). If a college degree is listed, like an Associates or Bachelors, there’s no real reason to put high school graduation, especially if it has been several decades. At that point, experience plays a bigger role. However, if graduation occurred from a prestigious school such as Stanford, MIT, or USC, it definitely would not hurt to put that at the top near Technical Skills section.
6. Professional Affiliations - Certifications (IIBA, PMI, CISSP Consortium etc.)
7. References or a note about those being available upon request (Traditionally, this is a section that is included on a resume, but nowadays, it is assumed that qualified references are available, so this section is optional from a post-modern perspective. That being said, from a recruiter perspective, listed references show a serious, proactive approach to seeking new employment and that definitely works as a favorable addition).
As for style of a resume and formatting the above information, bullet points rather than a bulging paragraph of information that nobody really wants to read make a favorable first impression in 30 seconds or less—that is the goal.
Write a resume that inspires a hiring manager to pick up the phone immediately to schedule an interview using the tips above.
