4 Resume Basics You Missed

So out went another resume—and it is guaranteed to not receive a response. Why not? Because it’s plagued with one of the following four mistakes that are easy for anyone to make. Take a moment and review the following four points to ensure you’re not making a rookie mistake: SECOND AND THIRD HAD BETTER HIT THE ROAD Implied first person is the correct verbiage for your resume. Second and third person have no place in your there. In other words, don’t start your sentence with, “Mr. Thompson is an excellent project manager, which is displayed by his ability to …” Instead, opt for implied first person. Here is an example: First person with the I: I restructured the branch to reduce … Third person: Mr. Jones restructured the branch to reduce … Assertive first person without the I: Restructured the branch to reduce… EVERYTHING IN MODERATION, AND YES, THIS MEANS THOSE PESKY BULLET POINTS TOO Hey! We saw you over there, trying to get away with listing ten bullet points for one position! You’ve been caught red-handed! No one is going to invest in the time it would take to muddle through that long list of bullets you’re trying to get away with. Instead, opt for a combination of a paragraph followed by 2-5 bullets. Venture past five, and chances are the reader won’t even get that far. And that’s also a good reason to make sure you contain your most impressive information to the paragraph and first three bullets. YES, LENGTH DOES MATTER Do not try to get away with a 3+ page resume; hiring managers sometimes have 500 resumes to comb through, and yours is not going to get a 10-minute review so they can read to the very bottom of page five just to discover that you like playing golf. Be realistic and respectful of their time. Front-load the first one-third of the resume with crucial details, and utilize the remaining one page to page-and-a-half to emphasize and support the statements you made at the top of your resume. CALL YOUR BEST FRIEND, AND HIS BROTHER, AND HIS MOTHER Send your resume to three people for them to review. Have them review it for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and content. Perform what techies call ‘usability testing’. Have three people take a look at the resume—and get their honest feedback. If said three people happen to be hiring managers or recruiters, that’s even better … but only if they’re friends. Because if you send it to someone to apply for a job without having proofread it, chances are you’ll have missed a typo and just nixed that golden opportunity you’ve been waiting five years for.