What Are the Accepted Resume Guidelines?

3 min read

How’s your job hunt journey going? Do you need help in writing your own resume to land an interview? Perhaps a list of resume guidelines will help you draft an amazing resume that can attract any employer. A resume is your first line of defense to relay your professional background. It serves as a self-marketing tool that can lead to a plethora of interviews and potential job offers. Each resume you send to a respective firm should be concise, grammatically perfect, detailed and truthful. Failure to follow the proven resume guidelines will kill your chance to grab the job prospect. So, you must comply with these resume guidelines to secure an interview.

Nine Resume Guidelines You Must Follow to an Eye-catching Resume

Vocabulary

Human Resource professionals are typically unforgiving on grammatically inferior resumes. Armed with a pool of already proofread resumes at their disposal, why would your resume get a second glance with common mistakes? Hence, widen your vocabulary and don’t use foreign words that may sound cool to hear. Also, take note that the applicant tracking system (ATS) is the emerging trend in the hiring industry. If you don’t want your effort to go to waste, avoid this common resume error.

Accomplishments

What’s good about citing ten years’ experience without the successful milestones mentioned? So why mention your past duties and job responsibilities? Instead, list down your remarkable deeds and make sure to focus on the related ones to avoid confusing your hiring manager. Listing your proven track record sets you apart from other candidates and increases the chance to land an interview.

Education

For experienced job runners, career experiences matter instead of educational achievements. However, this can be a mistake if the job applied for has an education requirement. You cannot assume that a human resource professional can guess that you have a Master of Business Administration from Duke University. By always including this field, you help your employer to know the basic details they need.

Skills

Know how to work a certain piece of machinery? Technological expertise? Acquiring expertise in a skill set will boost your value to employers. Strive to gain skills and highlight them in your written resume. Besides, ATS require keywords that match the job description. Hence, if you want to pass the tech process, optimize your resume or hire a professional resume writer instead.

Certifications

These nationally recognized certifications put you at high demand. Make sure to place your certifications properly on the resume for an added edge.

Contact Information

True story: My personal cell phone was at one point ringing three times a day for a man named Elliot. The calls were from a few fortune 500 companies and plenty of mid-sized upright businesses. Poor Elliot didn’t include his e-mail address on his resume. I informed the employers they had the wrong phone number and his job search came to an obvious end. All relevant contact info should be included on your resume. Resist using gimmicky e-mail addresses like [email protected] and instead create a professional account for your job search (i.e. [email protected]). Keep it professional!

Please do not become the subject of this page by doing any of the following Social Security Number. According to human resource professionals, this is becoming more prevalent in today’s job applicants resumes. While almost every company seems to need your social security number for transactions, the resume remains a place where it should not be included under any setting.

Reasons for leaving previous jobs

This topic will undoubtedly arise during an interview. That would be the proper venue to discuss your previous experiences and reasons for termination from previous assignments.

Political Allegiances

Being a good republican or democrat may earn you high social status in some circles. But including “staunch republican/democrat” will potentially alienate your resume before it is fully reviewed. Work is a place where management is constantly trying to get its workforce to unite and use teamwork. Boasting political connections have the potential to polarize.

Age

You should NEVER place this personal info in a professional resume. Let your skills and experience do the talking. If you are qualified for the position and are 22 or 65, your age should never enter the equation. How you ace the interview is enough to relay your age and the skills they need from you.

Aside from these proven resume guidelines, it’s very important to review the company you’re targeting. It helps in optimizing your resume and aligning your strengths to the job position’s requirement. Also, you must perform a resume assessment to spot any slips before sending your copy to hiring managers.

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