The ‘Perfect Resume’ Checklist
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Sept. 10, 2022, 8 a.m.
The ‘Perfect Resume’ Checklist
Resume writing and editing can be stressful and time consuming. If you have a long work history, it can be difficult to remember all your important career moves and achievements; if you have little to no relevant work history, it can be a struggle to really identify what it is that would make you a qualified candidate.
Cleaning up your current resume or starting the resume writing process from scratch? Here are five things you must keep in mind:
Number One: Your Personal Information
One of the worst reasons for a missed job opportunity would be when the hiring manager or recruiter cannot get a hold of the candidate. There is never a need to disclose your family or marital status, nationality or religion on a resume, however, your basic personal details need to be easy to find and up to date.
- Name
- Phone number(s)
- City of residence
- Email address
- Portfolio or relevant blog
- Language(s) spoken
The best resumes have an easy-to-see biography section, but never include any sensitive information.
Number Two: A Headline
Your resume can be easily dismissed by agencies, hiring managers or human resource staff in the very early stages of recruiting for one simple reason: missing an intriguing headline. A headline on your resume is an introduction to yourself as well as your professional background. It should make the reader want to continue down the page.
Examples of brief, attention-grabbing resume headlines:
- 25-Year Psychology Professor with 15 Published Works
- Award-Winning Professional Marketer with Programmatic Campaign Management Experience
- Goal-Oriented Hospitality Manager in Downtown Chicago for Over 10 Years
- Senior Sales Executive with expertise in National Brand Management
- Trilingual Travel Guide with Specialization in Local Affairs
Number Three: Education and Experience
All recruiters will tell you the first thing to avoid when hitting the job market and searching for a new position is blanketing your submission resume. What this means is a candidate who is looking to be hired by a company sends that organization a resume before actively tailoring their listed qualifications to that specific job posting. Listing irrelevant experience or not properly explaining career relevancy is a major red flag.
You can tailor your resume to the open position by asking yourself the following questions:
- Why are you applying to this job?
- What are the top objectives they have listed for the role?
- How do your past work and education experiences apply to these objectives?
- What are the top qualities they are looking for in a candidate?
- How do your past work and education experiences apply to these qualities?
- What are three things you achieved in your last roles?
- How did those three things impact the organization?
- How did those three things impact your personal career?
- Are there any personal skills you have acquired and mastered that also suit the open position?
Number Four: Formatting and Flow
The dreaded mishap of a formatting error in Microsoft Word or Google Docs is something that must be avoided in a final draft of your resume submission. Your resume is often the company’s first impression with you as a candidate so it much be perfected and polished.
- Margin errors
- Inconsistent type fonts and sizes
- Font colors that are hard to read
- Jumping around in your professional timeline
- Inconsistent design choices
Number Five: Grammar
“Bad grammar reflects poorly on your credibility” (Unknown Source) Obviously, resumes submitted with a multitude of spelling errors, missing punctuation or syntax mistakes can tell a hiring manager, team member or recruiter this candidate is sloppy and a poor communicator. For this reason, you must never forget to check your spelling and punctuation before submitting your resume for review.
What you should look out for:
- Written in the first person (I, me, my)
- Missing periods or commas
- Adding apostrophes where they don’t belong
- Mistaken synonyms (their, there, they’re)
- Obvious spelling errors
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