How to Prepare a Good Resume for Your Job Search

When you are doing your job hunting, is it very important to have a good resume? The answer is “yes” and “no”.

Basically, the resume is merely a calling card; it introduces you in outline form to a prospective employer. Your only aim is to make this introduction as painless as possible for the reader by not attempting to say too much. But a poor resume which is ugly to look at, poorly organized, and fails (sometimes in spite of several hundred words) to quickly give the reader an outline of your background will harm your chance to have an interview.

Here are the keys to prepare a good resume:

1. A resume should never be longer than a covering page and 3 additional pages.

2. A resume must look good; it must be well typed, well spaced, and have wide margins on both sides of each page. (This allows the reader to make notes which they may refer to during their interview with you.)

3. In the EXPERIENCE portion of your resume, start with your present, or last job, and work backwards chronologically.

4. Never leave any gaps in dates on your resume.

5. Whenever possible insert achievements; this will enable you to describe yourself more briefly than the shortest job description.

6. Whenever possible insert numbers; eg.; the ‘President &CEO’ of a $2 billion company is in a different league than the ‘President & CEO’ of a $200 thousand company. An office manger responsible for 75 employees is in a different league than the one with a total staff of him or herself. Mathematics were invented to facilitate communi-cation.

7. Don’t be modest. The resume is a sales document no different from a brochure selling any product. You must insert all of your major selling points, but you must do it concisely.

8. Make your resume as “general” as possible; use your covering emails or letters to be specific and directionalize the resume for individual applications.

Hope this can help you prepare a good resume and find the job you want. For more tips and advice on how to find the job you want quickly during your job search and see a sample resume, please check out my complete job search book How To Get Off Your Ass And Find The Job You Want or visit the website www.passworldcorp.com/book.