How to Format a Resume

Out on a job hunt? Believe it or not but everything can be summed up about you just by scanning casually over your resume. With that said, keep in mind the following points as you prepare your resume for your next potential boss.

Bullets

Nothing communicates directness better than bulleted style sentences. What an employer looks for is how skillful you are. Now if you are going to write down your whole life story and not organize all the positive things about yourself, you may as well not submit a resume to begin with. Employers want to see everything summarized neatly so they can easily point out who you are, what you do, and if you will make an important contribution to the company.

Follow the format

There is a particular format to follow when you are preparing a resume. Granted, you can make it as creative as you would like it to look. The important thing is that all the information is listed by importance. So the first thing you want to do is give your personal information (name, date and place of birth, position desired in company, expected income, etc.), then follow it up with your educational background. After that, you can summarize your work experience if you have any. You should then also list down your interests and what specialties you have aside from what you learned in school or previous jobs. Lastly, give a list of the names and numbers of people who can attest to the claims you just made in your resume.

What you used to do

When you talk about the jobs that you had previous to the one you are applying for, never mention what you were responsible for. In fact, do not use the words "responsible for" or "job requirements included" because a resume must show what you have accomplished as a person. Doing what is required of you is more or less a prerequisite. What an employer wants to know is what you did successfully with that other company and what makes you special.

Remove unnecessary words and clutter

One of the most basic rules is not to make your resume to long and wordy. Dismiss with using too many dates, articles (a, an, the, etc.), and the use of parentheses. You will find that you can save a lot of space and a lot of reading time for your potential employer.

Focus on skills

With anything that you write about yourself, make sure that you highlight your skills as much as you can. Do not waste space talking about the job itself. Remember that these people know all about job descriptions so the last thing they need is someone describing it to them again in detail. They will want to know how effective you are in that job so make sure that you point that out instead of describing your past duties. Also, do not stress that you have perfected that job even if you have. This will only show that this is the kind of job that you want in another company. This means that you are not pushing your career forward.

Whatever you have read about resumes, do not stick to the rule that they should only be about a page long. You might have more experience than other people and that is really important to list down. The more experience you have the better. Keep it short, simple and as interesting as you possibly can. You may well land the job that you have been aiming for.