6 Tips for Writing an Effective Resume

Hiring managers and recruiters alike say they’ve seen more poorly written resumes cross their desks recently than ever before. Attract more interview offers and ensure your resume doesn’t eliminate you from consideration by following these six key tips:

1. Format Your Resume Wisely “Do the Hiring Managers” Work for Them

No matter how well written, your resume won’t get a thorough reading the first time through. Generally a resume gets scanned for 25 seconds. Scanning is more difficult if it is hard to read, poorly organized or exceeds two pages.

Use a logical format and wide margins, clean type and clear headings
Selectively apply bold and italic typeface that help guide the reader’s eye
Use bullets to call attention to important points (i.e. accomplishments)

2. Identify Accomplishments not Just Job Descriptions

Hiring managers, especially in technical fields like engineering, seek candidates that can help them solve a problem or satisfy a need within their company. Consequently, you can’t be a solution to their problems without stating how you solved similar problems in other companies and situations.

Focus on what you did in the job, NOT what your job was there’s a difference
Include a one or two top line job description first, then list your accomplishments
For each point ask yourself, What was the benefit of having done what I did?
Accomplishments should be unique to you, not just a list of what someone else did
Avoid using the generic descriptions of the jobs you originally applied for or held

3. Quantify Your Accomplishments

Q: What’s the most common resume mistake?
A: Making too many general claims and using too much industry jargon that does not market the candidate. A resume is a marketing document designed to sell your skills and strengths rather than just portray a bio of the candidate.

Include and highlight specific achievements that present a comprehensive picture of your marketability
Quantify your achievements to ensure greater confidence in the hiring manager and thereby generate interest percentages, dollars, number of employees, etc.
Work backwards to quantify your accomplishments by asking, If I had not done X, what could have happened?

Cater Your Resume for the Industry

Unlike advertising and design professionals who have greater creative license in designing their resume for those fields, the mechanical engineering industry won’t be impressed and may be turned off by distinctive resume design.

Err on the side of being conservative stylistically
Your accomplishments, error-free writing, grammatically-correct, clean, crisp type and paper will make the impression for you

5. Replace your Objective” with a “Career Summary”

A Career Summary is designed to give a brief overview of who you are and what you do. Most Objectives sound similar: Seeking a challenging, interesting position in X where I can use my skills of X, Y, and Z to contribute to the bottom line. Not telling at all.

Grab a hiring manager’s attention right from the beginning, remembering you
have only 25 few seconds to make a good impression
Spend time developing a summary that immediately gets their attention, and accurately and powerfully describes you as a solution to their problems

6. Network. Network. Network.

For unemployed candidates, handing out resumes should be a full-time job. The majority of mid- to senior-level positions are filled through networking, so contact absolutely everyone you know in addition to recruiters who are in a position to hire you or share insights. Networking can include