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Clean it up!

After years of revisions, additions, subtractions and ‘new spins’…your resume could very well be in need of a serious makeover.  If it’s too dense, too fluffy, or too visually cluttered; your professional message is probably getting lost.  In addition to having strong and succinct content, your resume needs to be visually pleasing as well.  When a recruiter first glances at a resume, if it looks clean and to the point, they will scan it for some key words and phrases then put it in the ‘Yes’ pile and read it in greater detail later.  If it’s too busy or too dense, they will put it in the ‘No’ pile without a second thought because they have a stack of 400 more resumes that they have to get through before lunch.  Recruiters spend an average of 15 seconds on a resume before making a yes/no decision about it. Let’s make sure you end up in that ‘Yes’ pile, shall we?

• Keep it simple- Use basic fonts. Stick to Ariel or Times New Roman- something that everyone has so that your resume opens cleanly if you’re sending it as an attachment. If you want to add a little flair, use bold-face, underlines or a slightly larger point size for headings and section titles.
• Keep it black & white- Color just looks weird on a resume. Period. If you are in a creative profession you will most likely be submitting a portfolio of your work along with your resume, so let the portfolio show that you’re an artist, and let your resume show that you are a professional.  The ‘black & white’ rule extends to your choice of paper as well; use only white or a pale cream color for your paper- any other color is too obvious a ploy for attention and will land you in the ‘No’ pile.
• Keep it concise- This word should become your mantra while you’re revamping your resume;  “concise…concise…concise….” Recruiters are always inundated with resumes and it is crucial to your success that they are able to glance at yours and pick up key pieces of information without effort.  This means keep your job descriptions to about 4 sentences giving a general sense of your duties and responsibilities.  Then add three or four bullet points that describe in one sentence a quantifiable milestone. Add numbers, percentages and dollar figures wherever you can. In Sales, it’s all about the numbers!
• Keep it short- Because in this day and age people change jobs with much more frequency and thus have more to put on a resume; the two-page resume is now commonplace.  However, do not use this as license to create a three-page resume! Nobody needs that much space, unless you have extremely poor editing skills- which will surely put you in the ‘No’ pile.  If you had an extremely complicated position that requires lengthy explanation, save all that for the interview.  You want each and every word in your job descriptions to be meaningful- the recruiter doesn’t need to understand your job duties, they just need to get a sense of your breadth of responsibility and level of authority. Believe me, they will ask you for clarification if you get to the interview stage…which first requires being put in the ‘Yes’ pile.