What Your Resume Says About You

Your resume is the first thing that potential employers will see. Do not overlook the opportunity that this gives you to outshine other candidates.

In any market employers often have too many resumes for any one job posting. This means that they must wade through many pieces of paper in order to narrow their choices for interview prospects. Unfortunately, this also may mean that you were potential employer will read the first couple of lines and scan the rest in an effort to get as much information as quickly as possible.

Many employers do this because the majority of resumes which cross their desk are not impressive. Resumes often come poorly formatted, full of grammatical errors and resplendent with spelling errors.

While many people believe that a resume is a chronological listing of your employment history and your accomplishments, it is instead a sales brochure. And the product is you. Imagine going door to door selling your ability to do professional lawncare without leaving any documentation with the homeowner.

Now imagine that the homeowners in this neighborhood receive three sales calls every day for a week from people just like you who believe they can provide them with the best possible lawn. By the end of the week the homeowners will not be able to remember each individual salesperson, or the specific products that the lawn care professionals said they could provide to improve the lawns. They will, instead, rely on the sales brochures left behind.

Potential employers do the same thing. They have not met you yet and must rely on the documentation that you send in to shine for you. So what does your resume say about you?

This is a question that you must ask yourself before pressing "send" when emailing your resume. And each individual job presents you a unique opportunity to develop a resume that is best suited for the job to which you are applying. For instance, if you are applying for a position as an ad copywriter then your prose and ability to pull together wording is most important. Your resume should be able to settle your potential employer on your abilities and your creativity. If you are applying as a graphic artists your resume should reflect not only positions held but also your ability to format your resume in a pleasing way.

Every resume should help you to sound intelligence or qualified and not end up confusing your reader. In other words use verbiage that is common to the field but will not require your reader to use a dictionary to interpret your meaning. Avoid buzzwords that are unnecessary or overused and abused.

Take a long look through objective eyes at the resume that you produce. Better yet have a trusted friend who will be honest with you evaluate your resume and give you their first impressions about the person behind the document. After all, that will be exactly what your potential employer will be doing. They will be making a judgment about the person behind the resume.

Presented by Trish King
You can also find Trish at www.trishking.com or http://blog.stayathomebizreview.com