Writing Great Resumes That Get Results

May 06 2010

By Tony

Recently, a twelve page resume crossed my desk. Busy recruiters, human resources executives and hiring managers don’t have time to read twelve page resumes. These busy professionals don’t have time to read four or five page resumes.

A resume intended to be sent to someone in a corporate audience should generally fall in the two to three page range. There is not a hard rule regarding the length of a technology resume but as a security recruiter, one who reviews one hundred or more resumes weekly, there are not enough hours in a day to actually read long resume documents.

Busy recruiters, human resource representatives and hiring executives tend to scan more than they read. This is particularly true when reviewing resumes. Your resume needs to be written in bullets versus long drawn-out paragraphs.Executives prefer bullets that look like executive summaries.

Bullets don’t need to be an incomplete sentence or even a short sentence. Consider building bullets in a two or three sentence format, a mini paragraph.

• The first sentence should always describe what you were hired to do.

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• The second sentence should describe what you actually did relative to what you were expected to do.

• The third sentence should describe what you accomplished. If you can quantify the value of your work, this is the part of the bullet that should contain numbers or percentages of growth or increase.

As you build content bullets for your resume, you’ll must strike a balance between using industry and technical buzz words and telling a story of accomplishment. Since your resume will be absorbed into some kind of automated ATS, make sure it contains enough keywords or buzz words to enable it to float to the top of the stack so it actually gets human attention.

If you have formal education and have completed a degree, place this information at the top of your resume.
If you have completed certifications, more often than not, this information should be placed at the top of your resume. If the list of certifications is long, place the most recognizable certifications at the top of your resume and place the less recognizable certifications at the bottom.
Employers are often sensitive to career progressoin and length of employment. . Resumes that are not built showing chronological job progression often times will not be read.
If an employer is paying a search fee to acquire your talents, they are making a significant investment. They will look at the length of time you’ve invested with previous employers to gauge how long they think you’ll work for them.
Build plenty of meat into the description of your work over the past five years. Generally, work that is older than five years needs to be described but in less detail. Assume that your next employer will hire you based on what you’ve accomplished lately, not based on what you accomplished a decade or two ago.

When you think your resume is complete, let it sit for a few days before evaluating your work again. When you are happy with your resume, have your resume reviewed by another person or two who is familiar with your work and the specific keywords you’ve chosen.

As unique job opportunities come to the surface, don’t rush to immediately send your resume. Take the time to slant the resume in a direction that speaks to the job that caught your attention. A few minutes of extra work could mean the difference between being granted an interview and being passed over.

As you build up new accomplishments, invest the time periodically to update your resume before you need to. Be Proactive! Then when your phone rings and the person on the other end has a stellar career opportunity to share with you, you’ll be able to respond with an up-to-date resume that doesn’t need to be rewritten.