Sheens Image Consulting

How To Create A Rockin’ Resume

Have you seen the amazing one-page resume of Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer? Are you inspired and would like to create one as good? Here are 5 tips that will get you started!

1. NEVER DO A ‘ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL’ RESUME

Employers want you to write a resume specifically for them. They expect you to clearly show how and why you fit the position in a specific organization.

  • Don’t list everything on the resume

Your resume should not have every work experience you’ve ever had listed on it. Think of your resume not as a comprehensive list of your career history, but as a marketing document selling you as the perfect person for the job. For each resume you send out, you’ll want to highlight only the accomplishments and skills that are most relevant to the job at hand (even if that means you don’t include all of your experience).

  • Keep a master list of all jobs/education

Since you’ll want to be swapping different information in and out depending on the job you’re applying to, keep a resume master list on your computer where you keep any information you’ve ever included on a resume: old positions, bullet points tailored for different applications, special projects that only sometimes make sense to include. Then, when you’re crafting each resume, it’s just a matter of cutting and pasting relevant information together.

2. AN APPEALING CAREER OBJECTIVE/SELF-SUMMARY

Hiring managers are pretty busy people – they have look at countless of resumes and job applications day in day out, if your resume doesn’t impress them from the get-go, there’s a high chance it’ll end up in “Rejected” or “Trash”. Having a small summary or career objective right at the top to talk about who you are and why you’re the one they’ve been looking for. Career objectives usually work only if you’re applying for a job out of the industry you were previously in. Any other job applications, an engaging self-summary would work perfectly (of course being tweaked to cater to each company you’re applying for).

3. HIGHLIGHT ACCOMPLISHMENTS, NOT SO MUCH ON THE DUTIES

Hiring managers do not want to know your job duties day in and out. Eg: Compiling spreadsheets and analyzing reports. They want to know what’ve you accomplished through these duties. Write the impact or the result of those actions. For example: “Increased office efficiency by providing accurate and timely file management.” or “Enabled upper level to make strategic decisions by providing accurate weekly status reports.”

4. ERRORS – GRAMMATICAL, TYPO, GENERIC

Your resume needs to be grammatically perfect. If it isn’t, employers will read between the lines and draw not-so-flattering conclusions about you, like: “This person can’t write,” or “This person obviously doesn’t care.” Double-check even the most minute, taken-for-granted details(such as address and contact information — sooner rather than later.

5. WONDERS OF A COVER LETTER

Some hiring managers care if you have one, some don’t. Some hiring managers won’t bother looking at your resume at all if they don’t like your cover letter. So to play it safe, write a cover letter every time – unless the job description specifies not to include one. Now the next question you would ask is “How do I write a cover letter?” Simply put, you’ll need to include four paragraphs: introduction, conclusion, and two middle paragraphs.The first middle paragraph should answer: Why you? Why are you right for this job? The second middle paragraph should answer: Why them? Why do you want to work for that company specifically?