Service Members, Get Hired! Part IVb: Resume "Rules"

By now you have your template to work with, either by starting your own, finding an example “off them internets,” or leveraging a free service like HHUSA.?Now it’s time to personalize it.?Again, by personalizing it, I don’t mean putting your name on it.?That should already be there.?What I mean is you’re going to actually tweak it to be able to perform for you the way you want it to.?Think of your resume as a living, breathing document that is an extension of you.?Why??Because it’ll be the very first representation of you that a recruiter or hiring manager sees. The first step in personalizing your resume is to make sure it stays within the supposed guidelines. So let’s get to it!

The Font/Formatting Rule:?As I mentioned earlier, there are a gazillion opinions on this topic floating around.?Send your resume to 10 different folks for feedback, and you’ll get 10 different recommendations in this realm. Even my “rules” are arguable, and I get that! Remember what I said in my previous article: I am not the end-all-be-all to resumes because one does not exist! Here is my one critical rule:?There must be consistency. What I mean by that is all headers are formatted the same, all bullet lines are indented and formatted the same, etc.?Heck, I don’t even mind you using two different fonts throughout the resume, so long as it’s done consistently. For instance, some believe that Arial is good for headers because it makes them stand out more to the reader. I happen to be one of those believers, so here's a snapshot of the header of my resume to give you an idea.

Anyhow, regardless of which school of thought you are going to prescribe to, what you want to avoid are inconsistencies.?For example, I often get asked, “Should I put a period at the end of my bullets or not?”?That’s up to you.?Just make sure either all of your bullets have periods, or none of them do.?Font alignment is another common issue. I come across resumes where one section has the font aligned flush to the left, and other sections are “justified.”?By the way, “justified” font can create the appearance of spacing issues between words, so I would avoid that alignment altogether.?Other common inconsistencies are hyphen/dash lengths between words and dates, inconsistent indentations and bullet sizes, or in some cases the oft-debated no-more-than-2-pages rule (I’ve heard all the opinions…just placate those who follow the rule and keep it at 2 pages; don’t give them a silly reason like that to throw your resume out). Oh, and please use spellcheck!?That seems like a no-brainer, but I constantly see spelling errors in resumes.

The 6-second Review & Bold/Italics/Font Size Rules:?Did you know that the average resume only gets looked at for 6 seconds on the first go-around??That means in 6 seconds, your resume needs to tell the recruiter or hiring manager everything you think they should know to select you for an interview.?Granted, your resume will be looked at more in-depth later on, but with that first review being so incredibly short, you want to make sure you’re telling the reader exactly what to see and where to look.?Therefore, you always want to be able to look objectively at your own resume and assess where you’re drawing the reader’s attention.?Literally, time yourself and see what you can see in 6 seconds objectively as if you were seeing your resume for the first time.?So, what’s a great way to guide the reader’s eyes where you want them to go??With bold, italics, and font size.

Take a look at the beginning of my resume above. Where are your eyes drawn to first? Hopefully, if I've done a decent job, you are quickly drawn away from the header and down to my professional title, skills, and current job role. Bold and italicized font (I don’t subscribe to underlining anything in today’s age of hyperlinks) are a great way to draw your reader’s eyes and guide them where you want them to look.?Therefore, I strongly encourage you to assess what you italicize and bold for that first 6-second look that you’re going to get (so long as you got past the algorithm that we’ll talk about in Part IVe).??For instance, do you really need your name in bold??It’s already at the top of the page, or near the top.?Does your name even really matter at this point??To them, you’re not a person yet, you’re just a piece of paper.?Do you really want me as the hiring manager focusing on your name in those 6 seconds, or would you rather I see your accomplishments that will actually be pertinent to the job you’re applying for??To put it bluntly, I would argue your name doesn’t matter right now.?Unbold your name, and use the bold, italics, and font sizes to draw them into why you’re awesome and make them want to go back and look for your name.?The rule here is this:?If it’s not pertinent to getting you past the 6-second review for a more in-depth look later on, then don’t make it stand out as much on your resume!

Acronyms & Jargon Rules:?When it comes to using acronyms, the general rule is the first time you use it, spell it out and place the acronym in parenthesis after, then use the acronym every instance thereafter; unless it’s a common acronym, like HR, or an acronym familiar to the industry that you're applying to.?Where issues arise, and what I often come across, are the opposites of this: The acronym is never spelled out, the person writes the acronym first and then spells it out in parenthesis, or they put the acronym in parenthesis but never actually use the acronym again.?In that latter instance, save the space on your resume and leave the acronym out.

When it comes to jargon, the general rule is this:?Don’t use them!?The exception, however, is that when the jargon is industry-specific.?However, in the military, we are so fond of our jargon that oftentimes is complete gibberish to a civilian.?Even if a civilian has heard of a jargon term, they still often do not know what it means or represents.?Case in point, we love to list titles on our resume that reference unit size.?For instance, we’ll put “Regiment Operations NCOIC” as a job title on our resume.?Now, I can promise you that even some Veterans won’t know what this truly represents if they were not Army or Marine Corps, because the other branches don’t use that unit size designation, and no civilian is going to know what an NCOIC is.?Have most civilians heard the term Regiment??Sure.?But do they know that a regiment can range from about 2-4K service members, depending on the branch of service??Probably not.

So how do you accommodate for this? Through what I call “civilian-ification” of your resume.?Any and every word that is military-specific needs to be replaced.?And be specific!?The term “senior leader” is definitely something that can translate to a civilian, but what kind of senior leader??A senior leader for a Company is usually an E7.?For a Division/Strike Group/Wing senior leadership starts around the O6 level.?That’s a huge difference.?So either translate the unit size (i.e. senior leader of a 4,000 employee company) or by title (O6=executive/CEO, E7=director/supervisor).?A quick google of the term “military translator” will usually pull up numerous options to assist you in “civilian-ifying” your resume.?

At the end of the day, you don’t want to leave any room for guessing on behalf of the reader.?Just like we use formatting to tell the reader where to look, your verbiage needs to tell the “layperson” exactly what you mean.?On the flip side, you’ll oftentimes find both acronyms and jargon being used in actual job announcements.?In those cases, they are fair game to use in your resume.

And that, folks, is the end of this week’s topic for some so-called “rules” to consider when creating, revising, or tailoring your resumes!?Join me next week when I cover a more in-depth look into each section of the resume!

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Hopefully, you’ve found some use in Part IVb of our Employment chat.?If you did, please give it a “like” and feel free to share it with your fellow service members so that they can also hopefully glean some insight into the various aspects of transition.?And of course, join me next week for Part IVc of the Employment chat as we talk about the sections of the resume!

Until next time, be safe, stay healthy, and remember that you’re not in this alone!

*NOTE: This article is one of a 6-part series that supplements and takes a deeper dive into some of the Employment topics discussed in the original article, “Service Members, Don’t Sabotage Your Transition to Civilian Life; PLAN EARLY!”