Your Objective is the first chance you get in the content of the resume to make a first impression. The Objective used to be a very short sentence where you put the specific job title that you were applying for. It’s becoming increasingly common to now have a paragraph that highlights certain skills you can offer to the prospective employer.

Here is a sample of an Objective I recently created for a client:

A committed, creative, and hard-working professional with over 23 years experience in the Hospitality industry seeking a management position within your company. Eager to offer knowledge, superior communication, and team collaboration skills to provide a meaningful contribution. Willing to offer honesty, attention to detail, patience, and courtesy to all interactions.

To break it down, the first sentence includes three strengths my client possesses, the kind of background he has, and the position he wants to apply for. The second sentence lists the talents he excels at. The third sentence indicates the benefit he would provide the employer should he be offered the position. Together, these sentences provide a powerful snapshot of the kind of employee who would be successful in the position.

Try re-working your Objective to include these elements and you will increase your chances of being offered the interview.

Next on the list of things I want to discuss are your accomplishments. You have many and we need to highlight them.

Until next time,

Martyn

A resume shouldn’t be more than two pages long.  If you can get all the information on one page without cramming it all together that would be even better.

As I mentioned before, hiring managers, prospective employers, and HR personnel sometimes have hundreds of resumes to go through in very little time.  You want the most important information to be highlighted within the top third on the first page.  If there are two or more pages they may not even get a glance.

To help you with keeping the resume to one page, ask yourself if the information you want to put on it really applies to the position you are going after.  If the answer is “no” then leave it off.  If the answer is “yes” then it can go on the resume.  Be selective about what you put on the resume.  You can always elaborate when you get called in for an interview.  Remember, you resume is not your life story.  You can leave some things off of it and still sound like the wonderful person you are.

Next time, we’ll get into choosing the proper format for your resume.

Until then,

Martyn

You’ve probably noticed that there is a ruler at the top of Microsoft Word.  You may have wondered what it is for.  I didn’t know until this year that that ruler is used to align elements of a Word document – like bullets.

As I discussed in the previous post, you definitely want to chunk your info into bullets for easier reading.  But it doesn’t do anybody any good to have the bullets misaligned.  It’s actually quite jarring to have a point out of place.  At best, it makes the resume look sloppy.  Definitely not an impression you want to make.

On the ruler you’ll notice three marks – two triangles and a rectangle.  These are the marks that you move to align the bullets and text.  I’ll describe what each one does:

• The top triangle moves the bullet to wherever you want to place it.
• The second triangle moves the first line of text.
• The rectangle moves the rest of the paragraph if there is more than one line.

To Move Bullets

To align the bullets, place the cursor at the beginning of the line.  Click on the top triangle and you’ll notice a dotted line appears all the way down the page.  Hold the mouse button down and move the triangle to the left or right and let go.  The bullet will be placed where you let go.  You can use that line to match subsequent bullets and they will all be lined up on the page.

To Move Text

The process is the same for moving text.  Place the cursor at the beginning of the line.  Click on the second triangle, hold the mouse button down, and move the text to the left or right.

To move a whole paragraph or section of a document, highlight the section and then use the rectangle to move the text.  If you use the second triangle, you’ll get a hanging indent where the first line stays where it is and the rest of the section moves to the right.

To make sure that the bullets and text align over multiple pages, click on the Print Preview button on the Toolbar at the top of your screen or go to File -> Print Preview.  There is a ruler there too that you can click on to make sure alignment is correct.

Next time, I’ll discuss your paper choice.

Warmly,

Martyn

Have lots of white space. Hiring managers don’t want to see a resume that is crammed with information. Your resume should have top, bottom, left, and right margins that are greater than 0.5”. Anything less than that will look cramped and might get your resume tossed in the circular file (garbage can).

Also leave some space between the headings to make sure that they are eye catching. The whole point of headings is to indicate a separate area of information. They need to pop out.

You know that the competition out there is fierce for jobs right now. Don’t let this simple mistake of not having enough white space eliminate you from the competition. You deserve to have that perfect job!

Next time I will be discussing bullet points.

Until then,

Martyn