Resume Guide

Resume Guide

This is a major self marketing tool and the SINGLE most IMPORTANT document of your working career! Take time and practice to get it absolutely right and make it work for you!

Preparation Notes

The purpose of your resume is not to be a complete working history, but a major selling tool to assist you in getting your next job. Therefore, focus your application on identifiable achievements and experience, particularly relevant to your future career aspirations, and the job you have applied for.

• Most resumes are screen-read, so use a simple, clean and easy to read font, and keep it to 4/5 pages absolute maximum. For e-mailing speed try and keep it under 50Kb.
• Most recruiters and corporate HR execs receive hundreds of resumes every day, many of which are inappropriate for the required position, consequently they get discarded very quickly. Yours must stand out from the crowd by quickly and clearly positioning yourself in a working discipline.
• Your objective is to capture the interest of the reader in less than forty seconds that will be devoted to an initial read! You will be one of hundreds read in a day, so try and generate some interest in YOU the person. Employers and recruiters are seldom interested in creative, fancy layouts. Always use Microsoft Word format. Acrobat limits resume management, and never use Powerpoint The interest is always your industry and personal skills and achievements. Practice shortening your draft to include only the best and sharpest words, and delete unnecessary or lengthy explanations. Your resume must only be designed to win you an interview! Therefore it MUST demonstrate why you are appropriate for the applied position. At your interview you must then win the job!
• Be prepared to draft and rewrite this document several times to get it absolutely right.
• It is not a full work history, but more a statement of you the person. Your achievements, abilities, responsibilities and accountabilities, and future value to your prospective employer, relevant to the job you have applied for. Invest the time in preparing this document that is appropriate to your career value.
• Use “action” words and phrases, and present a clear career path. Show months and years of each employment and state why you left. Readers will be attracted to your positive characteristics and achievements. Include an opening statement detailing your career mission and personal objectives. Make the presentation uncluttered and easy on the eye. Try and keep the page structures together as it becomes more readable. Don’t use graphs, pictures of yourself, borders or colours, and use bold / caps only for headlines. Don’t “dress it up” with fancy layouts and borders, as they only distract the reader, and never use a grand “headstone” cover page. Take time to include some personal points about yourself to inject some “genuine personality” into the document to create an emotional hook with the reader. In this large corporate world, academic and technical ability will always run second to your ability to work harmoniously with other people and your team relationship skills. Everybody works in some kind of team and “People like to work with people they like”
• Use bullet points to illustrate your career focus and ensure you itemise “Achievements”
• Check thoroughly for grammar and “typo’s” as these will instantly devalue a good resume.
• Include a short one page covering letter stating briefly why you should be considered for this role.
• Your covering letter is even MORE important than your resume as it will be read FIRST. Make sure this letter reflects your personality and sounds dynamic and energetic. This cover letter should outline briefly WHY you are applying for THIS job and why you believe you are appropriate for the role. (Because your skills, abilities, and experience are totally appropriate, but IMPORTANTLY you can add value to the firm) Don’t simply restate your resume detail, this is your opportunity to inject some personality to your application.
• It is the personality and impact of the words in both the resume and covering letter that are critical. Avoid corporate jargon and trendy “buzzwords”, and ensure that achievements are individually yours and not those of the corporation
• Send only by e-mail wherever possible. Anything else will demonstrate that you are behind the times and nobody wants to store hard copies any more
• Take the time to prepare this document thoroughly and rewrite it regularly to ensure its currency and relevance to your future aspirations. Keep a disk file copy to customise for each job you apply for. It should on completion be a brief, but concise and accurate picture of you the candidate. When sending by e-mail your cover letter should be the first page of your resume. Don’t make it a separate attachment. (Most recruiters will file it to disk and your cover letter (if separate) may get lost. Your cover letter should be an enticing statement as to why you are so well suited to this particular job and should “sparkle” with personality, drive, determination etc. Don’t be concerned with becoming “standardised” by this formula, since it will be the quality of your content that will set you apart. If you intend to call the consultant for any reason…REMEMBER, Your interview starts with your first conversation. Practice your discussion items before you call, and present yourself as a positive quick thinking person. Any discussion should be in relation to your future value to the organisation, but clarifying questions such as your validity to the desired role are quite acceptable, and this does give you the opportunity of personally identifying your application. But never call up just to ask about the job details or salary.
• Once you have finished your resume. Do it again, and again. The right resume will win you the right job.

Good luck in your job search!