General Information

• A resume is a MARKETING TOOL that presents you in the best possible light for the purpose of getting invited to a job interview.  The resume is written for the reader be it an H.R. person or the hiring manager.
• There are three types of resumes, the Reverse Chronological, the Functional and the Combination. The Chronological is the most common and popular but depending where you are in your career you need to decide whether Functional will work better for you right now.
•  Use the Chronological Resume if you are staying in the same field of work and when you are working with Recruiters.  Functional formats work if you are changing fields and your work experience is not related to your new field. Eg) moving from engineering to computer networks. Functional is most appropriate for consultants.
• Functional resumes allow you to record work done through volunteering; chronological does not. Non-profits accept functional resumes if the dates you did the work is included.
• Never include information about age, marital status, weight, height, children or health.  NEVER enclose a photograph. Offer the reader a link to your web page where a photo is acceptable to be viewed.
• Laser print your resume on two pages max, three if you have very senior experience, an IT platform or PhD publications that would comprise an Addendum, the third page.
• Use 12-point font, 10 is acceptable on one-page resumes. Times Roman or Ariel is most popular. Don’t vary your fonts or use too much bolding. Underlining makes the page look busy. Your name should be bolded, but no more than 14-point font.
• When e-mailing, send all documents as an attachment or in ASCII text as requested.
• When emailing, send your letter in the same file as the resume or in the body of the email message, don’t make a separate file for the cover letter.
• Many companies scan resumes, especially recruiters, so avoid hollow bullets, underlining, bolding and italics.
• Write a different resume for each career objective.  Tailor each resume to suit the skills and accomplishments of each career choice. Generic resumes DO NOT SELL.
• If the gender of your name might mystify the reader, use a Ms., Mr., or Mrs. prefix.
• Add your degrees to the end of your name in the letterhead.
• Try to have as much white space as possible without jeopardizing room for content.
• Put your name, phone number and Page 2 at the top of page two. Put your name on flush right of page 2.  If you used a line under your address on page one, run a line along the top of page two as well.
• Handwrite your envelopes when sending unsolicited resumes. Labels or typing make the envelope look like part of a bulk mailing.  Write PERSONAL or CONFIDENTIAL on the envelope.
• Cover letter paper should match resume paper.  Be sure to put your name, address and phone number on your one page cover letter.
• Staple your resume together, paper clip your cover letter to your resume.
• Be careful when posting your resume on a job board.
• Tell recruiters that you do not want your resume sent out to hiring companies without your permission.

The Objective

• Show a sense of direction to the reader by starting with an Objective, which is merely the title of the position you are applying for. Eg) Account Executive, Administrative Assistant.
•  Recruiters do not require an objective as a rule, though something generic may be appropriate, Eg) A senior level accounting position in a banking environment.
• An Objective can stand alone or be inserted into the PROFILE.

Highlights or Profile

• The Profile can be in paragraph or bulleted form. If you are making a career change the paragraph is probably more effective because you will have to explain or walk around a skill and it is easier to do this in sentence form. Seniorlevel people seem to prefer the paragraph as well.
• Following the Objective include a Profile or Summary or Highlights of Qualifications that is a captualization of your professional wonderment. 5 -7 bullets is sufficient:
• the number of years experience at the sought objective
•  special knowledge areas or “personal wonderment” successes (2 lines)
•  3 or 4 personal qualities or strengths (2 lines max)
•  lastly, languages spoken, awards, miscellaneous info, education being taken presently or just completed.
• Try to be original in how you describe your personal strengths. Don’t just make a grocery list. Make them relevant to the objective. Eg) if you are good with numbers, you can say you have strong mathematical acumen.

Professional Experience

• Only go back 10-12 years in your work history depending on your age and years of experience.  If you have been with xyz Ltd. for 13 years you would include all positions for the entire 13 years but only accomplishments for the most recent. 
• No need to include months with the years, except in IT resumes where they are preferred. You can include dates for shorter stints of employment, such as contract work or summer employment. Add “P. T”. or “Contract” to overlapping or short-term assignments.
• Don’t put parenthesis around phrases, as this says, “This part isn’t important.” Separate phrases or acronyms by commas or dashes.
• Resumes are about your ACCOMPLISHMENTS.  Not so much your tasks or responsibilities, but what you did for a company and what the result was.
• Start every sentence with a past tense action verb unless you are still performing the skill, then it would be in present tense. Eg) Compile, compiled: Supervise, supervised; liaise, liaised, etc. You can mix your tenses sentence to sentence.
• Each point should start with an action verb or skill and as often as possible, end with a result.  Ask 'so what?' or 'How?' at the end of the sentence.  If you get an answer, you have not finished your thought or SAR, Situation, Action, Result .Eg) Re-organized five years worth of files for an office of 50 people (so what?) reducing the time it takes to locate files which allows more time for productive assignments.
• Make your action verbs varied and descriptive. Eg) pioneered, spearheaded.
• If you have gaps in your resume, TELL WHERE YOU HAVE BEEN. Eg) Full time parent, 1993-1995 unless you were unemployed or in jail.
• Are you saying what you mean to say? When you say manage, do you mean manage or actively participated with a team as their manager. Indicate whether you managed people or a project.

Education and Professional Development

• If your Education is 5 years old or more, put it on the second page of the resume after Work History.  If it is new or presently being worked on, put Education at the end of your Profile or Highlights.
• When your degree is from another country you can say "Degree equivalent to Canada's Bachelors Degree in Engineering - Peru.
• To avoid having your age revealed, omit graduation years from Education.  This may put up a red flag.  Be prepared to explain yourself in the screening interview.
• Name your degree, written in full, then the school you graduated from. Put graduation year only. Eg) Bachelor of Science, University of Alberta – 1979.
• If you did not complete your post secondary education, say, “completed 2 years” or “completed courses in …”.
• List only courses you have taken in recent years that are relevant to the position sought.  They can be listed under Education/Courses or Professional Development.
• If you combine Education/Courses, list your degrees in reverse chronological order; leave a space to separate the two categories, then list your courses.

Business Affiliations

• List current memberships in associations, your role with them and the years you have belonged. Do not include expired memberships.

Community Involvement or Volunteer Work

• List Volunteer Experience, again only if it is current or just recently completed. Use discretion when listing religious/cultural or political involvements.

Interests

• The last heading is Interests.  Don't list things like bungee jumping and use discretion when including politics, religion or race.  Three or four items are appropriate. Eg) Skiing, reading and music. Show some diversity if you can.

Picky Points that make a difference

• Is each line in order of importance you want the reader to see?
• Do not say you have “excellent communication skills”; tell me what your skill is. Eg) present confidently and articulately to small or large groups. OR  Concise, grammar-perfect writer of reports, minutes, articles and letters.
• Don’t use “responsible for” or “successfully” or “assisted” or “ability to”. Start with the action verb not an adjective.
• Say “increasing”, “resulting in” instead of “which resulted in an increase of…” Avoid redundancies.
• If you leave out a particular line, could you still get an interview?
• Can you combine two thoughts together in one line?
• Can you leave out the odd preposition or article, like “an” or “the”?
• Check for redundancies. Have you said the same thing twice but in a different way?
• Is the Action – Result explained in simple language understandable to all readers?
• Would bolding make something stand out better, is it aesthetically pleasing? Bold the action verb or a catchy word in the middle of the statement.
• Make mention that you worked on a team, at the end of a sentence. Eg) Designed the marketing plan to introduce squeezable ketchup bottles to the Canadian marketplace, as part of a team.
• If something you did was hands on, don’t use managed alone, try: Eg) Managed and trained employees on a new system designed by R & D department.
• Spelling, grammar and punctuation must be perfect.
• Include global experience, languages spoken and updated courses in your Highlights.
• Preferred manner of receiving resumes is: email, fax then postal.