A RESUME’S PURPOSE

A resume should clearly define your experience and accomplishments. It provides a hiring manager with the justification to schedule an interview with you. If you are currently looking for your next opportunity, it’s critical to keep your resume as up to date as possible to best represent your skills and accomplishments.

RELEVANT EXPERIENCE & RESUME LENGTH GUIDELINES

Your resume should date back no further than 10 years and should typically not exceed 4 pages. Below is a general guideline as a rule of thumb.

THE 10 SECOND RULE

A hiring manager will typically glance at your resume for a maximum of 10 seconds before deciding whether or not there is a match between your background and the position available. Make those 10 seconds count! In this case the devil is in the details – misspellings, formatting, missing information, incorrect grammar, talking in the first person, etc. can negatively impact your chances of securing an interview.

Key pieces of information to include: month and year for the start and end dates for each role to give a clear timeline of your professional background, internal promotions, and locations of each position.

THE “ACES” FORMAT

CUT THE FLUFF

Hiring managers would prefer to read a resume that is concise and uses made, saved, and achieved moments to exemplify their performance and measurements.

• Made – developed processes, created metrics, created the new hire manual, etc.
• Saved – how much time or money did you save the company? Did you reduce headcount? Did you streamline or automate a process?
• Achieved – did your actions result in increased revenue, increased market share, decreased attrition, etc.? Did you win any awards?

POLISH YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA

Your social media profiles are like the cover to your book – they should be clean and represent you as a person and potential employee. If you wouldn’t want your coworkers or manager seeing your content, don’t post it. It is becoming more common for employers to screen social media profiles as a step of the hiring process. Googling yourself is an easy way to find out if there is any negative content out there for you to clean up or accounts that need to be set to private.

LinkedIn is a great platform to showcase your interests and skills that is purely professional. Once your LinkedIn is created – follow publications and influencers in your industry, get a professional headshot, and join professional groups. Hiring managers will view your LinkedIn as the digital representation of your resume. Make sure it represents you as a professional.