CheckMate

I was recently asked by a dear friend of mine if I could provide her any advice on preparing a good resume. She is an instructor in a Business program at BYU and she felt her students could use some advice. After sending her the following email, I thought that perhaps you could too. Enjoy…
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Hello Heather,

I’m happy to help.

First and foremost, please tell your students that they need to grab my attention right away. As a recruiter or hiring manager, we look through hundreds of resumes a week for the same position. It’s exhausting - really - and the better a resume can stand out, the better chance there will be of me actually reading it in detail. It’s like reading the preface to a book. If I like what I read initially, then I slow down and read the details of the resume. If I don’t like what I see in the first 5-10 seconds, then I discard the resume.

So it is very important that your students format their resume in such a manner as to reach out and grab the attention of the hiring person.

Specifically:

A quick summary at the top of the page is always helpful. If you’re applying for a C++ programming position, guess what? Put “C++ Programmer” at the very top of your summary. If you are applying for a sales position, “Sales Professional” at the top of your summary comes to mind.

Dates are important. We recruiters don’t like to consider candidates who omit dates on their resumes. We assume that you’re hiding something. And even if you are, you would be better off listing those dates because you would have a better chance of receiving a response to your application than if you don’t. Also, please make sure the dates and over-all format of your resume is aligned in an easy-to-read way. In those first 5-10 seconds, I don’t want to be hunting for the dates on your resume… or details about your education.. or certifications, etc.

The “Movie-Trailer” resume. Think of your resume as a movie trailer, or like I said earlier, like the preface to a book. Highlight and format your resume in such a way that the important stuff jumps out at me first so that I want to settle in with a nice box of warm popcorn and a coke to read the rest. White space is good. Bold titles and logical alignment are even better. Resumes that look like they were thrown together at the last minute say a lot about a candidate. They say to me that you are about as good a candidate as Madonna is a movie actress.

Are you an Interesting Candidate? If you are, then tell me! Adding a simple section at the end of your resume with the title “Additional Interests” should do the trick. Here is where you tell me that you ran the Boston Marathon, hiked Mount Everest, or started an after-school rocketry program as a volunteer. Whatever it is that makes you interesting, please tell me.

In summary, encourage your students to treat their resume like book.. or a movie.. where the Preface or the “movie trailer” is just as important as the content itself.

I hope this helps…

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