Part 3 of 7: Make It Easy to Read for Crying Out Loud!

Hiring Managers should NOT need a GPS when reading your resume!

It’s also NOT 1983 where we frantically unfold a map and shuffle to find the Disneyland exit off the freeway!

It’s YOURS, not OURS...

When YOU read YOUR resume, it makes perfect sense… those are YOUR jobs... and those are YOUR bullet points... and that is YOUR underwater basket-weaving degree... Great! Good for you!

Resumes are like a joke… if you have to explain it… it’s just not that good!

As a hiring manager for 20 years that has viewed THOUSANDS of resumes, I can tell you, they are by in large, a big hot mess! They start out in one place and end up somewhere completely different. Along the way they’d take me to places I didn’t know existed and certainly couldn’t explain!

That’s probably why the vast majority of resumes I can only bare to look at for 7 seconds… or less.

Hiring managers are not mind-readers... if you reduced costs by 23% in fiscal- year 2021, you need to tell us... clearly and concisely... don't make US do the math!

The layout of your resume needs to do 2 things:

1) It has to be fun to read! The hiring manager should NOT have to “work” to piece it all together! Ever floated on a "lazy river"? Yeah, kind of like that!

2) It has to pop! Whether you like it or not… 7 seconds is YOUR REALITY... You have 7 seconds to tell the reader where to go… or she’ll go on to the next one…

As a Professional Resume Writer, I’m giving you ONE PARAGRAGH… at the top, where you can describe your “Professional Summary”! Oh, and do yourself a favor... drop the "Results-Driven" cliche! Yuck!

After that… I need a reason to keep looking at your resume! That responsibility is not the hiring manager’s… it’s YOURS!

Also… a bullet point is just that… one, small little snippet that tells me something interesting about your accomplishment… not a paragraph containing 3 sentences, a personal mission statement and a haiku!

Think... coffee menus!

When you go to your local coffee shop… do you read a “paragraph” about that latte? Nope!

Coffee shops are fast paced... they're crowded... they're loud... there's a lot on the menu... you only have seconds to CLEARLY tell the barista what you want...

That's why their menus are so easy to read!

It's the same with resumes!

About the author:

Scott Valenti, Society of Human Resources Management - Certified Professional, has spent 20+ years building and retaining high-performing teams in businesses from mortgages to credit cards to non-profit radio! He has looked at thousands of resumes... some that were amazing... and some that needed a bit of work. It is from this vast experience that he founded the7secondresume dot com. He now helps people take the next step in their careers by empowering them to "tell their story"... while?SOLVING?the problems of the hiring manager!