How to Write a Resume

When it comes to how to write a resume, everyone has an opinion. I'm sure you've heard conflicting advice along the way.

Decisions...Decisions...Decisions

Should you include an objective statement, or would a summary of your skills be more effective? How should you display your experience? What format works best and why? Where should your academic credentials be shown - at the beginning or at the end of your resume?

What about the gaps in your employment background?

And, don't forget about presentation - font selection, white space, use of bold and italics...these things matter when you need to stand out from the crowd! How to Write a Resume will take the mystery out of writing a resume that works!

The Top-Sales-Jobs.com Difference

Top-sales-jobs.com will show you the way to winning the interview...and winning the job. Writing a winning resume is part art - and part science. We'll show you how to package your experience in the most favorable light. We'll do our best to simplify the process but still finish with a resume that will get you noticed. Let's get started!

Format Choices

You basically have three choices when you write a resume.

Chronological Resume

You can build a chronological resume - write a resume that moves through your experience from your most recent employer back through your early career.

Functional Resume

Or, you can choose a functional resume - write a resume that showcases your skills and abilities. Functional resumes are designed to convince your prospective employer that your functional skills are transferable from one industry to another. Is my bias showing??

Combination of Chronological/Functional Resume

You might find people who advocate a hybrid of these two choices. But in all honesty, I've never met a recruiting professional - either an internal HR recruiter or an external search consultant - who has time for a functional resume.

To get noticed by hiring managers, write a resume in chronological format! That's what we'll be focusing on in this section.

A chronological resume allows the hiring manager to see clearly who you've worked for - and for how long (job hoppers are quickly unmasked!) - and at what level you've performed. Armed with this format direction, we're ready to begin! Let's write a resume!

Resume Objective...or Summary Statement

I have some definite advice to give you here, but keep in mind that there is no right answer. Ultimately, you need to choose a solution that's best for your personal situation. That being said, I advise my candidates to forego an Objective statement and opt instead for a Summary of their relevant skills. I do this for a couple of reasons...

The Problem with an Objective

Objectives can really only fall into one of two categories - generic, so no one can argue with it; or narrowly defined, which limits your options in a job search.

1. An objective that's very generic (e.g. ...a position in a company offering growth opportunity based on performance) does not add anything of substance to your credentials. This falls into the NCR category - there is No Compelling Reason to talk to you, based on such a weak statement.

2. An objective must be specifically tailored to each opportunity you're applying to. If you fail to customize each resume submission, you run the risk of landing in the "NO" pile. If my opportunity is for a senior sales professional, but it's an individual contributor role - and your objective is sales management...we're back to NCR - I have No Compelling Reason to speak with you.

3. You can't always tell from a job advertisement, or a networking contact, what the real scope of the role is. Even if you want to customize your objective, you might not have all the information. Guess incorrectly...and we're in NCR territory again.

The Case for Summary Statements

Write a resume with a Summary statement. My clear preference is to develop a strong summary statement, followed by a bullet point list of key skills and abilities. While this doesn't eliminate the need to tailor your response, there is considerably less risk in taking this approach.

Your Summary statement should be 3-4 sentences long. This is essentially your "elevator speech" - what you want your prospective employer to know about you above all else...a summary of your key experience and abilities, sharpened to a couple of sentences. Don't think you can do this?? Here's an example:

Seasoned solutions based sales professional with experience calling at the C-level in Fortune 500 accounts. Outstanding relationship building skills and strong rolodex have led to an award winning sales track record, with a history of exceeding multi-million dollar quotas.

Follow this statement with some bullet points that showcase your strengths, and you're good to go. Need some ideas on strengths to include? Click here to order a copy of our Resume Tool Kit - you'll find some helpful suggestions to spark your creativity!

While we're talking about your Summary Statement first, my recommendation is to tackle this section of your resume last! As you work through your accomplishments in the next section, you'll develop some good ideas for your Summary.

Professional Experience

When you write a resume, keep in mind that hiring managers and recruiters want to see your professional experience in reverse chronological order - that means, starting with your most recent experience and working back to your earliest positions. I like to see Professional Experience presented as follows:

• Company
• Location
• Dates of Employment
• Title
• Brief Description of what the company does, including a scope statement (i.e. revenue size, number of employees, locations, etc.)

In the real world, this would look something like this:

You'll repeat this pattern for each company you've been affiliated with and for each position held.

A word about dates of employment...when you write a resume, include years only. Month/year formats require more explanations around gaps in employment experience. You'll see me suggest elsewhere on this site that hiring managers should drill down on dates to find out about any gaps in employment. That's advice for the other side of the desk.

Remember - your resume is designed to screen you out, not in. Obvious gaps - the kind that show up with a month/year format - will screen you out early in the process. By presenting years only when you write a resume, you've got a better shot at making the first cut, which is our real objective!

Key Responsibilities and Accomplishments

Write a resume that highlights your significant accomplishments in each position you've held. An accomplishment should be included if it provides a good example of the scope of your work effort and authority. Think strong action verbs and metrics as you put this section together.

Our comprehensive Resume Tool Kit provides a long list of suggested action verbs for your consideration!

As you're building your list of accomplishments, include as many as you can think of for each position you've held. You'll eventually need to edit this list, but brainstorming now can help you draft a top notch document - and help to prepare you for upcoming interviews.

The more specific you can be around metrics, the more successful you'll be in getting interviews.

Once you've gone through each position and identified accomplishments, it's time to edit. Look at your accomplishments for each role and put them in order from the most impressive to least impressive.

Write a resume that balances your accomplishments against your functional responsibilities - making sure that you have an accomplishment for your most significant responsibilities. There will be trade offs in this process. Your objective is to end up with a document that reinforces your key strengths.

You'll want to write a resume that includes more detail for your most current positions, and a little less detail for positions held early in your career.

Speaking of your early career...

As a recruiter, when I see a resume start with a Manager/Director level job, it's a red flag telling me that there's more to this person's background than what appears on the resume. My advice? Write a resume that lists early positions as one line entries, with company, title and dates of employment, or include a section titled "Early Career" and a one-two sentence narrative that summarizes your experience. For example:

ABC Manufacturing, Canton, Ohio, Sales Representative 1980-1983
XYZ Engineering, Akron, Ohio, Inside Sales Representative 1978-1980

Or...

Early Career (1978-1983)
Series of increasingly responsible sales and sales management positions in the electronics and plastics industries.

Academic Credentials

Unless you are just entering the workforce and have little experience to talk about, write a resume with academic credentials appearing after your work experience. If you've attended an Ivy League school, you might mention this in your Summary (e.g. Wharton MBA with 10 years of finance experience...), but generally speaking, you want to include your academic experience towards the end of your document.

List your highest degree first, followed by your undergraduate experience. Include in your citation the degree conferred, your academic major and the school you attended. Dates are not necessary, and in general, should be left off. Include any academic honors or awards in this section.

Write a Resume that's Honest!
Do not lie about your academic credentials!!

Do not misrepresent or include shades of grey when you document your educational record. This is the number one area of resume fraud employers are faced with today. If you are caught - and it's likely you will be - you will be terminated. Most employers verify academic credentials.

As a recruiter, I verify academic credentials. There's nothing more distressing than to get to the employment alter - employer wants to make you an offer and you want to accept - only to find out that the MBA on your resume is a figment of your imagination.

I check these credentials as candidates are moving into a second round interview process. And, I can always smell trouble!

When I mention that I'll be verifying academic credentials, candidates who have lied will often just drop out of the process - stop returning my phone calls. Or, they offer to send me a copy of their diploma...news flash...fraudulent diplomas are readily available on the internet.

I need to verify credentials directly with the institution or their authorized representative (National Student Clearing House, DegreeCheck, etc.). It's nice that you can send me a transcript; but I still need to verify directly.

Professional Associations/Community Involvement

In this final section of your resume, include only those organizations in which you are currently active, unless you've held a leadership position worth mentioning. I don't really care that you belonged to a trade association in the early 80's, when it's 2006. Avoid mentioning political and religious affiliations - you don't want to be screened out because of someone else's bias.

Personal Information

Pretty simple...when you write a resume, it's inappropriate to include any personal information. I don't want to know how old you are, how many children you have, what your health status is, what your marital status is - or how much you weigh! And for heavens sake, don't include your social security number anywhere on your resume (yes, I've seen people do this - honestly!). I also don't want to see your picture. All of these personal data points tread in the murky waters of what prospective employers are legally entitled to know. Don't go there.

If you want to let me know that you like to play golf, ski or have other hobbies, I won't object - but I'm not going to decide to interview you because of your extra curricular activities. Adding another accomplishment to your professional experience would be a better use of the limited space a two page document affords!

Resume Do's and Don'ts

Are you getting the sense that building a resume is hard work? Well, it is - especially with so much riding on the final outcome. To keep you out of trouble, and on the road to success, our Resume Tool Kit offers a checklist of Resume Do's and Don'ts. Follow these guidelines and you'll write a resume that's one step closer to getting you the interview - and getting the job!   [Back to Previous page]

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