The challenge of coming up with a stellar representation of your career to impress a potential employer may have you searching for effective resume ideas. It can be tempting to simply throw all of your job history, hobbies, and accomplishments on a page and submit it; after all that way a potential employer will know everything there is to know about you. Well, you couldn’t be more wrong. You don’t want a potential employer to know everything there is to know in the 30 seconds or so that your resume has his attention.
To create an effective resume here are a few ideas that may help you:
• Make a potential employer want to know more by offering basic information about your previous jobs, and include information about accomplishments without going into great detail.
• Use professional jargon that is common to your field of work, this shows that you do have knowledge and experience within the field. Sure a fast food manager isn’t going to understand scientific jargon, but if you are staying within the same field, then make sure a potential employer knows that you have what it takes.
• Leave out personal information about hobbies or sports unless they relate to the job you are seeking. For example if you are looking to become a football coach, then your years in high school and college on a winning team is going to be helpful, but if you are applying to be a secretary, your hobby of knitting sweaters doesn’t matter.
• Keep it short. Most potential employers skim over a resume and decide within 30 seconds whether they are interested in interviewing you. If you include only pertinent information to help them make this decision you can provide the rest of the details when you have your interview.
• Sell yourself. Make sure that a potential employer can easily see your skills, knowledge and achievements in your career. Even if this is your first resume for your first job you can include your achievements and goals.
• Cut out the fluff. Your resume should be succinct, to the point and professional. While the idea is to sell yourself, this isn’t an advertising campaign, avoid the prose and over the top gimmickry and just present the facts.
• Be honest. If you have never worked in this field before and are looking to make changes then make that clear to the potential employer. Don’t fake knowledge or experience, it all comes out in the end and can ruin your credibility.
With these tips, you can greatly improve the overall impact that your resume has on the reader. This could end up as the deciding factor between getting or not getting the job. An effective resume is a combination of several different things, and while each potential employer may be looking for something different, a well thought out and put together resume will always stand out from the crowd. Take your time, proofread, and even show your resume to a friend or family member for proofreading and input before you submit it.