Saturday, April 4, 2009

Revising Your Resume

Writing a resume is a way for you to showcase yourself to a company that you are applying to work for. Because your experiences and skills are most likely changing on a regular basis it is a good idea to update your resume on a quite regular basis.

Resumes should be easy to read and easy to navigate. The more current you make your document, the more a potential employer will be able to see exactly what they need to know about you.

When thinking in terms of the look of your resume, you should make sure that the font, style and format is simple, but at the same time catches the eye. An employer who is going through a stack of resumes is going to be more inclined to read the one that is aesthetically appealing and that draws the eye towards the most important features. Your name should be one of the main focal points of your resume.

Putting your name in a font that catches the eye and stands out will ensure that the employer will remember it. You should also tie the font of your name in with other main objectives of your document. An element of style that repeats itself almost guarantees that it will be focused on, and thus remembered. Also remember though that this does not mean to use fonts that are outlandish, keep them professional and simple, yet appealing.

The header should consist of your full name and contact information, including email address, home address and telephone number. Making sure that this part of your header is very visible will ensure that you are remembered.

The next thing that you should worry about is your objective statement. The statement usually falls at the beginning of the document and gives a quick sentence synopsis of what type of individual you are and what type of position you are seeking. When updating a resume you should always try to change your objective statement. You aren't always going to want the same thing so you should put exactly what you are looking for in this statement.

One of the best things to remember when updating your resume is how to format your employment history. Many job-seekers think that they should have their jobs listed in order of most current to least current under experience, this is incorrect. The way that jobs should be listed, in the experience and job-history section, is from most relevant to least relevant.

If you are applying for a job at a marketing agency as a marketing agent of some sort and your last job was working as a dog walker, you may not want to list that first. When an employer is looking at your employment history you want the very first thing that they see in this category to be work that has prepared you for the job that you are applying for, and each job after that should be put in that order of relevancy. If you have some jobs that aren't relevant at all, it is sometimes ok to just leave those off of the document completely. Remember, no employer wants to see clutter.

Some other details to keep in mind are to list your skills and training that can help you with the position you are applying for and to try to keep your resume to one page. If an employer is only looking at your document for less than a few seconds, you want them to be able to soak in all the information that their eye can catch; hence why it should stick to one page, if possible.

Kathleen Whitlow is a copywriter and marketing agent of The Charis Group. The executive recruiting agency provides executive headhunter services throughout the nation. For more information on their Executive Recruiting Agency please visit their website.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kathleen_Whitlow

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