First the good news. You do not have to be William Shakespeare
to compose a solid, well-organized, professional-looking resume. All you need
are the ability to express your ideas in proper English and an understanding of
how a resume should be organized and written.
| Being able to handle the basics of English — grammar, spelling,
punctuation, proper word usage, and so forth — has become a critical skill in
today's e-mail and facsimile-driven business environment. If you lack
confidence in your ability to use English properly, think about enrolling in
a writing workshop or community college course. Also, get the classic book The
Elements of Style, 3rd Edition, by William Strunk and E. B.
White (Allyn & Bacon, 1995). |
Now the bad news. You can forget most of the rules and
principles you were taught when you were writing reports and term papers in
high school or college. Those principles simply do not apply to resumes.
Resumes are business documents. They follow certain conventions that business
people take for granted but that most English teachers would consider
incorrect.
Following are five simple writing principles that apply
specifically to resumes. All of them should come in handy when you begin to
string words together in your resume, particularly when the time comes to
describe your work history.
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Avoid the first person pronoun
The pronoun I has no place in a resume — and for a
logical reason: Who else would you be talking about if not yourself?
Instead of this:
I demonstrated professionalism, tact, and diplomacy while I
worked with our customers in high-pressure situations.
Write this:
Demonstrated professionalism, tact, and diplomacy while
working with customers in high-pressure situations.
Instead of this:
I managed a department whose chief responsibility was to
oversee safety audits. I wrote all audit reports and conducted management
briefings.
Write this:
Managed a department whose chief responsibility was to
oversee safety audits. Wrote audit reports and conducted management briefings.
| Notice that the second version of each example begins with an action verb. Beginning most of your sentences with action verbs may not have been standard practice when you were writing term papers, but this practice is accepted and recommended in resumes. |
Keep your sentences short and don't worry about fragments
Resumes call for short, crisp statements. These statements do
not necessarily have to be complete sentences; you can frequently leave out the
articles a, an, and the.
Instead of this:
Spent three years working on major accounts, as both a lead
generator and a closer, demonstrating proven skill in organizing and managing a
territory with efficiency as well as in developing customer databases.
Write this:
Spent three years working on major accounts. Generated
leads and closed sales. Demonstrated proven skill in organizing and managing a
territory and in developing customer databases.
Instead of this:
I was involved in the creation and implementation of
statistical reports for a large metropolitan hospital, which required the use
of spreadsheet software for cost analysis and, in addition, the creation of a
database to track patient visits.
Write this:
Created and implemented statistical reports for large
metropolitan hospital. Analyzed costs with spreadsheet software. Created
database to track patient visits.
Or try a bulleted
format:
- Created and implemented statistical reports for large metropolitan hospital.
- Analyzed costs with spreadsheet software.
- Created database to track patient visits.
Use plain English
Don't be victimized by the myth that the bigger the word you
use, the more impressed the reader will be with your intelligence. Keep things
simple. Go easy on the adjectives. And be especially wary of those grammatical
constructions known as nominalizations — that is, nouns that are built
around verbs and become part of a bulky phrase that can just as easily be
expressed in a single word. See the examples in Table 1.
Table 1 Using Plain English
| Bulky Phrase | Better |
| Effected the solution of | Solved |
| Engaged in the operation of | Operated |
| Offered assistance in the facilitation of | Helped facilitate |
Use bullet statements when appropriate
You usually have a choice when you are writing your resume to
combine a series of related statements into a single paragraph or to list each
sentence in that paragraph as a separate statement, each occupying its own
line. There are pros and cons for each option, and sometimes you have to base
your decision on the amount of information you need to get across.
Bulleted information is more readable and tends to stand out
more than the same information contained within a paragraph. But bulleted
information also takes up more room. Your best bet is to combine the two.
| If you decide to express information in bulleted style, keep the bulleted
items brief and pay attention to parallelism. That is, try to make all the
items in a sequence adhere to a similar grammatical pattern. |
Examples of nonparallel
statements include
- Reconcile all statements for cardholders
- Purchases are approved
- Have experience in performing training of tellers
Examples of parallel
statements include
- Reconcile statements
- Approve purchases for Marketing department
- Train tellers
Go from general to specific
Sequence the information in a section by beginning with a
general statement and following it with more specific ones.
Instead of this:
Supervised training of seven toy-making elves. Responsible
for all toy-making and customer-related activities in Santa's workshop.
Answered customer complaints during peak season. (Note that the second of
these two sentences is more general than the first.)
Write this:
Responsible for all toy-making and customer-related
activities in Santa's workshop. Supervised training of seven toy-making elves.
Answered customer complaints during peak season.
There are certain résumé words
and phrases that have become so ubiquitous they do little more than
induce yawns and eye rolls from hiring managers. Employers are so
accustomed to hearing from "team players" and "problem solvers," for
example, that those descriptions are now essentially meaningless. To
distinguish yourself from your competitors, you'll need to cut the
clichés – or at least expand upon them with concrete details that back
up your claims.
It's
one of the most frustrating experiences any job seeker faces: After a
rigorous search, you've found a job that you're really excited about,
where you'll work on interesting things with like-minded people and in a
great location. The catch? The job requires experience, often more than
a recent college graduate has under his belt. As disheartening as this
situation is, it isn't necessarily the end of the line.
