Rocking Out With Your Resume

Ain't it a drag just having to build up a resume? I mean, wouldn't it be nice (read it with with the song's tone) just to have a one liner statement that read "I know what I'm doing and I'm pretty good at it, just hire me already"? Man, that'd be THE dream, just have someone's blind faith on us. Buuuuuuut it doesn't work like that, at least not yet (crossing fingers when it does actually happen).

For those of us that are left in the present day still wondering how to build up a nice-looking resume, I'm going to try my best to help you on some tips on how to improve upon yours. Notice please that some things may vary from profession to profession, so I'll try to keep things as general as possible.

Just as a quick overview; our professional resumes should reflect and encompass the majority of our working experience and provide a brief description on who we are and what we do. We need to be very careful as to how we present and what information we put on that paper, because it may help the acceptance or rejection of our application from it.

Here are some of the considerations I'd like to propose for you to review when building up your resume:

1."First impressions are important"

Remember that person you had a crush on? Also, do you remember making a fool out of yourself when you wanted to first interact with them? Well...same thing may happen when you first send your resume to apply for a job.

The first impression recruiters or HR professional have on our information is of great importance, my recommendation here is solely based on the design you give to your resume. Having a blank page with your job entries and description is just "ok", but if you want to make an impact I'd highly suggest to look online for resume templates (even Microsoft Word manages to have a few nice ones).

Depending on the role you're applying to is the design that you should strive for. Obviously a Graphic Designer and an Accountant won't be needing to use the same template because the level of creativity needed for the role is very different, I suggest to try to keep things simple but according to both the area of work and also on your personality (personal brand is important here, don't sell yourself short).

HR professionals usualy analyze on a general 30 second glimpse the resume as a whole and how it is structured and presented, if it looks too overwhelming for them it might negatively affect how the rest of the information is perceived.

2. "Less is more"

If you've ever cooked in your life (if not, you should, everyone should know how to cook...it's so satisfying and relaxing), you'd remember that you can make great dishes with just a few key ingredients and even more so, adding a bunch of things in the mix might just not favor for a special flavour that you may want to get from it.

In that sense, the information that you place on your resume has the same basis. If you put EVERYTHING you do on your day to day, the main giveaway from your skillset might fall behind and the "reader" might be too overwhelmed. In a world where we're saturated with media that focuses on explain a bunch with just a few lines or a couple of minutes, this becomes key.

My suggestion would be quite simple, draft out each entry of your work experience in full detail, then proceed to trim the fat on it by deleting the things that may not be very relevant to your job, as well as clear any redundancies and structure everything on either a 5-6 point statement. It's quite important that you can remember to leave in the special set if tools you use in order to get your job done (Microsoft Office, AutoCAD, Java, CNC, etc.). Once this is done, just translate everything to the template you carefully selected.

I have always found it usefull that people have an early entry on their resumes structured as as a summary of the whole file. This section should only include in about 6 lines, the areas of expertise you've worked with and the time you've been working with it, the tools you are comfortable managing and some soft skills related work (leadership, mentoring, management, etc.)

While some HR professionals really take the time to read it all to get a general idea of what kind of professional and experience you have, some others just look for "keywords" that are related to the job you're applaying for. Adding a special section for the tools and your comfortability with them is also a nice touch.

Side note: If you're a course or diploma enthusiast and enjoy taking them for continuous improvement or just out of curiosity; I'd highly recommend to make a small space where you could list the last 1-2 years out of courses and leave a small comment among the lines of "...I have also been taking other courses since (insert year date), which I could refer to as well as provide any certifications from it upon further request". Just so you know, don't cluster the living hell out of your resume with all the 30+ courses and their respective certifications.

3. "Learn to shoot straight arrows"

Now, it's true that we should always have a plan B in case that our plan A doesn't work. As people always say, "expect the best but prepare for the worst". I mean, I know there are people who are very focused and prepare a bunch for what they want, but it won't ever hurt to know that you have something to fall back into, it's truly a nice feeling.

I also know that is a horrible drag to make and refine our resumes every once in a while, so saying this might itch on some of you, but it's quite simple...depending on the different roles that you want to apply to, try to modify your resume to showcase from your experience what the role is looking for.

If the role is looking for someone with experience working with Wordpress and while your experience hasn't been 100% focused on it, but you do have worked on it, you can let them know besides on your day-to-day tasks, also what you have done recently with it. Now, a slight reminder: You are NEVER ever supposed to lie with this, just try to push forward the experience you have on the tools or tasks they are looking for. We don't lie here people, that's no bueno, don't do it.

You might end up with a general resume that focuses on your prime role and tasks and probably another one which you could edit or mold after the roles that you'd like to apply to and are not 100% sure from your experience from it.

4. "Do I need to comb my hair?"

This is one of my favorite things to consider because is one of the most controvertial ones as well. And is the fact if we should or should not include our beautiful faces/figures in our resumes...the answer, just like in the previous points is that it mostly depends on the roles you're applying for.

Just as a general rule ask yourself the following, how much "face time" would you need with the final client/customer or stakeholder(s) and if the answer is that "quite some" than I'd suggest you do put it there. I mean, you're free to put the picture that was taken when you finished college looking all clean, sharp and nice...or whatever other picture you consider professional (please don't put picture with the fish you caught last summer, don't be that dude) it's up to you if you want to.

It's firmly believed that the apparence won't substitute your knowledge and experience, though there may be some roles that will require you to include the picture, such as marketing, modeling, photographer, etc. Sometimes there's also a bias on HR professionals from pictures on your resumes, so I'd suggest that if the role won't require it, don't put it there...you'll eventually meet up on the office for an interview or on an online call (you can polish yourself there if you want).

5. "Final touches"

If you got this far in the article without wanting to punch me in the face from all the revisions you are making, then thanks! My last recommendation is quite simple...just a quick final touches on your resume like reviewing the spelling, checking for space on the margins and reviewing that the information there reflects your actual experience is very important.

Remember that humans, in our nature, are very optical beings...meaning that if something doesn't caught our attention at a first glimpse it might be very difficult to stay focused on it for much of our time. I'd just recommend to look for things in your resume to be symmetrical, well structure, that the information you present is concise, relevant and to the point as well as please, pretty please, don't make your resumes about 4+ pages long...if you can keep everything on a 2 pages file, that's best.

Some people have been working since the dawn of time and their experience is quite long and amazing. But if this is the case you can always inlcude only whatever you can cramp up in those 2 pages and then leave a small disclaimer that you have worked even more and the things you have done (well summarized of course).

Extra tip: If you are close or know someone in HR that can be a proof reader of your resume, do ask them, we are usually nice people that would love to help people in general reach out to greater opportunities (mostly with us, but we're also happy if you find your little nest on your own). You can also ask someone with a higher senioirty than yours in your practice to check it, after all...sometimes these people often interview candidates like yourself.

Keep in mind these are general recommendations and scenarios for you to consider when building out your professional resume and might not guarantee that you get that position that you're looking for, but on the other hand, they might just open the door just enough for you to squeeze yourself in to make a proper introduction and surprise everyone with the amazing professional that you are. Now, go and dazzle those resumes up!!

If there are other tips or recommendations that have worked for you and that you consider are great but not stated here, please share! I'd love to hear more and I know that someone out there might find it usefull too!