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Remember that your resume is about you.
Your resume is about your accomplishments and achievements. As thus, it should show off all your strong points and downplay your weak ones. The point of having a resume is to score an interview ahead of the other applicants vying for the job; therefore, your resume should make you look good enough to deserve that interview. You can worry how you can get the job later when you have scored that interview.
Keep your resume clear and simple.
Employers never really read a resume at first pass. Instead, they just scan it to see if the applicant has the qualifications that they need. Hence you need to keep your resume organized and uncluttered so that employers will not have a hard time looking for the information that they want on your resume.
Use action words and be more specific in describing your previous positions.
Inasmuch as you need to be clear with how you write your resume, you need to be descriptive of your previous positions without necessarily being verbose. For instance, instead of writing: "Gave out daily work assignments and call lists to staff," you can write "Directed and supervised customer service staff in daily goal setting and customer maintenance activities to maintain the highest levels of customer satisfaction."
Include the results of the actions you performed in previous positions.
Though you need to be descriptive of your previous positions, employers are really more interested on the outcome of your actions rather than just what you did in your old job. So, instead of saying "Organized the warehouse," you are better off writing down, "Updated the organization system in the warehouse, which led to improved safety and efficiency."
Try to state the results of actions you performed in
previous positions.
Instead of: 'Organized the warehouse.'
You could put something like: 'Updated the organization system in the
warehouse, which led to improved safety and efficiency.' Remember,
possible employers are not only looking for the work you have done, but
the results you have achieved and what you can achieve for them.
Do not leave time period gaps in your resume.
Employers frown upon time period gaps in their applicants' resume, so if you have them in your employment history, it would be a lot better to state what you were during at that time. Even if the circumstances surrounding the time gap are negative, you can still write it in a positive manner.
Be relevant in your resume.
Always remember that you are selling your qualifications to a prospective employer; so, your resume should only include items that are relevant to the position you are seeking. For example, if you are applying for an assistant manager position at a car repair shop, it would help you more if you put on your resume that you rebuild old cars on weekends as a hobby. Other items like winning a fishing championship are irrelevant to the position.
Do not use fancy paper.
It is a must that you print your resume on the best quality paper that you can find, but do not use fancy paper or colored paper for printing out your resume. High-grade white or beige paper is enough. If you use fancy paper for your resume, you put the focus on the paper rather on your accomplishments. Also, this may create problems in scanning, faxing or copying your resume. It would hurt your chances for employment if the prospective employer finds it difficult to forward your resume to other managers to review just because your resume cannot be scanned or copied.
You can find other useful information on how to write a winning resume for a government job at
www.usajobs.gov. In addition, if you need some help in writing your resume, you can turn to professional resume writing firms to get it done for you. Here is a short list of professional resume writing firms.
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