Do’s and Don’ts for Resume Writing
Resume is the only way with which employers know you and your skills. You need to give much importance to your resume volume as employers will give maximum 20 seconds to your resume. Thus you have to make your impression great and do it fast. There are different ways to make your resume that will highlight your skills and experiences. Different resume formats can be used in this regard including chronological, functional and combination. You need to know some dos and don’ts of your resume to make your resume more dynamic and powerful to stand you out in the crowd of candidates.
The Do’s:
- Place your strongest information at the top after personal introduction.
- Include your impressive and impactful achievements and qualifications at the top where the reader will focus at first.
- Begin with a 4-5 line summary on who you are. You don’t need to tell your name if you have used formal resume format.
- Use bullets instead of paragraphs to highlight your achievements and skills.
- It is not necessary to write objective statement as employers usually don’t want to know what the candidate wants but they focus on what the candidate can offer to the company.
- Keep your font size and style readable. Mostly accepted font style is “Times New Romans” is font size of 12.
- Be relevant while giving your employment history and avoid fake information in your resume.
- Edit and proofread your resume to reduce flaws and make the misspelled words correct. It is good to get your resume checked by some professional.
- If your work experience is of more than five years, then place your education after experience section. Highlight the degrees that are most relevant to your experience.
- Limit the length of your resume up to two pages.
- Mail your resume in a 9-by-12 inch labeled envelops rather than folded.
- Don’t forget to give your contact information that can hinder your career success.
The Don’ts:
- Don’t submit a resume with spelling error, grammatical mistakes and typos. Us MS Word’s spell and grammar check function.
- Don’t give information in paragraphs as paragraphs slow down the reading process.
- Don’t use fancy and stylish fonts in resume that creates problem in readability.
- Don’t add picture in your resume.
- Avoid being extra personal in giving your information like your favorite game, favorite book, marital status, age etc.
- Dont forget to use the job title in the resume for which you want to offer your skills.
- Don’t make too lengthy resume.
- Don’t use pronouns like “I”, “a”, “The” etc.
- Don’t repeat same information in resume.
- Don’t use more details than you need to convey your accomplishments.
- Don’t make your resume a list of your job duties but add information about your key accomplishments.
Follow the above mentioned do’s and don’ts of a resume and enhance chances of getting an interview chance.