Why Everything You Do on a Resume is a Calculated Risk

Resume writing techniques are becoming increasingly sophisticated in how to portray a person's job history in a way that covers the flaws and highlights the strengths. But for every trick a person might use, there's a negative that could make the method backfire. Here's how to weigh your resume-writing choices carefully.

There is No Such Thing as a Perfect Resume
No matter what you're trying to accomplish on your resume, there's always more than one way to go about it. So rid your mind of the notion that you can find the ideal, single way your career should be documented. You always have more than one choice.

Employer's Needs and Expectations Vary Widely
What appeals to one hiring manager may turn off another. There are almost as many opinions and expectations about resumes and job candidates as there are jobs and managers. So your resume can't be all things to all people who read it. For example, a tactic you use in your resume to hide your lack of experience may work tremendously on one personnel director, yet actually draw attention to your lack of experience when another manager reads it. And so it is with almost every element of a resume. Any resume trick gets used, popularized, and picked up on by hiring managers. Eventually, tactics can become so well-known that they can actually become a neon sign that you're angling to hide or emphasize something. It's a never-ending process.

Is it Worth It?
Ask yourself if the potential benefit from using a particular resume tactic outweighs the risk. For example, a functional resume can be a great way to hide a jumpy job history or lack of experience in a profession. The only problem is that employers know that people generally use functional resumes to camouflage such flaws. Therefore, managers are often immediately suspicious when they see this resume format. That said, maybe it's worth trying anyway. It depends on how bad your job history really is. The best way to find out is to try it and see what happens.

There's a Backside to Every Tactic
While every resume tactic doesn't have as wide of a disparity between its pros and cons as a functional resume does, almost any choice you make on your resume has an upside and a downside. For instance, let's say you're not sure whether to include the two years you worked as a clerk in a drivers-license bureau while you tried to restart your career as an architect. It could easily go either way. If you include this unrelated job, you put a big ugly hiccup in your job history. But on the other hand, leaving it off would stick a big gap in your employment. It's a toughie, for which there aren't any ideal answers.

You Can Fool Some of the People Some of the Time
The potential effectiveness of any resume depends a great deal on the sophistication of who's reading it. Some managers are highly adept at ferreting out every little nuance of what a resume is saying just by glancing at it. Human resources people tend to be very astute in that way. That can make a difference in larger companies that have a dedicated HR department. For that reason, if your resume depends on significant covering and camouflaging tactics, you're most likely going to have better results in smaller companies -- competition isn't as intense and the actual hiring manager is more likely to be among the first to read the resume. But again, you never know. So all you can do is to weigh the pros and cons of different resume tactics as best as you can, then get it out there and see how it works.