Does your resume need a makeover?

Many of the clients who come to me for resume editing services don't realize just how out of date or unappealing their existing resume is until they see the final result. One of my clients submitted a resume to me for editing that was nearly four pages long and included experience going back all the way to the 1980s!

Since studies show that an employer will either accept or reject a resume within the first 20 seconds, I knew that I needed to streamline Jane's resume and make it more visually appealing. The first step I took was to pare down her many job listings, corporate awards and certifications from decades ago that had absolutely no relevance to her current job search. I chose to keep only positions held within the last ten years or so, cutting out the oldest ones, which had nothing to do with her current field. This reduced the length of the resume to two pages and allowed me to highlight only her most relevant achievements.

The next step I took was to create a headline of the various job titles she has held and a professional summary section. Together, these two features would give employers a good idea of her qualifications at a glance.

Finally, the resume's formatting needed to be reworked. It was visually unappealing, cluttered and uninteresting, and looked almost as though she had created it on a typewriter. She did not utilize any of Microsoft Word's formatting capabilities to her advantage. To remedy this, I created bordered header sections that help the eye move easily through the resume to locate features such as qualifications, experience, and education. Next, I got rid of the paragraph-style job descriptions in favor of a bulleted format, which helps keep each job description concise and sets it off from the others.

Jane was very pleased with the final result. She told me that the finished product looked much better than she had imagined it would, which pleased me immensely. After all, as a resume writer my goals are to please my customers, to allow them to submit their resumes with confidence, and to increase their chances at getting the job.

Take a look at the before and after images of Jane's resume and ask yourself which one you would rather submit when searching for a job. I think you will agree that the makeover is an improvement!