So you have decided to look for the next great career opportunity. First step in looking for work, putting together your resume. Here are some helpful “Dos and Don’ts” when putting together your resume.
The Dos:
- Do Provide Contact Information – Your name, your home city and province, one phone number, and an email. Due to privacy issues, you no longer need to provide your home street address. Pick a phone number where you are easily reached and can respond to voicemails.
- Do Create a Brief Summary of You – The first section of any resume should be a brief explanation of you. The role you want to have, the industry experience, sizes of the team you have managed, etc. This is an introduction that compels the reader to read the rest of the resume.
- Do List Your Jobs in Reverse Chronicle Order – With dates (month and year), always list you past jobs with the most current first.
- Do Use Bullet Points rather than Paragraphs – Bullet points make the resume more attractive and easier to read. Each point should be a brief but impactful. The use of verbs at the beginning of each point helps in concise. No more than five points in each section.
- Do Provide Numbers whenever Possible – Numbers quantify your successes. Number of people you managed, size of the project in dollars, increases in sales, etc.
- Do Place Your Education after Your Past Positions – If you have been in the workforce for more than five years, the list of past positions is listed first, then your education.
- Do Check your digital footprint – Insure that nothing embarrassing and unprofessional can be found by a simple google search. Your LinkedIn profile should reflect your resume.
The Don’ts:
- Don’t use “I”, “me”, “my” – Never use personal pronouns on a resume.
- Don’t Use Funny or Controversial Email Address – The resume is a professional representation of who you are. Don’t jeopardize that by using cutekitten@domain.com. There are a lot of free email accounts, get one that isn’t cute, funny or controversial.
- Don’t Put Your High School on your Resume – If you have any college / post-secondary education, your high school degree is no longer relevant.
- Don’t make any grammatical errors – Any grammatical or typos send a negative impression, especially if you indicate that you are detailed oriented.
- Don’t include personal information – Any information of a personal nature, such as height, weight, race, religious beliefs, date of birth, place of birth, marital status, gender, or even a photo of yourself should never appear on the resume.
- Don’t leave off dates – You should always include dates on your resume. Month and year are suitable enough. The omission gives the appearance you are hiding something.
Good luck with your job search.