Making Your Resume Effective

When I finally decided to pursue a career, I spent about 2 hours in making my resume. I was fine with my 2 page resume until a friend who owns his own company saw my resume and said "let me fix it." 

I asked myself if there is really a "wrong" resume, and when I got the chance to work as a recruitment specialist (less than a year), I realized that there are no "wrong" resumes, just inefficient ones.

So here are some of my tips in writing that EFFECTIVE resume.

1. Know your job description. If you're applying for a call center related job for the first time, then focus your resume on your strengths as a speaker and an analytical thinker. Say for example that you are a part of your debate team or that you used to head the english (or whatever language you are applying for) club.

2. Keep your objective to 2 sentences, or better yet, make do WITHOUT the objective. The discussion will almost always be on your qualities and how you see yourself progress in the next few years, so that can cover it.

3. Keep it to ONE page. Information such as height, weight, religion and nationality is irrelevant and  redundant. Also, there is no need to write about how in your second year in high school you performed as a tree in a play. Or that you are the prom king/queen. If you are an experienced agent, no need to write down your high school details. If you are a newbie, make a bullet list of the four (4) most relevant achievements you had in school.

4. Delete irrelevant work information. If you have a LOT of call center experience, just write down the four longest stints that you have. When asked on what you did during those lapses, you can mention that you worked for a few months in this particular company.

Photo by:  Michal Marcol / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Says here you were once a hobbit? 

5. Be honest. Make sure you can back up what you write! There is no need to pad your resume with unnecessary information that may ultimately be the cause of your rejection.

6. Make a bulleted list for your skill sets and if possible, group together similar skills.

• Example:  Internet Navigation, Social Media Applications, Internet Research.

7. If your resume is "empty" or has a large gap at the bottom, try a bigger font size and play with the format. 

Double space if necessary.

Ok, not that much. 

8. Memorize. At least partially. There is no point in putting something in your resume that you can not recall in an interview. (see number 5.)

9. Paraphrase these terms if you plan to put it in your resume: 

•         Team Player -     Works well with others
•         Willing to learn - Adaptive to new situations
•         Hard Working -  Reliable
•         Problem Solver - Sees difficulties and provides solutions

10. Never forget to put your phone number, address and a professional email address. A professional email or "work email" usually contains your name and a dot (.), avoid using your high school email with a lot of underscores followed by numbers.

Wow. Just wow.

So those are my tips for that effective resume. Microsoft word has new templates that you can use. Feel free to delete sections that you do not think are necessary. Make it short but informative. What you write on your resume will be what you and your interviewer will talk about.

For other tips check this and this.

Got any other tips? Head over to the comments section or send me an email!