I don’t claim to be a resume expert. But from my personal experience, I am able to tell what a good resume is from the bad. I have been on both sides of employment: employer and employee. I had been an IT consultant before and resume was critical then to sell to your clients.
In my experience, a good resume is pleasing to look at, easy to read, and contains all the information necessary to know whether or not the person represented by said resume can do the job in an effective and efficient manner. A good resume should look professional and reflect the abilities of the person it is meant to represent without a lot of fluff in between the lines.
Before getting down to writing your resume, bear this in mind: your prospective employer makes the hiring decisions and they are entirely invested in ensuring that you are the right one for the job. This person will care about whether or not you can do a good job for that company and so this is the one you are writing your resume for. You want to be sure that you are the right candidate for the job. You want to be sure you know everything there is to know about this company. You want to understand exactly, which qualities are needed to be the right candidate for this job.
A good resume will include only pertinent information about you – the job applicant. It is written in a professional and positive manner focusing on education, abilities, skills, and talents that can benefit your future employer. Of course, that can be a little difficult to do on paper, but not when you know what words to use. A thesaurus can be a life saver here when you are looking for the right words. Your resume is a one or two page story of your abilities and experience that will speak for you on a potential employer’s desk. You want him or her to call YOU, so it should stand out and look unique while still being professional.
Never, ever, make any job sound like it is a mundane, boring position. It doesn’t matter if you are standing behind the counter at your local Starbucks, you can still focus on the positive aspects of that job. For example, when you make the coffee, you are responsible for quality control. When you give it to the customer, you are insuring good customer service. When you ring it up on the cash register, you are responsible for cash flow. Any job can sound much better when you “flower it up” and be creative in doing so!
Use a font that is easy to read but unique. If you are learning how to make a resume in Microsoft Word, you will have a variety of fonts to choose from. Do not just stick with the default font (Times New Roman). You want to stand out, so pick another font, but make sure it is easy to read and not too “fancy”.
You will write a resume that does much more than just inform; you will write a resume that compels to action! Your resume will become as a good bargaining tool. Your prospective employer will be interested and will stand up and take notice! This is exactly what you want.
If you want to know how to make a resume that is professional yet makes you look wonderful, there are a lot of great tools on the Internet that can help you along the way. Microsoft Word even includes some resume templates that you can just fill in with your personal information and be on your way. I can’t personally show you how to make a resume, but you sure can do it if you use the resources at your fingertips and be well on your way to a new and wonderful career!
