Resume Writing Tips

When you are looking for a job, it is always wise to prepare a resume to present to the employer. Sometimes you may want to create more than one version of your resume that is tailored to specific jobs. Your resume gives the employers an idea of who you are, what your skills are, how you could possibly benefit the company and what would make you stand out from the other candidates. Sometime people add in things that are not needed, but leave out things that are essential. Despite what people think, there is no one way to write a resume. There are different ways to show your skills and experiences to an employer.

Content

The content of a resume of course is important. You want to keep it to one page in length. It is a good idea to include items that is relevant to your career goals and objectives. You want a career objective that will show self awareness and commitment to the field you want to be in. Your career objective doesn't have to be long and extensive, but short and concise. Something like seeking a full-time position with an innovative marketing firm. That is simple to the point and gives the employer an idea of what you want. You can also highlight abilities in the objective like: seeking entry level position in public accounting to utilize strong skills developed through internships and education experiences. It shows that you have experience before the employer scans through your resume.

You want to order things so that the most relevant is first. Some think that you need to include your entire work history, but you don't. It is okay to just include the experience in just the field you are trying to get into. For my resume I included internships and projects that I did that pertained to marketing instead of every little in between jobs like Borders. When listing responsibilities and accomplishments, use action verbs and the past tense such as created, developed, intitated, planned worked, instituted. Do not in no circumstances abbreviate anything. For example PITT should be University of Pittsburgh and CMU should be Carnegie Mellon University.

If you are still in college you want to include both your college and permanent address so that employers would be able to locate you easier. Include your email address, but make sure it is professional. No employer wants to hire someone with the email of something like pimpdawg23, hotbod4u or hot2trot, sexygirl83. If you have a webpage that showcases your portfolio of graphic design, fashion designs, writing, photography or even music you should include that, but not like your personal blog making fun of like Paris Hilton.

Types

There are two different different types of resumes and different ways to prepare them. There is the print version and the electronic version. For the print version format should be easy to read, with clean simple line. Nothing to flashy or unprofessional like different colors or colored paper, use clean white paper. If your resume happens to be two pages only print on one side of the page, and make sure your name and page number are at the top of the second page, in case the pages get lost. Make use of formatting like boldfacing, underlining and italicizing sparingly, but do not use two special formatting in one phrase so don't do this: Work Experience. Instead do something like Work Experience or Work Experience.

Electronic versions obviously can be sent two ways, as an attachment and as the body of the email. Create your resume in a common program like Word XP or earlier version. Do not be generic when naming the file not just myresume.doc or resume.doc try using your name like louisewiseresume.doc. That way the employer will be associate the file with you instead of confusing it with someone else. Before you send it to the company you want it to go to, try sending it to a friend to make sure that it opens correctly. When sending it as the body of an email, type up a small cover letter to fo with it. Omit any formatting, boldfacing, colors, or bulleting. In order to avoid awkward breaks when the email is sent do not exceed 65 characters in one line. That includes spaces. Again send it to a friend to see how it looks first.

Writing a resume can be hard if you are unsure of what employers are looking for. The best thing you can do is to do your best to highlight your skills and experiences. Resumes are like the first impression and it makes the employer decide if they want to call you in for an interview or not. These tips would help make your resume become noticed and possibly get you the job you want.