By Jerry Grohovsky
Copyright 2016. JPG & Associates, Inc.
Often one of the biggest misconceptions about having a resume is that it is adequate “as is.” Resume ownership might be viewed at as a continual process of review and improvement. Some of the more important reasons for doing so include:
- Change of employment status.
- Change of personal contact information.
- Correct any embarrassing typos and sentence structure errors.
- Rethink the resume model that works best: chronological or functional; the model you choose depends on your past, and what objectives you have for the future. NOTE: You may find it necessary to either customize your resume to fit a specific job posting, or have several versions prepared ahead of time that can be used for several different communication specialties.
- Emphasize the most recent entries, and de-emphasize the more distant past ones.
- Keep the resume to a two-page maximum (this is optimum, but not always possible).
- Make sure the formatting is appealing and facilitates an “easy read.”
- Keep an “eye” and “ear” to the marketplace. In other words: Are there new tool demands and trends that should prompt one to change the order of a list, or emphasize a particular recent experience at a direct-hire job or contract job.
- Limit fonts to one or two (maximum); for example, Times Roman is preferred for body text, and Ariel or Helvetica for heads/subheads.
- Select a commonly accepted authoring program with which to develop the resume (i.e., MS Word).
- Use bulleted lists where possible; avoid long paragraphs.
- Optional bolding for headings; italics or underline for emphasis and attention. Do not bold with underline or italicize with bold (as this is over-doing it).
- Avoid using all caps for words or sentences, unless it is abbreviation or acronym.
Your resume should never be considered “good enough”. Always read and re-read. It is surprising what you may find.