How to Make a Resume

There's no better product to market than your own skill and abilities, as least when it comes to landing a new job or contract. A well prepared resume can make you absolutely irresistible to a prospective employer or client. The steps below detail some very basic steps that reveal how to make a resume that gets noticed.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Creating a Simple Header

1. Begin your header with your first and last name. Be sure to use a simple font like Arial, Tahoma or Verdana (if using Microsoft Word or OpenOffice) and use large bold letter to make your name stand out.

2. Add your mailing address and cell phone number underneath your name.

3. Include your home phone number and personal email address. Make sure it's something professional like "[e-mail]" instead of "[e-mail]."

Making a Brief Profile

4. Outline your key skills and abilities in a bulleted list with “Skills and Abilities” as the heading.

5. Use concise, catchy language that quickly sells each skill and ability. Avoid rambling. Instead, think like you're writing a sales brochure. You may even want to look at a sales brochure for some inspiration.

6. Give particular preference to skills and abilities that are pertain to the industry of job you're seeking.

Listing Major Achievements

7. List for or five examples of the successes you've attained so far in your career. Outline examples of your work and what benefit was brought to the organization or company as a result.

8. Strengthen each achievement by specifying its unique qualities. For example, if you were the only person to exceed the sales quota in a given month or quarter, then be sure to mention that you were the only one. This works wonders in selling the outstanding nature of your skills and abilities.

9. Think twice about including achievements that are irrelevant to your prospective job.

Disclosing Career History/Work Experience

10. List the job title, company name, dates worked and a brief description of your duties for each job you've held in your professional career. You don't necessarily have to go as far back as the job you held at Pizza Hut as a delivery driver, but you do want to include every job you've had since you've been out of college or launched into your profession.

11. Be sure include months and dates as “January 2005 – December 2007” instead of “2005-2007.” The latter doesn't accurately represent the almost three years of experience you had with the company as well as the former example does.

12. Describe job duties in a brief yet informative manner. Instead of copying your job description from an employee handbook, be specific. For example, instead of saying, "Managed a crew of web designers," you could say, "Managed a crew of 12 web designers across three divisions."

13. Go into further detail regarding project you mentioned in the “Major Achievement” section without duplicating the previous information.

Outlining Education, Qualifications and Training

14. Outline your qualifications which are specific to the industry and position for which you're applying.

15. List post-secondary degrees earned along with industry-specific seminars, trainings and certifications.

16. Refrain from including every course you have taken in your entire life.

Tips & Warnings

• If possible, keep your resume one or two pages.