Preparing your resume

You’ve got precious little time to catch a recruiter’s eye, which is why you need to make sure your resume is as effective as possible. Here are a few pointers to help get you on the recruiter’s short list:

• Emphasize what you’ve done, not what you want to do.
• Find experiences in your life where you’ve demonstrated the behaviors listed in a job description.
• Highlight your contact information and make sure your voicemail message is clear.
• Make pertinent information like education, professional experience, leadership roles, team participation and volunteer experience easy to find.
• Be honest about your experiences.
• Format your resume so it’s readable, concise and in a recognizable font.
• Don’t be too lengthy. One page is preferable, but two can be acceptable if you’ve got a lot of experience.
• Use descriptive verbs to present your experiences.
• Be specific and have evidence to support your statements.
• Title your sections clearly: Education, Work Experience, Skill Sets, Activities/Achievements.
• Keep it short, sweet and to the point.

What to Avoid

• Wordiness. Use short sentences. Treat your resume like an advertisement and use complete phrases.
• Excessive use of borders, italics and fancy fonts. They don’t upload cleanly into online systems.
• Small fonts. Stick to 10-12 point.
• Too much bold type. Only bold major achievements