Resume this, resume thatWhat’s the big deal?

The big deal is that without a polished resume, you probably won’t be given a second thought, let a lone an interview. Your resume will be thrown away or on the No pile, a mile high. How do set yourself apart from the others?

There are many aspects to writing an interview-winning resume. It’s not a matter of throwing together some paragraphs and bullets and calling it a day. If you want to get the job you really want you have to put forth a lot of effort on your resume package. (By the way, whenever I refer to a resume package, I’m talking about a resume and cover letter.) So anyway, where do you start?

I’m going to speak as if you have a typical career path and history. No huge gaps in employment; no job-hopping; no changing careers. I’ll touch more on those kinds of resumes in a later post. Right now I’m going discuss the different areas of a regular combination resume.

Let me back up a bit. Some things that I ran across as a professional resume writer is that some people tend to write their resumes in first person using words such as I, me, etc. Big mistake. You don’t use pronouns in a resume when describing what you did, what you accomplished and proof to back it all up. Instead, step back and talk about yourself as if you’re a different person looking in. Make sense? Refer to yourself as a “professional with a high level of work ethic.” You get the idea.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about your Career Profile, Executive Profile, Summarythere are a ton of ways to say it. Whatever you choose to call it, this is the time to use powerful keywords in describing yourself and what you have to offer potential employers. Remember do not use I! Don’t go into what you want; state what you can give to them and how you would better their organization. Although your resume is about you, it’s FOR the employer. Make sure to stay focused.

Stay tuned for further tips on how to write a killer resume…