Resumes II: Do’s and Don’ts
Before getting onto this article you should consider reading Resumes I: Basic Formatting. This covers the essentials.
This is a link to a page of resumes of some young professionals. Their resumes have been prepared for the financial world and are formatted about as well as they can be formatted. You should be able to take virtually any of them as a great template for your resume.
When writing a resume there are a few important things to keep in mind. The most important thing is to understand who is going to be looking at your resume and the process they take to decide who to interview.
The first person who will see your resume (at least in large companies) is the HR department. The HR department goes through thousands of resumes every year for many positions. Speed is key. When a batch of resumes is evaluated for the first time, the reader needs to make split decisions about who keep or throw away. They are unlikely to spend more than a minute on any given resume and during high season you are lucky to get 30 seconds. This means your resume needs to be very clean, clear, and easy to read. If the reader finds it difficult to scan for pertinent information they are likely to just throw it away.
So lets talk about the specifics of formatting. Your resume should go roughly in the following order:
1. Name - This also includes your contact info.
2. Education Information
3. Work Experience
4. Involvement
5. Personal
I am a strong believer of separating each section with a line as you can see on the sample resumes. This makes each resume easier to read and immediately pulls the eyes to each relevant section.
