17 May Your resume and how to make it great.

Your resume is the first impression. What is on your resume; the content, the verbiage and the style can all make a difference on whether you receive a phone call for follow up or whether your your resume will end up in a database.

1. Add your name and the contact information in the body of the resume, not as a header. A number of times, a computer program will not “read”the contact information and will push your resume into spam.

2. 2 pages are better than 1 but 3 pages is 1 too many.  If you are a professional with a solid background a two page resume is the norm.

3. Find an e-mail address as close as possible to your name and use it. There is no reason to have cutiepie1993@hotmail.com or budlover411@yahoo.com as a business e-mail address.

4.Use a straight forward font, nothing fancy. Times New Roman, Calibri, Arial are the best.

5. Be succinct, a recruiter spends an average of 6 seconds reviewing a resume.  Don’t list hobbies, marriage, children or religous affiliations.

6. Spell Check, Spell Check, Spell Check.

7. Apply for a job as close to the day that it was posted as possible. Unless you’re a superstar, the longer you wait to apply for a job, the less time your resume will be reviewed.

8.  Don’t send your resume for a job you’re completely unqualified for: you’ve wasted the recruiter’s time and ruined any opportunities for you to obtain a more reasonable job within the company.

9. Spell Check, Spell Check, Spell Check.

10. Leave off Objective and References Available Upon Request.  Recruiters know and there’s no need to waste valuable space.