JobsDB Career Fair – Resume Writing Best Practices And Templates

Posted by Amit Puri on May 28, 2010

The resume examples/writing/critique booth operated by Sandbox Advisors during the current JobsDB Career Fair, was a huge success. Over the 3 days we reviewed more than 300 resumes and helped job hunters enhance the quality of their resumes and cover letters.

As is often the case, most of the resumes we reviewed had similar and really primary mistakes. For the advantage of those that were not able to attend the career fair here is a abstract of the commonest errors we noticed and a few quick tips about how one can overcome them:

Poor design and structure: Having a resume which appears good at first glance and is effectively structured/formatted can make an enormous difference. We shared a number of examples to illustrate how to prepare a nicely designed resume, during the course of the event. If you are interested in receiving these, you can subscribe to our newsletter and/or send us an email requesting for them.

Too much content: Many resumes we reviewed were extraordinarily long, often over 15 pages! Whereas there isn’t a hard and fast rule, for majority of individuals I’d suggest a 2-3 page resume. This keeps things to the point, while permitting for enough room to communicate enough particulars about your background. Do not forget that this is just a guideline and your case may warrant some deviation. For instance, as a recent graduate you may have enough materials for only one page and in case you are a very senior professional then you would possibly want 4-5 pages.

Wasting ‘prime resume real-estate’: The initial portion of your resume is very important, since that’s what the recruiter sees first. Therefore you’ll want to make fast impact in that section. Some methods to do this are by using sections such as a headline, career summary, key expertise, accomplishments. Don’t waste this area by letting your personal particulars (name, address, date of birth, contact information, etc.) cover majority of the first page of your resume

An excessive amount of focus on job obligations: When describing past work experience, there’s a tendency to provide particulars just for job duties/responsibilities. This is not the best strategy, since many individuals would have related jobs/duties and that makes it hard for a recruiter to determine who to choose for the interview. It’s good to write much more about your achievements i.e. how well you carried out your responsibilities. Tell recruiters of all the great things did at work and how vital they were

Use of general resumes: Different jobs require different knowledge, skills and abilities to perform well. Hence when applying to jobs that are very different in nature, you want to use different resumes as well. The respective resume must showcase only those abilities, etc. that are wanted for the job you might be applying to. You don’t need a distinct resume for every job you apply to but can use 2-3 resumes for groups of jobs which are comparable in nature

Amit Puri has over ten years of career advisory & business management expertise. He heads Sandbox Advisors a career, job search, recruitment & HR consulting firm in Singapore.Visit their site (Career & Job Search Insights for Singapore), for research, recommendations and videos, on resume formats, job interview preparation, job search, career planning & more.