How to Write a Resume During a Bad Economy

Want to spice up your resume and attract more attention? It's easy. Write your resume to stand out among the hundreds of resumes that hiring managers skim each day. Follow these steps to write your resume during a bad economy.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Your current resume

1. 
    

   To spice up your resume don't be vague. Vary your language and be specific. Many people write things like "responsible for departmental sales quota." Instead write, "Increased departmental sales 54% in six months." Instead of "experience in customer service," write, "After implementing a seven point customer relation program, customer satisfaction increased 32%. Do not write "excellent written communication skills." Instead write, "By replacing superfluous language with succinct rhetoric on my company"s website, I increased online sales by 37%.

2. 
    

   Do not use one generic resume to send to every employer. Instead organize your resume by placing relevant information at the top that underscores your qualifications for the specific position. Remember, your resume reveals your accomplishments not your job duties. Write your resume with specific accomplishments.

3. 
    

   Write about your favorite skills and how you have used them to achieve success.

4. 
    

   Never write out any excuses on your resume. For example, "I was out of work for four months to take care of my sick grandmother." To spice up your resume during a bad economy, eliminate all excuses.

5. Put yourself in the hiring manager's shoes. If you were looking though hundreds of resumes, what would you look for to fill that position?

6. 
    

   Grammar and typos will get your resume into the trash faster than anything. Have someone look over your resume. Remember your English professor who always said to use the active voice? This means the verb takes the action. Instead of "know how to use Excel," write, "Created sales quota spreadsheets with Excel."

7. 
    

   Everything on your resume relates back to the specific job position you're applying for and the most relevant information is at the top. Don't put your job experience first if there is other experience you have that better qualifies you for the job.

8. 
    

   To spice up a resume, leave a lot of white space and do not go over one page. A good resume is succinct. Never use a font smaller than 12 or larger than 14. Do not use fancy designs. Keep it simple.

9. Check out razume.com. This company will go over your resume and return it to you in a few days with comments. The link for razume.com is in the resource section below near the bottome of this page.

Tips & Warnings

• Do not write, "references available upon request." If your prospective employer wants references, he or she will ask for them.
• Do not put personal information on a resume. You're looking for a job, not a date.
• Send your resume as a pdf file. Do not use Word. Resumes on Word may not appear exactly as you formatted them.

Resources

• Raxume
• Download Adobe Cute Free to Transfer Word Files to PDF files
• Write articles like this and earn residual income
• My most popular article: How to raise your FICO credit score for free

[drking]

on 1/22/2009 One tip I would like to add is keywords. Recruiters use keywords when sourcing resumes so remember that when you post it to the job boards. Think of things that a recruiter is going to be looking for like Microsoft, Java, increased sales, etc.