The job market today has changed a lot. It’s not a game of just handing out a shortened life history and tidbits of personal information anymore. Almost everyone has the same thing to say - graduated from some school, worked in some place. That was probably the time when veneer was cool and Vanilla Ice was still rapping, when great jobs can be found in every state.

However, today, the job market has become so competitive that battles are lost and won with the resume. Remember that it’s not only you who has the credentials. There are a lot of apt, qualified and capable people zeroing in that same job position. The key in any job prospecting activity is to market yourself as the best person for the job. With the competition, that can only be achieved by making your self stand out. Since the resume is always the first step to getting noticed, you have to make sure that your resume does that for you.

Why you need a resume?

The resume is the document that’s primarily required by potential employers. Which means, if you don’t have one, you can’t even apply for (most) jobs at all. Employers wouldn’t want to waste their precious time and resources interviewing every Joe Schmoe in the block. The resume gives employers a chance to weed out those who have the credentials to work the job.

What’s the purpose of a resume?

As with any piece of writing, your resume has a purpose. And it’s plain and simple - the purpose of your resume is to get you to the next step of the application process. Whether it’s an interview or a test or whatever other requirement the company has for their potential new hires, your resume should get you to that short list. With the great number of applicants for any given position (a job posting can easily attract hundreds of applicants) readers often only have a few seconds to browse your resume so it has to pack much punch to impress in the short amount of time.

What does it contain?

So if the purpose of the resume is for you to get noticed, considered and shortlisted, then what should it contain. A common mistake of resume writers is to just list their work experience and academic credentials. While it will eventually contain those details, the things that should be highlighted should be your qualifications.

In summary, the details on you resume should be to address the question “Why should we hire you?” Most resumes simply focus on the self rather than the employers needs. Job postings provide the job description and the required qualifications anyway so why not address those things with your resume? That way, you immediately become the person that they’re looking for. And that can easily be answered by structuring your resume.

Parts of the resume

There are two parts in a resume - an assertions part and an evidences part.

• Assertions - a part to highlight your qualifications for the job
• Evidences - a part to provide support and evidences for your assertions

We have to differentiate our use of “parts” with “sections.” While you really don’t see anything labeled “assertions” or “evidences” in a resume, these are actualized as follows:

• Assertions
  • Objective
  • Summary of Qualifications
  • Skills and Accomplishments
  • Evidences
    • Professional Experience
    • Academic Background
    • Memberships and Affiliations

Here’s how to fill in these sections:

• Objective - This can easily be filled out using this statement “Job title - where (Skill 1) and (Skill 2/ Experience) will help achieve (Goal).” Just make sure that the skills and/or experiences you have here would be backed up by evidences. Here’s a sample:
  • Account Executive - where my communication skills and five years experience in customer relations will help exceed sales quotas.

• Summary of Qualifications - The purpose of the summary is to provide the your achievements, your top skills, and your best qualities in a series of concise statements. You must be able to clinch the deal here. Here are a few details that you can mention
  • An overview of your profession
  • Your area/s of expertise
  • Top skills
  • Types of environments you’ve worked in
  • Awards and accomplishments
  • Personal traits related to the job
    • An account executive specializing in consumer electronics with a history of consistently exceeding sales quotas through long-term contracts. Especially skilled in scoping prospects through effective needs analysis. Named “Top Sales Person” for the past three years. A self-starting energetic worker with excellent interpersonal skills.

• Skills and Accomplishments - Write the skills that you have that are related to your field or the position that you’re applying for.

• Professional Experience - Use a reverse chronological order meaning start from the most recent position that you’ve had going back to the older ones. Try to stick to those job positions that are related to the current position that you’re applying for. When writing them down, here are the details that you need to put in:
  • Job title
  • Name of firm/company
  • Inclusive dates of stay
  • Responsibilities and accomplishments - When writing these down, makes sure that you focus on actions. Here are some of the “power words” that you can use. As you would see, these are mostly verbs which denote action.
    • accomplished, achieved, acquired, administered, analyzed, benchmarked, broadened, brought, budgeted, built, capitalized, carried, challenged, collaborated, commanded, commended, coordinated, corresponded, dealt, delegated, delivered, demonstrated, developed, devised, earned, elevated, facilitated, gained, generated, heightened, held, helped, identified, implemented, joined, justified, launched, led, made, maintained, managed, mandated, maneuvered, manipulated, manufactured, mapped, marked, marketed, mastered, maximized, measured, mediated, memorized, mentored, merged, merited, met, minimized, mobilized, modeled, moderated, modified, molded, monitored, monopolized, motivated, mounted, moved, multiplied, officiated, operated, optimized, outperformed, perfected, performed, prepared, prescribed, qualified, quantified, raised, realized, recommended, recruited, redesigned, re-engineered, refocused, reinforced, reiterated, related, released, researched, restored, restructured, secured, solidified, solved, standardized, started, succeeded, targeted, trained, transcribed, transformed, transitioned, translated, united, updated, upgraded, utilized, validated, verified, viewed, visualized, worked, wrote

• Academic Background - Stick to only a few relevant details, namely:
  • Institution you graduated from (focus on academic and professional degrees)
  • Inclusive dates of stay
  • Awards, if any

• Memberships and Affiliations - Include your memberships to professional associations related to your field. Cite the name of the organization and your position (if you’re a member or an officer).

A few other details that you may want to include are the following:

• Publications
• Civic Work
• Personal Interests - Just be sure to focus on interests that are related to the job. Citing photography and videography for creative work in an advertising agency might help. But citing skateboarding and basketball for a business software developer position will not work.
• Reference - Can always be labeled “Availabel Upon Request” and is often times the last item in the resume.

Resume Formats

• Chronological - The more traditional format. This format highlights the experiences section and is best for those who have amassed significant experience in the job.
• Functional - Better suited for those who are new to the job market. This highlights skills and accomplishments since the lack of experience needs to be downplayed.
• Combined - Both formats can also be combined to balance out your resume. This is often the more attractive option to those who’d want to present a their skills and experiences.

Layout

Make sure that your resume’s layout is neat and structured. While there is really no need to use all sorts of graphics on your resume, some design principles may apply. Take a cue from the designs that you can find in the default resume templates of Microsoft Word. Notice how they use lines to separate each of the sections and how they effectively use white space (so as not to make the document look cramped).

Divide each of the sections using the appropriate headings. Use bullet points to itemize your details. Don’t overuse typefaces. No need to use bold or italics to highlight keywords. This might just make the whole document messy. Here’s a guide on how to layout a great-looking resume from scratch.

As far as the length goes, 2 pages would do nicely. The more concise you are with your words, the better are your chances to be totally read by your reader.