Posts Tagged ‘work experience’

Resume 101 – Tips – Part 2

Monday, August 17th, 2009

Last week I gave you some tips for your resume.  Here are a few more.

  • Put all the information on the pages and then work on your format.  Don’t get married to a format first.  What worked for you before may not work as well now.
  • Ensure there is a good balance between white and black space.  Don’t cram everything on one page and end up with a 1/4″ margin all the way around.  By putting all the information down first, you can play with format to determine if you should increase your font size and/or margins to have a good two page resume or if you should adjust your margins and/or font size down a bit to maintain one page.
  • Highly recommend you use an 11 pt font.  Don’t go smaller than a 10 pt font.
  • The rule of thumb for work experience is to go back 10-15 years.  If you have gaps of employment, you may be able to address those in your cover letter.
  • Do not put high school information on your resume unless you just graduated from high school and have no college.
  • List college if you’ve attended, even if you didn’t complete a degree.  Employers like to see some college attendance.  If you’ve attended multiple colleges over the years, consider showing the college that has the most relevance for the position you’re applying or the most recent college.  Do not list a degree if it hasn’t been completed. 
  • Proofread, double check, spell check and proofread again.  Yes, I mentioned this last week as well. It’s extremely important!