Writing Your Resume

You only get one chance to make a first impression! So make sure your resume makes a great first impression on your behalf.

To do this you need to follow a few simple rules:

1. Be Relevant

Make sure what you say is relevant to the job you are applying for. Quickly review your resume before you send it to anybody and make sure that you haven't included things that will lower your chances of getting an interview. Be willing to change your resume a little (or a lot) to make sure that you tell the reader all they need to know: and no more than that.

Golden Rule: Tell them enough to want to say "Yes" to an interview: but not enough for them to say "No".

2. Be Brief

There's no need to provide your entire life story and no need to include a complete job description for every job you've ever had. An easy guide is to think of each job you've had and set out the information roughly like this:

Use the Achievements section to really sell yourself. But don't tell fibs - you'll get caught out.

As you go back through your employment history you need to include less and less information about each of your jobs. People will hire you because of your recent experience, not because of what you were doing ten or fifteen years ago.

Golden Rule: Keep it Simple

3. Be Flexible

Your resume needs to be a flexible document. Don't be afraid to change it every time you send it to somebody. Think about what they need to know about you and make sure that it is easy to find:

• Add more relevant achievements if you think it will increase your chances of being interviewed
• Change the order of your achievements in the lists: put the most relevant ones closer to the top and the less relevant ones towards the bottom
• Expand a little on relevant information and cut down the less relevant points.

Golden Rule: Tell them what they need to know.

4. Be Accurate

Golden Rule: If you bend the truth too far you'll get caught out and that will ruin any chance you had of getting the job.

5. Be Consistent

Try and make sure that you are consistent throughout the document:

• Make sure that when you change jobs and re-visit your resume you change information about your previous job into the past tense.
• Use the same layout and typeface for every job.

Golden Rule: Consistency lets them concentrate on the message not the document.

6. Be Generous

When you type up the resume make sure there's lots of white space around. The more space there is (within limits) the easier it is to read - and the easier it is to read the more intelligent and articulate you appear to be.

• Set your line spacing to 1.5
• Use wide margins.

Golden Rule: Invest a little for good returns

7. Be Brave

If you're interested in a job, give it a go. The worst thing that they can do to you is say "No".

Golden Rule: Faint heart never won fair lady.