Examples of Resumes

Don’t

Do

Focus on your needs.

Forget mentioning that you are hoping to work for a company that is experiencing growth, that is innovative, or any other of your job search goals. Save that for private consideration or discussion during networking.

Focus on the hiring manager’s needs.

Job search is a marketing campaign, and your potential employer (the “hiring manager”) is your customer. All your marketing materials, the most important of which is your résumé, should be based on what you know about your customer’s needs and how you can meet them.

Include an Objective.

An objective does not tell the reader much of anything and is usually oriented towards the job-seeker’s needs, not the hiring manager’s.

An exception to this could be a new entrant into the job market who does not yet have enough work experience to put together a Profile or someone who is changing professions.

Include a Profile.

A profile (or summary) is a brief paragraph describing highlights of your experience and accomplishments that demonstrate you are a good candidate for the type of job being sought.

Hide who you are.

A résumé screener who has to search through a résumé to find out what type of job you are applying / qualified for will probably ditch the résumé and move on.

Begin your Profile with your Title.

Help the reader match your résumé with the job for which you are applying by stating who you are in the first line.  Your title does not have to be one you actually held, but should represent who you are professionally as well as the type of job you are seeking. Make sure it is generic enough to be clearly understood.

An exception to this would be someone who is changing professions, such that their current title does not match the title to which they aspire.  In this case, consider using the Objective, described above.

Have too few pages.

It is more important that your résumé provides a good snapshot of your qualifications, than that it fit on one page. 

Aim for two pages.

Two pages is the most commonly seen length in good examples of résumés. Exceptions would be for those early in their career or who have held the same job for most of their career (fewer pages), and those with many relevant accomplishments, technical skills, publications or patents (more pages).

Activity based.

A common practice is to simply describe your past job responsibilities, which does not tell the reader how well you fulfilled them or what contributions you made.

Accomplishment based.

Telling the reader about relevant accomplishments and their results shows that you can make similar contributions for them.

Include irrelevant facts.

Don’t fill your résumé with everything you have ever done. It will increase the probability that the reader will be unwilling to wade through to find relevant facts.

Make every word count.

As you consider whether to include something, ask yourself what the statement says about you. Include only those things that give evidence of your qualifications for the job.

Very old jobs.

Although age discrimination is illegal, many employers unconsciously or consciously engage in it. Most experience prior to the last 20 years is not very relevant, anyway.

Find a creative way to include older but important skills and accomplishments.  Consider including a separate section of “Other Relevant Information” that is not associated with a specific job.

Include personal information.

Do not include marital status, age, birth date, gender, nationality, race, ethnicity, etc. These are problematic for employers in the U.S. because they indicate information that is not allowed to influence employment. 

Include relevant information about activities outside of work, such as volunteer work, appointments, professional organizations, etc. if they show or reinforce job qualifications not shown elsewhere.

Be dishonest.

Aside from moral considerations, it is simply not worth the risk to include inaccurate information in your résumé.  Even if you get the job, you could be dismissed later.

Put yourself in the best light.

Use strong wording, accomplishments, results, performance reviews and any other information to show yourself truthfully but to your best advantage.

Write a different résumé for each job.

Unless you are applying to different types of jobs where you would want to spotlight different qualifications, it should not be necessary to have multiple résumé versions.

Write a different cover letter for each job.

The cover letter is where you highlight your specific qualifications that match the specific requirements advertised for a specific job.

Use multiple tenses.

Use past tense throughout.  Accomplishment statements should begin with an action word in the past tense.

Write complete sentences.  This just clutters up the résumé.

Use grammatically correct, correctly spelled phrases.

Use weak, passive wording.

Use powerful action words.  Find action-oriented words that convey the highest level of responsibility that you can claim for your contributions.

Crowd the text.

Reading through a solid wall of text can be daunting, and many résumé screeners will simply toss it if they cannot quickly see the information they need.

Use plenty of white space.

Put space between sections and paragraphs so the eye can rest easily on the page.

Ignore formatting.

As above, lack of formatting can make it difficult for the reader to quickly see the information they seek.

Use formatting to organize the information.  Use bolding, bullet points, lines, underlining, capital letters, titles and other formatting to make it easy to quickly see the different sections of the résumé.

Be modest.

In most areas of life modesty is a virtue, but in job search it will not help a hiring manager see your qualifications.

Be confident.

Focus on the contributions you have made in past jobs, your strengths, skills, knowledge and character traits that will be valued by your next employer.