I have worked as an intern supervisor for a small concert promoter and look at a variety of resumes for our internship for over three years. I wanted to offer some helpful tips to those who are building resumes, as they can be intimidating documents that can make or break a possible job.
1. Never have just one resume: You should never rely on one resume to submit to every job you apply for. Make multiple resumes based off of what youâre aiming to apply for. And keep them. It makes it easy if you are on a quick deadline to pull up a resume for an accounting job than pulling up a generic one and having to fully edit it.
2. Cater the resume to the job: Along with having multiple resumes, make sure the resume caters to the job you want. This means making important points more visible. Looking for a management position? Whether itâs recent or not, move to the top experience you have with management so they see it first (One of the best ways to avoid confusion with recent vs. past is to make a RELEVANT EXPERIENCE category on the resume).Â
3. Ways to fill gaps in work: Employers will most likely inquire as to why someone was unemployed for extended periods of time. If you did anything during that time like volunteer, make note of that on your resume. Volunteer experience counts as work experience and looks great on a resume. It can also fill a resume that doesnât have as much experience.
4. One page or multi-pages: This is always a topic on confusion, and one year, one page can be in and the next itâll be multipage. My advice with length of resumes is to make both. Remember making multiple resumes? Make one mega resume that literally breaks down every job. You can use it to make other resumes to cater to various jobs, but that mega, multipage resume is what I recommend bringing to the job interview. Submit the one page with key highlights to be considered, and once you have an interview, bring the multipage one for the interviewer to keep on file.Â
5. Buy or make a template: Thereâs always the basic bullet point resume, but Iâve seen the trend of having a template for your one page resume. It gives it just a bit of a personal touch and can create eye pops that might help yours stand out from others. Microsoft Word has some optional Resume templates that you can adjust to make your own, as well as on Etsy, some people sell templates. Additionally, most employers are using site based applications, which means a template resume may not be uploaded right, so always keep a basic resume on hand that you can simply copy and paste into the text program that they use or upload info from.
6. Anything past five years ago isnât relevant: This is a flexible rule depending on your work experience, but if you have the experience from the past five years, you donât need to make a big deal of anything before that. Graduated college? High school doesnât really matter any more. Always always always keep things recent, unless youâre putting experience that is important for the job your applying. And even if you are applying to a job but the experience you have for it happened over five years ago, it may not be relevant anymore. Itâs worth a try, but jobs and technology change so it may lessen your chances of getting the job.Â
7. Categories: Thereâs a lot of confusion on what to put on a resume. Some important categories to keep would be Personal/Contact info (name, phone number, address, email, website if applicable), Education (as far as you went in school and/or graduation year, and for GPA, you can put your best semester, not your overall), Experience (in general, or can be broken out in other categories like Relevant Experience, Work Experience, Volunteer, etc.). Other categories could be Objective (overview of what youâre look to accomplish, usually no more than two sentences), Skills (what are you proficient in, have experience with, like customer service, Microsoft office, time management, money handling, etc.), Past Jobs (which is a good ways of list old job, position, and time frame with out long details), and References (provide name, company, position, and contact information, and it is good to back up your references with letters of recommendations, but itâs not required).
8. Details: Some people worry about their resumes being too barren or too wordy. The question you have to ask yourself is âdo I need to describe my job?â. Reality is that for the most part, everyone knows what a cashier is, a floor salesman, etc. A lot of what you can describe with common jobs you can put in a skills section. If you have a job thatâs not common, break down the tasks you do. If youâre resume is lacking in experience, itâs okay to break down responsibilities, but as it begins to fill, make sure fill out on recent, more relevant work.
9. Proofread: Once done, get someone to read over it. Family, friends, professors, career centers. The more, the better. Everyoneâs going to have opinions on it, so remember to go with your gut, as everyone views resumes differently and are going to suggest different things. Donât get conflicted on this. Go with what you feel is right and important to you.
10. A resume is a living document: I think the biggest issue I run into with resumes is people forget that itâs a living document. Your resume should change as your life changes. Promotion at work? Add that to your resume. Changing jobs? Update resume. While you may be happy in a stable job, itâs always smart to bring out the resume every three months to make sure everything is still in order. Itâll save stress if something unpredictable happens.Â
Hopefully this helps anyone whoâs curious and looking for a better job or even a raise!
