WHEN WRITING YOUR RESUME - KEEP IT SIMPLE

When it comes to preparing an effective resume, there is one overriding rule, in my opinion: Keep it simple.

Too many candidates feel that they need to get their entire professional lives in their resume. In fact, simple is best. Avoid the frills. Avoid the temptation to provide too much detail.  If your resume is too busy and too detailed, you are risking that the reader will get lost, frustrated, confused and disinterested. This you do not want!

Only include the bare essentials in your resume. You want to call attention to the major skills and experiences you possess. The details you can talk about in your interview. Also, if you focus the reader’s attention on the skills that are critical to the position you apply for, you increase the probability that you will be granted an interview.

It is during the interview that you have your greatest opportunity to embellish your experience and skills, and the chance to provide details that would otherwise fill the page and make for a crowded and unreadable resume.

Certain principles apply to the writing of a resume:

• Write your resume so that the reader can look at the first page and quickly get an idea of what skills and experience you bring with you as a candidate. Remember, the reader is not going to take more than about 10 seconds to glance at your resume and decide if he/ she wants to read it in more detail.

• Use as few words as possible to describe your background and experience in a summary at the beginning of your resume.

• Use bullet points wherever possible. This will help point out the important accomplishments in your career and your applicable skills. It will also draw the eye of the reader to the page.

• Use single sentences or short phrases to describe your skills and accomplishments. Each bullet point should not be more than one sentence.

• Use statistics to describe your accomplishments. If you grew sales in your territory, the prospective employer wants to know by how much? If you are a researcher, how much did you save the company in formulation costs by substituting an alternative raw material? If you are in production, how much was the increase in efficiency or the decrease in the number of rejects?

• If you have published, do not list all of your articles…only those that might apply specifically to the job you are applying for. And then, only list 3-4. You may include something like “Published several other articles on process safety in professional journals since 1993”, eliminating the need to list them all. If the employer is interested, he will ask to see them.

These are just a few suggestions. Remember, there is no need to write “War and Peace”.

Leaving out detail in your resume is not always a bad thing.  It gives you the opportunity to talk in detail during your interview about your skills, accomplishments and experiences.  It also avoids the possibility that the reader, in reading a detailed resume, will jump to conclusions or overlook something important, both of which could mean that your chances of getting the job are compromised.

So, KEEP IT SIMPLE. Less is more very often when it comes to a good resume. Your resume is a “tease”…a “preview of coming attractions”…and advertisement for you. It is not your biography, or a detailed description of your entire career.

Keep your resume simple. Get the attention of the hiring manager. And then, discuss the details in the personal interview.