Resume: An Overview

A resume is a formal document that a job applicant creates to itemize their

qualifications for a position. A resume is usually accompanied by a
customized cover letter in which the applicant expresses an interest in a
specific job or company and draws attention to the most relevant specifics on
the resume.

American job coaches insist that a resume should be only one or two pages
in length. British job applicants traditionally are expected to produce a
somewhat more detailed document, called a CV (curriculum vitae).

How Long Should My Resume Be?

Understanding the Resume

A resume is almost always required for applicants to office jobs. They are the
first step taken by corporate recruiters and hiring managers to identify
candidates who might be invited to interview for a position.

Successful resumes highlight specific accomplishments applicants have

achieved in former positions, such as cutting costs, transcending sales goals,
increasing profits, and building out teams. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

 Resumes are now sent by email, not snail mail.

 The traditional one- to two-page limit stands, but nothing prevents you
from attaching a brief video introduction or other illustration if it is
relevant and enhances your presentation.
 It's smart to rewrite your resume to tailor it to a specific job you're
seeking.
The most determined applicants rewrite their resumes to suit the occasion,
concentrating on skills and experience that fit the job for which they're
applying.

There are many formats for resumes, with many variations for particular
professions such as investment banking and the fashion trade.

Whatever the format, most resumes include a brief summary of skills and
experience, followed by a bullet list of previous jobs in reverse chronological
order and a list of degrees earned. A final section might be added to highlight
specific skills, such as fluency in a foreign language, knowledge of computer
languages, professionally useful hobbies, professional affiliations, and any
honors achieved.
Brevity, a clean layout, and succinct language all are prized. People who
have to sort through hundreds of resumes have short attention spans.

Resume Trouble Spots

Recruiters examine job histories for significant employment gaps or a pattern

of job-hopping. Be prepared to explain either, in a cover letter or in an
interview. An applicant with a history of shortlived jobs might consider
omitting a few of the oldest ones, especially if they aren't relevant to the
current job opening.

For example, if you spent years working behind a counter in food service,
then went back to school to earn physical therapy credentials, forget some of
those early jobs in food service. Flesh out the sections that report your skills,
training, and experience in the field that's now your specialty. You can
mention those other jobs in the interview while explaining what a reliable
professional you are.

The past can be particularly dangerous for applicants to new technology

companies seeking to assemble cutting-edge teams. Legacy skills may imply
obsolescence. The most powerful resumes underline how an applicant can
thrive in the job that's open right now.

Changing Times for Resumes

It goes without saying that resumes these days are delivered as email
attachments, not printed out and mailed.

Although the two-page maximum still stands, many applicants use the web to
the max when it comes to attachments. Video introductions, charts, graphs,
and other illustrations can make you stand out, as long as they're relevant
and slickly made.

The Resume Heading

The heading on the resume should include not only your name, email
address, and mobile phone number but your address on LinkedIn or another
professional community and the address of your website or blog if you have
one.

Be aware that any hiring manager will, as a matter of course, enter your
name in the Google search field. Do a search on your own and see if you can
optimize your own results or at least decently bury any youthful faux pas.

Resume Scanning & Keyword Resumes

Question:
What is Resume Scanning?

Answer:
Resume scanning is a process where employers convert hardcopy resumes into
electronic resumes. Basically instead of a human reading the resume, the resume is
first input into the company’s computer database via a scanner. Scanning has some
inherent problems due to the non-human element and is therefore not used
extensively. If done at all, it is mainly done at Fortune 100 and possibly Fortune 500
companies. Wondering if the job you are applying to scans resumes? Call the
Human Resources department and ask. As the job of HR is to find candidates, they
will be welcome to the question and outline the process that their company employs
for resume screening.

For additional help, visit our resume writing tips section to insure your resume is best
positioned if scanned into an electronic database. Note that most databases are
looking for keywords in your resume, if you do not include them, your resume will
most likely be disregarded. We have a list of resume power verbs on the site. If
you’re still in the process of writing a resume, visit our resume examples section for
sample format and layout options. Still need help, consider using a resume
builder or professional resume service.

Computer Scanning of Resumes

Print

One of comic Steven Wright’s jokes provides a nice little lesson in irony: "I used to work in a
fire hydrant factory. You couldn’t park anywhere near the place." Similarly, our work lives
are rich in irony: Just as technology has enabled any one of us to build a resume that is
stunning in appearance, blaring bells and whistles, the irony is that technology now also
sometimes requires us to create resumes virtually stripped of form and dazzle. Companies,
especially large ones, occasionally require job candidates to submit a "scannable resume"—
that is, a resume written so that a scanner, using optical character recognition software, can
code your resume into a database. Once in the database, the resume can be selected for
the later viewing by human eyes (yes, irony emerges again) based on the number of "hits."

Presumably, if a company is scanning your resume it will typically announce that fact and
give you guidelines for writing and submitting it. If there is any doubt, you could always
phone, e-mail, or visit a company’s website to determine if the company scans resumes.
Frankly, computer scanning of resumes was much more popular in the 1990s and has
waned in the years that followed, so you may never need to be concerned about the issue.
However, if you do need to prepare a scannable resume, you must school yourself in
matters of format, content, and method of delivery.

Matters of Form
 To curb potential problems of pattern recognition, avoid horizontal and vertical
lines, bullets, boldface, italics, and underscoring.
  Use common publishable-quality fonts such as Times, Helvetica, and Century.
 Use a minimum of indentations, perhaps simply formatting all new lines at the
left margin. Use the paragraph form to list information rather than the table
form.
 Keep the font size conventional—between 10 and 12.
Content of the Scannable Resume
 Under your name and address, provide a paragraph of "Skill Keywords" designed
to earn "hits" from the scanner. Build this paragraph from your background and
the job ad.
 Aside from the keywords section, provide the same material you would in a print
resume.
 Use jargon and keywords throughout freely, but avoid abbreviations and
acronyms—they may be too specialized to be recognized.
 To maximize "hits," favor nouns over verbs—"operator" rather than "operated."
Delivering the Scannable Resume
 Avoid delivering a scannable resume by e-mail or fax unless specifically
requested to do so; mail an original, unfolded.
 When applying to a large company, consider sending both a print version and a
scannable version of your resume along with a cover letter, which identifies them
as such.