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You are not creating a resume to fit all jobs. Each job you’re applying job listing and see where you need to “tweak” your resume “to fit” that organization’s job opportunity.
1. Style of your resume. A chronological resume lists your most recent job duties and employment dates first. A functional resume focuses on skills, experience, and accomplishments.
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When to Use Functional
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When to Use Chronological
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Changing fields.
Skills-oriented format shows off your transferable skills to better advantage.
Work history not related to the job.
Not worked recently.
Just entering the job market.
Gaps in your work history.
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Staying in the same field.
To be fact based and easily skimmed.
To show experience and a steady job history.
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2. Don’t leave gaps in your work history. Tell what you were doing as gracefully as possible. Examples: Raising children, went back to school, unemployment high in your area for your job field, moved to new area.
3. List your job titles and have skill headings that match/relate to the job you want.
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Use |
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Electronic Billing.
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Management of Billing for Patient Accounts.
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4. Content that sells
Don’t Use
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Use |
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Maintained records for accounts receivable billing.
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Managed billing for all inpatient and outpatient accounts for a 300-bed hospital.
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5. Remove everything that starts with "responsibilities included" and replace it with on-the-job accomplishments
Don’t Use
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Use |
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Responsibilities included: research and writing articles for hospital newsletter to the public.
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Developed the hospital newsletter which evolved into a consumer news oriented marketing piece.
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6. Use words that show more command
Don’t Use
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Use |
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Assigned work duties to entry level staff.
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Directed workflow, supervised and trained entry-level staff.
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7. Look for key words in ads to write your skill headings
Key Words
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Use |
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Experience, oversee, manage, train, develop, prepare, etc.
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Supervised Entry Level Staff.
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More key word examples: accomplished, adapted, collaborated, conceptualized, divested, enhanced, formalized, mediated, pioneered, and restructured.
8. Understood skills needed by the employer but not stated.
Not Stated
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Use |
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Working with other departments, research or writing.
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Include your skills in these areas. You should highlight a couple of these in your cover letter.
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9. Don't include hobbies on a resume unless the activity is somehow relevant to your job objective, or clearly reveals a characteristic that supports your job objective. For example, a hobby of Sky Diving (adventure, courage) might seem relevant to some job objectives (Security Guard?) but not to others.
10. Paper and style for the resume.
- Don’t use parchment paper and pretentious brochure-folded resume "presentations."
- Use plain white or ivory paper.
- Never use colored paper unless there's a very good reason for it (like, you're an artist) because if it gets photo-copied the results will be murky.
- Use font size and spacing that is legible.
- Don’t use script font.
- Keep resume concise. (avoid lengthy descriptions)
- Proofread it.
11. Now many employers are asking you to complete their applications online and to attach your resume. Place the text of your cover letter into the body of the email and attach your resume.
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