Resume writing: How to get started

Career Hub, a blog written by a consortium of resume/career counseling professionals, is one of the top blogs out there in this field. I have relied on the site's information heavily during my own job searches, and I recommend the group's free e-books to all of my resume clients.

Billie Sucher, a career transition consultant, recently wrote a Career Hub post that sums up what you need to do before you write a resume -- and it has nothing to do with making a list of the places you've worked. Every word she writes here is pure gold!

Whether you're writing a resume yourself or you plan to work with a resume writer, you need to read this post and answer Billie's questions before you can begin. The five questions are:

1. What is my purpose for doing a professional resume?
2. What are my top job targets or goals?
3. What is the brand message I wish to deliver to my reader?
4. What conclusion(s) do I intentionally want my readers to draw after reading my resume?
5. Have I devised a good strategy that makes it easy for the reader (aka stranger) to understand me, my purpose, and my most relevant, essential and supportive credentials that best qualify me for the job opportunity?

It is not enough to want a job these days. Companies want to hire people who are committed to and passionate about their work. Job seekers need to want to work in a specific field, or for a specific company, or both -- and they need to be able to explain why. The resume is the first place you can show that passion.

In order to have a resume that works for you, you need to know what you bring to a position and what you want out of it. If you answer Billie's questions and share those answers in how you craft your resume, you will get interviews -- and the answers to her questions will help you answer similar questions during the interviews.

What not to write: Real-world examples

Recently, my "day job" in human resources gave me the opportunity to review resumes that had been submitted to my company. The experience has left me in awe of what job hunters don't know about writing a resume or a cover letter. Wow! Given all of the resources available these days, both in print and online, there's no reason for a job hunter not to understand what companies are looking for.

Dear readers, I want you to have every opportunity to land the job of your dreams, and the first step is submitting resumes and cover letters that are worth reading. In that spirit, I present to you the following examples of what not to write, and why:

1. Objection! The "objective" section of a resume, which Microsoft Word ever so nicely supplies on its resume templates, rarely adds value to your resume. But when the heading says "Objection" -- in 20-point type, no less, and at the top of the page -- it's really not doing you any good at all! There are two lessons to be learned from this example: First, always have someone else proofread your resume to catch mistakes such as this one. Second, do away with the "Objective" section all together. Replace it with a "Summary of Qualifications" section that tells a potential employer what you have to offer. Your resume needs to tell a potential employer what you will do for the company, not what the company can do for you. An "Objective" talks about what the company can do for you. So get rid of it.

2. "I consider myself: multi-tasked." I found this grammatical mistake in a cover letter, and it made me shake my head. Grammar in the English language can be difficult to master, but this mistake could have been easily corrected by having someone else edit the letter, or even reading the letter out loud before sending it. (That's a great editing tool, because reading something aloud gives you the opportunity to hear how it will sound to the reader.) The lesson here is to keep your cover letter simple, using declarative sentences in the present tense. Write it the same way you would say it -- you aren't trying to write the Next Great Novel. Simple is better here.

3. "My leadership skills and abilities will help aid the driving forces in a team-oriented environment, maximizing the productivity within a corporate structure." Say what? This sentence, also from a cover letter, is just plain gobbletygook. There's no content there! I think the writer was trying to say that he or she works productively as part of a team, but I'm not entirely sure. You should KISS your cover letter: Keep It Simple, Silly. Reading this sentence made me think the worst of the job candidate -- that if he or she was padding a simple sentence like this, then as an employee would he or she put a lot of effort into looking like he/she was working when he/she really wasn't? At the very least, the sentence made me think that the writer thought I'd fall for the idea that "big words" means "intelligent." A word to the wise: Recruiters and hiring managers aren't stupid. Tricks don't work on them, so don't bother. Just be yourself.

Less Is More

Over at CareerHub, professional resume writer Louise Fletcher has a great post about the importance of brevity in a resume. She makes an excellent point:

Your resume is a marketing brochure not a product catalog. It has to say just enough to make the sale and not one word more.

This concept is more difficult for mid-career people to grasp than for those just starting out. Career seekers who are just starting out naturally have less information to grapple with. But for mid-career folks, leaving information out of a resume can be a scary idea. After all -- the thinking goes -- if you don't put it in your resume, how will a potential employer know everything you can do?

The answer is, they'll learn about you at the interview.

I think of the resume as a tool that provides enough information for a recruiter or hiring manager to want to schedule an interview to learn more about you. Keeping the resume brief gives you the opportunity to talk about the details of your experience during the interview, when you can connect your experience with the duties and description of the job you're applying for. That makes for a more effective interview -- which makes you a stronger candidate for the job.

On the Web: Tips and tricks

10 Dumbest Resume Blunders on CNNMoney.com: Outrageous examples of what not to do. Ever!

10 Tips for Finding a New Job at CollegeRecruiter.com: This list covers all aspects of the job hunt, from knowing what you're looking for to interviewing to going through a background check to get the job. Great advice.

25 Most Difficult Job Interview Questions (and their answers) on GoodRecruits.com: Interviewing favors the prepared candidate, and this list will get you prepared.

5 Reasons to Send Thank You Letters After an Interview by Barbara Safani: Sending thank-you e-mails or letters to everyone you interview with will put you ahead of the pack. Job seekers often forget this simple step, so remembering it will make you stand out.

Tips for Writing Thank You Letters from About.com: This list provides several resources for jump-starting your thank-you notes.

Lying on a resume: Just don't do it

As children, we're told that lying is bad. Maybe we get caught in a lie by our parents or teachers and we get punished. Many people grow up with the reminder of the punishment and lying -- aside from little white lies such as "Yes, that hair color looks fantastic!" -- is something that most people would never, ever do.

But there are plenty of people who do lie. Every few years, someone gets caught in a lie by the nation's press, and we're reminded again that lying is bad. Think of disgraced "journalists" Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass and Janet Cooke, who actually won a Pulitzer Prize before her story was found to be a hoax. Martha Stewart, the folks who ran Enron, and Scooter Libby over at the White House are all recent examples of the consequences of lying.

Yet the lying continues.

The most recent example of lying to get ahead is Marilee Jones, a dean at MIT who resigned from her position when it was discovered that she had lied about her credentials to work at the university.

Aside from losing her job, Jones has lost something much more important: Her good name. Her brand, if you will. She'll never be able to apply for a job again without this following her.

If you lie on your resume, you most likely will not be exposed in major national publications. But you'll suffer the same fate that Jones will -- getting another job will be difficult. While former employers are legally not allowed to destroy your reputation when your job history is checked by a potential employer, it is possible to imply the circumstances around your departure without saying anything that violates the law.

So don't lie on your resume. Ever. Don't even embellish "just a little bit." Your resume is the document that represents you, and its integrity reflects your integrity. State your accomplishments, but don't overinflate your achievements. Don't make up statistics to prove your worth. Sell yourself as you truly are, and employers will respond in kind.

Tell companies what you can do for them

What value can you bring to a company?

If your resume answers this question, you're on your way to getting an interview and one step closer to getting the job.

If you're resume doesn't answer this question, it needs to.

Experts say that recruiters and hiring managers will spend no more than 30 seconds glancing over your resume, and maybe less. Your information needs to be easy to read and quickly understandable, because a recruiter with a stack of resumes doesn't want to spend five minutes figuring out exactly what you did at your last job. If your resume is hard to read, it won't be read at all. Sad but true.

Your resume also needs to show what makes you different, and better, than the other candidates for the job. Give the hiring manager a reason -- or even better, several reasons -- to pick you out of the crowd and make you an offer.

Those reasons can be found in your accomplishments. Hiring managers believe that what you've done for your previous employers indicates what you are capable of accomplishing for them. Describe your accomplishments using language that can be understood by people who are not in your field, and you'll have a winning resume.

Try using these techniques to highlight your value while writing your resume:

Discuss outcomes. What happened as a result of your efforts? Put your work in context. If your resume says, "Served as an integral part of Project X," the reader has no way to understand what you did and what difference it made. A bullet point that says, "Reorganized the sales team to cover more territory, resulting in a 25 percent increase in sales," illustrates that you're a strategic thinker who knows how to manage employees to achieve desired results.

Use numbers. For example, instead of stating that accuracy is one of your strengths, include your accuracy rate as a percentage. If you increased sales, as in the example above, it gives the reader an exact picture of your accomplishments when you say how much you increased sales. Numbers are facts, and quantifying your achievements is the fastest way to convey your value.

Don't use jargon. No matter what field you're in, do your best not to use abbreviations or words that have meaning only for people who know what you do. The majority of resumes go through the human resources department and will be screened in or out of a candidate search by someone who is not an expert in your field. Your resume will be more effective if it can be understood by everyone who reads it. There are some fields, such as technology, where using jargon and abbreviations will be necessary. In those cases, include enough context so that the reader doesn't have to understand the jargon to understand the effect of your work.