Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Good Resume Creation Requires Clarity Over Everything Else

By Michelle Howe


All of us at some stage will have to go through the process of resume creation, when we create a 'curriculum vitae', or CV, of our accomplishments and qualifications. Job hunting is a challenging enough experience without you being handicapped by having a sub-quality CV, so it is important that you get it right. A resume is not simply a list though, it needs to be properly formatted, proofread for spelling and punctuation mistakes, and be in a legible font.

The main purpose of a CV is not actually to get you a job, it is to secure you an interview which can lead to a job. Many people fail to grasp this fundamental point, and as a result their CVS are long-winded, verbose and bloated, and therefore not fit for purpose. Never make a huge list of everything at work that you have ever done, as this simply shows a lack of ability to see what is important and to be organised.

Using bullet points is therefore a very good idea indeed. Very few employers will have the time or the urge to sift through pages and pages of detail. So use bullet points for each of your sections, breaking down your skills and experience into more easily digestible chunks. This will help your positive qualities to stand out more and be more easily grasped by an employer.

The document as a whole should be kept to its barest minimum in terms of length too. Important details such as your name, date of birth and contact details, as well as your education, needs to be at the beginning of the first page. If you can keep the entire document to just two pages, then that can work very well, as long documents with many pages can often fall apart, with vital sections becoming lost.

Proofreading is one of the most important parts of creating a good CV. Spelling and punctuation always give an employer a very good idea of your all-round intellectual abilities, so make sure that everything is correct. Simple mistakes, like not knowing when to use its and when to use it's, can make you look very stupid indeed.

Also format the CV so that it is straightforward to read. Use bold headings where necessary to help delineate the different sections, and make sure that you use a font which is legible. Fancy fonts may look nice, but nice is not a CV's job; it needs to be clearly legible.

Pictures are also something which you should never include in a CV. You should not have to include images of what you have achieved, unless they are specifically requested as proof of some technical ability. Pictures of yourself are simply irrelevant, and make a CV look childish.

The secret of good resume creation is to write with clarity, dividing the text up into clearly legible sections. Never use pictures or fancy fonts, as these will not help with gaining the chance of an interview. Proofread carefully, and brush up on your grammar and punctuation before you write a CV.




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