Resume Miscues

This may seem basic for many people but you would not believe how many bad resumes (sometimes from good people) that I receive in my job.

Please make sure you review your resume every four months.

Here are my tips.

1.

Pay attention to detail:

-It is often harder to proof read your own resume than a random proposal that one of your subordinate's has written.

Job searching often takes place when you have a job and you may not have your mind fully committed to the task at hand.

Invest the time into your resume and when you read it, read it out loud and pronounce every word as you see it on the page in order to avoid assuming all the words are in present.

2.

Be consistent. Make sure you visually assess the resume:

-Avoid wide margins on both sides of the content.

This makes a resume look very

junior in nature and makes it appear as though very little effort was made in forming the document.

-Make sure that the chronological history is consistent.

Do not have months and years for some work stints while only having years indicated for other work stints.

Do not include company descriptions for some firms but no descriptions for others.

-Make sure your resume is either 1 page in length or 2 pages in length.

NO MORE or LESS.

1.5 pages or three pages are not acceptable.

The onus is on you to pack the paper with only the best relevant information in an executive summary style.

If a CEO can do this but you cannot, that tells me something.

3.

Make sure you assess the resume for content.

-Quantitative successes are key to outline.

Every second bullet point should have a quantitative accomplishment.

Spell out your successes.

Nobody is interested in reading your various job descriptions where you may or may not have been able to meet your mandate.

4.

Do not randomly apply to any position.

Too often I hear someone say that they were given the advice to apply to anything. "Take a chance.....If you don’t shoot, you can't score... what do you have to lose?"

Well you can lose your credibility very quickly.

If you are sending your resume to a recruitment firm for a position where you are not qualified, you will be almost immediately dismissed as a relevant candidate.

No amount of tailoring will make up for lack of executive management experience or a lack of P&L experience.

It reeks of desperation and when you are perceived in this way, you will be treated like the desperate single guy at the club that is trying to meet girls.

Farewell,

Mike