21.2: Seven Steps to an Effective Résumé
- Page ID
- 180471
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The seven steps to effective communication (chapters 2-9) provide an excellent checklist for building an effective résumé. When writing your résumé, remember, the best qualified person doesn’t always get the job-sometimes it’s the person with the most effective résumé.
- Analyze Purpose and Audience. Your purpose is to get hired-which usually occurs after a successful interview-which requires you to get noticed first-which requires you to know a good deal about the job, the company and the employer and have that knowledge reflected in your résumé. Begin by asking yourself questions that need to be answered and then move to step 2 .
- Conduct the Research. Know yourself: your needs and wants (type and level of the position), what you can offer and what you can do for them. Now take time to list your skills and accomplishments. And research the prospective company to learn about the job as well as to "speak their language."
- Support Your Ideas. Your "ideas" in this context are your qualifications for the job. Likewise, the "support" for your qualifications is your knowledge, skills, abilities, experience and education that support those qualifications.
- Get Organized. Gather your documents: job descriptions, certificates, licenses and academic transcripts. If you worked for the Department of Defense, "civilianize" those job titles and descriptions to those used in the private sector ... consult the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, published by the US Department of Labor. Learning the company’s terminology could mean the difference between a 20-second scan and an interview.
- Draft. Type your draft and prepare to edit.
- Edit. Read your draft and edit: edit for typos, extraneous information, action words, plain language (businesses typically write on an 8th grade level), neatness, accuracy and consistency in format. It must be long enough to cover relevant information but brief enough not to bore a potential employer (two pages max). Use only key phrases and words appropriate to the job you’re seeking. To help you develop your accomplishment statements, review the advice on writing accomplishment-impact bullet statements.
- Fight for Feedback. Have someone you trust read the résumé and suggest changes and recommendations. Are all the t’s crossed and i’s dotted? Does it look professional? Visually appealing? Is it easy to read with the strongest points quickly apparent? Is there good use of spacing, margins, indentions, capitalization and underlining?