Resume tips - some details you should check

I look at a lot of resumes. I am very willing to look at yours and give you some advice on how to make your resume look better, be more effective.

I saw a resume today with three rather large errors:

1. A typo (misspelled word) in the Objective section. Ouch! Not a good start to a professional appearance. Be sure every word is perfect. Tip: Don’t ignore those red squiggly lines under your words; they are your word processing software telling you that you’ve misspelled something.

2. In several items, information was missing. For example, if you are listing the name of your college, include the city and state. Unless it’s Harvard University, many people won’t know where your school is located. In another example in this resume, the writer assumed that readers would know about the organizations she was a member of. If it’s a student club, tell what it was about. In this case, only a few students were selected, which makes it more prestigious; this should have been mentioned.

3. The header was all messed up. Most people don’t use the automatic header feature of Word, so I’ll walk you through it.

a. On the first page of the resume, click on “View” then “Header and Footer.” You’ll see a space to type in your header. Put in your last name and the word RESUME.

b. Number the pages automatically. Type in “Page” where you want the page number to go, and click on the “#” in the header creation toolbar.

Then close the header.

c. Finally, on the first page, pull down the File menu, then Page Setup then Layout. Under “header and footer” click on “different first page.” This keeps the header from showing on the first page, where you don’t need it. It will show on all the rest of the pages.

Big Note: It is NOT TRUE that you must keep your resume to one page only. The most important information (probably your education and most recent experience) should be on the first page, but the resume should be as long as it needs to be.

If you want me to review your resume, email me at jean@professionalpracticesuccess.com