Professional Resume Writing 101-12

Professional Resume Writing – Look Outstanding!

This advice is repetitive but necessary. Your resume must look outstanding!  Before reading any words the simple layout of your resume will create an impression. If notable, it will either be positive or negative. In the real estate industry a key component to selling a home is “curb appeal”. If the house looks good and creates a positive impression, the potential buyer will be interested in going inside to take a look. Your resume is not any different. It must look outstanding in order to inspire the recruiter or HR professional to read on and find out more about you.

You will find many examples of professional resumes offered online including our site but not all of them will help you write an outstanding resume. One resume offered online as a professional sample is quite the contrary. Here are some of the reasons it will not inspire anyone to read it:

• Three pages were used for a resume that should have been written on two pages and possibly only one page.
• There is no consistency in the top and bottom borders on any page. The huge amount of white space presents a resume that appears to have little content. The entire 3rd page consists of 4 short bullet points.
• Some sentences have a period at the end and some don’t.
• Work history is listed in reverse chronological order and education is listed in chronological order.
• No page numbers or headers are included on the 2nd or 3rd page.
• Underlining is prevalent throughout the resume. Some computer scanning equipment will not read the text that is underlined.
• The only consistency in this resume seems to be the subheading, “Duties performed;” for the three positions noted.  No one is interested in duties and responsibilities. A professional resume must be accomplishment based.
• The dynamic action verbs used to highlight a 22 year position include words such as, “repair”, “work” and “general day-to-day duties”.

Research the credentials and testimonials of those offering professional resumes. There are many who are not Certified Professional Resume Writers but are charging to critique and write resumes based solely on their experience in reading resumes. There are also resume writing businesses that have started up using the same name as existing, reputable companies so be sure you’ve found the right company.

Your resume is an investment in your future and it must look outstanding. Email your resume for a FREE resume critique from a Certified Professional Resume Writer.