Resume - What's in it?

Sure you've made the summary of your profile over the years, but have you really thought about the fundamentals or the basics? Have you ever examined what should be (and what should not be) in your professional resume? Well let's step back a bit and focus on the building blocks of a true winning resume.

You know it's important to make sure your resume lands on a recruitmer's desk, or the screen of that important HR manager, that it makes an impression!

Whilst other sources suggest a number ways to make sure your resume grabs attention, many of these methods are not necessarily effective for the right reasons.

When writing your resume, of course you have to focus on the value of the content, how you phrase it and in what structure you should be having it.

Experience would tell us that we only have a mere few seconds to wow and garner the interest of pontential employers as they skim through our resume. The keyword is skim because very few have the time to actually read each and every detail or our profile on an initial filtering stage.

• Specific Details: Full name followed by address, email, birth date (this is sometimes debatable), work visa (if required) or passport details (if required).


• Focus on Achievements: This is an opportunity for you to sell yourself. Preparing this part of your resume needs to be done with care (be careful not to be excessive on this part). Essentially you are drawing on your skills and experience, but you should try to frame it in a slightly more creative way.


• Writing your profile should obey the same basic rules as your Experience:


• Think: Specific - Targeted - Relevant – Short


• You should find that one or two sentences can neatly wrap everything together. Try to think What, How Long or How Much. Eg. Over Five years as a ‘XXX’ with recent XXX XXXX experience in a successful growing medium size practice.


• Degree of Education: Almost all positions require you to highlight your highest level of education. Memberships to professional bodies and certifications may also appear in this section but ensure they are highly relevant to the job to which you are applying.


• Experience: Now is your chance to start to look at the whole resume and view it from your readers’ perspective.


• ASK YOURSELF: Does this CV clearly and quickly enable a bleary eyed, worn-out, speed-reading reader to CLEARLY SEE me as the person who is the answer to their workload, their recruitment problems?>


• Trusted References: Include the names and contact details of three references – at least two should be previous managers or supervisors.

There you have it. Wrap it up with a creative but formal presentation and sprinkle it with a little bit of luck and rest assured you're on your way to your next dream job.

Wait! There's still the interview part, but we'll talk about it more soon.

Good Luck!

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