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How to Improve Your Resume/CV
  1. Name: The name of your resume/CV document should be in the form: Last, First. Add your middle initial if your name is common. Using resume/CV or tomresume05 or such is certain to cause the recipient to lose it or lose interest because of the time consuming step necessary change it so it can be saved correctly. Make the document name unique to yourself. It should be in Microsoft Word format, not PDF or WordPerfect.
  2. The cover letter is basically wasted material. No one reads cover letters with any degree of interest or attention. Make it short and to the point. You are looking for a position in a certain area and your salary needs are… That’s enough. If you will relocate or not it is a good idea to state that also. Any detailed information will have to be in your resume/CV to do any good.
  3. Contact details: Your resume/CV should have many methods to reach you. Home, cell/mobile, work, alternate, these numbers must be at the top of the resume/CV. Your home email and postal address are essential. Some firms search resumes/CV by zip/post code. If you are a student or using a university email then get a free hotmail or yahoo type account for your job hunting. If your email address is drinksalot@yahoo.com or similar nonsense please pick another one instead. Try obtaining last.first@yahoo.com . It looks very professional.
  4. Pick a standard typeface. Courier New is fine. Use any others with caution. Eliminate any bullets or arrows or pointers in your text. No photos, no graphs, no long lists of two or three words on each line. Print it out and look at it from across the table. Is your resume/CV too dense? Too long? Too much open space? Look at your composition critically on several different computer platforms. Send it to a couple of friends for review. Send it through a virus checker, spell checker, and grammar checker
  5. Put your best foot forward on the resume/CV. That is not that you have “23 years of experience” in some field. That is certain to cause me to hit the delete key immediately. My client companies are not interested in how many years of experience you have; they are looking for results.
  6. Results are numbers, ratios, percentages, and money signs of accomplishments and achievements. Put those first. It’s all we care about the people that we hire – what can they do for our business? What have they done for others?
  7. Your educational accomplishments are essential. For younger people they should be near the top of the resume/CV. Others can slide that towards the end. In either case make absolutely certain that the degree format is exactly what you received. Any mistake, any fault here is fatal.
  8. Your employers’ names are not enough for readers to understand whom you worked for. With the many name changes over the last ten years it is hard to read much into a two or three word name. Put at least one sentence after the name of each employer with a description of the business they are in. Size of company etc. These are simple additions that can make your resume/CV stand out.
  9. Description of duties: The section describing what you did, found under each employer, should contain a description of what you actually did, not a list of duties lifted from your job description. If this short section contains the phrase “but not limited to” you can be sure I am going to delete your resume or CV. Why? Because that is a phrase from a job description and has no place in your list of outstanding results and accomplishments. I am looking for something I can relate to your skills and abilities that might be useful to my client companies.
  10. Put a few keywords into your resume or CV. Many resumes and CVs are searched for keywords automatically by computer systems. You can incorporate them into your text or make a list at the end of the resume/CV. You can skip Windows XP or Word, etc. We all expect those skills, like reading English, to be exceptional.
Dan Brockman has been a professional recruiter since 1975. He can be contacted at www.trainingjob.com and recruiter@trainingjob.com.
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