Resume Basics from Grade School?

Remember back in school, when you had to diagram sentences and outline term papers? While these exercises often seemed boring and pointless, they were designed to teach you to write a well-structured, easily readable document. Those skills really come in handy when it comes time to write your resume. Your resume needs to have a clearly definable structure so that its reader can immediately find the information they’re seeking. Generally, the experience section of your resume should include the following for your previous positions:

Title
General summary of the job
Achievements at that position

Many people write their resumes without including a summary component explaining what their job entailed. They simply stack numerous bullets for each position. When a document includes an overwhelming number of bullets, the bullets lose their desired effect of highlighting specific details on each topic. So it is important to summarize your previous position in paragraph form first.

Likewise, resumes that only include paragraphs of text immediately overwhelm the reader. A paragraph-filled resume without any bullets is essentially a short story about the candidate’s life. It is difficult for the reader to find specific information in such a text-heavy document. I personally have a hard time even keeping my place when reading such a resume.

Once you’ve written out your previous positions in this format, each job description will essentially serve as a bullet point for the overall summary section at the beginning of your resume. The summary offers an overall glance of who you are as an employee and a candidate, with each previous position supporting your point. The summaries and bullets beneath each job then detail how you provided value to each of your previous employers.

When you look at your completed resume, you may be surprised to see that those outlining skills came in handy after all!

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Author:

Jessica Holbrook Hernandez is an expert resume writer, career and personal branding strategist, author, speaker and President/CEO of Great Resumes Fast. She creates high-impact, best-in-class resumes and cover letters that transform job searches into interviews and ultimately job offers. For more information about professional resume writing or to read more career and job search related articles visit http://www.greatresumesfast.com or call 1.800.991.5187.