Resumes I: 5 Basics To Formatting
After reviewing a few friend’s resumes I was pretty surprised at some of the very basic mistakes I found. Here are a few very basic things to keep in mind when writing your resume.
1. White Paper
Never ever use anything besides white paper.
2. Black Ink
Never use a color besides white on your resume. Don’t highlight in yellow or put something in red. BLACK ONLY.
3. Spell Check!
Never send a resume out without a spell check.
4. Proofread
There are a 1,000 people out there vying for the same spot you are. College admissions and HR are looking for the easiest way to cut through that stack or resumes as quickly as possible. Any typo they find is a reason to toss your resume. Do not misuse commas (as I often do on CF), periods, or use their instead of there. Make sure your spelling, sentence structure, and grammar are flawless.
Read your resume over a dozen times and have at least 2 other people do the same. Personally, I can rarely see a mistake once I have written it (which is why they make it into my posts occasionally). Your brain naturally translates typos and mistakes into the words you want to see. This can make catching typos, especially on your own writing, exceeding difficult. I had one friend who sent out his resume to dozens of employers only to realize afterwards that there was a blatant typo in one of the first lines. He did not hear back from a single one. PROOFREAD!
5. Keep It To One Page
I doubt I have any readers who have earned the right to have a resume over one page. I know a girl who had a resume that was almost 2 full pages and she hadn’t even graduated college! This is ridiculous. HR is not impressed by the length of your resume. Seeing 2 pages makes it pretty likely that it will end up in the trash without even a cursory glance. Unless you have over 10 years work experience (and probably not even then) your resume should never exceed one page.
