Resume Writing Advice & Tips

This page offers some simple yet effective tips on the best way to write a professional resume.

Personal Information

Your personal and contact information should always be completely accurate.

Double-check your contact information

Make certain the information you enter for your phone number and email address is accurate. With most recruiters viewing many resumes for each job opening, if they can't contact you easily, they'll just move on to someone else.

Get your own email address

If possible, register your own name to use as an email address. If using a free email service, try to get "yourname@hotmail.com".

A better solution is to register your own domain name, for example, www.yourname.com, or www.yourname.us and use that for correspondence. Not only does this make a more professional impression, but it suggests to potential employers that you are familiar with the internet and computers.

Work Experience

When writing the details of your employment history, include the job title, dates, and employer for each relevant job you have done.

List the tasks, achievements, and responsibilities for each position briefly in a summary format. Employers will be scanning this section quickly, so any relevant information should jump out at them.

Your work experience should be listed in reverse chronological order.

Use the 3rd person

For impact, use the 3rd person rather than the 1st: ie, instead of saying "I increased productivity by x amount", just use "Increased productivity...".

Keep it Relevant

When listing your role and achievements, focus on what employers want. Use numbers to emphasise achievements (for example, "increased profits by 150%", completed project 2 weeks under schedule, etc).

Keep it short

Choose the language you use for maximum impact. Each point listed should grab the reader's attention immediately; compare:

"Increased sales by 200%" with
"I succeeded in increasing sales by 200%"

The first is much easier to read and highlights the key achievement of increasing sales instantly.

As each previous job you list should include at least 2 or 3 of these items of information, and potential employers will often have many resumes to see, you should see the importance of keeping it brief and to the point.

Qualifications

When outlining your educational and professional qualifications, provide information on the what, where, and when of what you know.

Write the most relevant qualifications first in reverse chronological order, providing brief details where neccessary.

Keep it Brief

Only include extra details if they are very relevant - for example, mention specific components of a course or major achievements (ie. top of class).

Don't Mention Failures

If you have taken courses but not completed them, then do not mention them here unless it would result in a suspicious gap in your education history.

Your Skills

Use this section of your resume to provide recruiters with a brief "at-a-glance" outline of your main skills. You can list different types of skill separately - for example, languages spoken, IT skills, etc.

Be Concise

For each skill that you list, keep it short. This section should be seen as a quick summary that recruiters can scan to see if you meet their general requirements, as well as to show off any other abilities not previously mentioned.

Be honest

Never lie about your skills - If the skill is important enough to be worth the recruiter's attention, then they will probably ask about it at an interview.

Fill the Gaps

This section of your resume gives you the opportunity of drawing the reader's attention to aspects not obvious from the other sections: for example, I.T. skills are considered important in most jobs, but may not be apparent from your employment and educational history.

Additionally, knowledge of foreign languages, whilst possibly not relevant to the positions you are applying for, can be impressive. Team-working and problem-solving abilities are other non-specific skills it may be worth mentioning.

Personal Summary

This section should be used to provide a short, sharp summary of your skills and experience, targetted towards the job you are applying for. Enter a short two or three sentence summary of yourself, and a list of your key achievements and skills.

Keep it brief

This section should simply be a summary of the rest of your resume. It needs to grab the attention of the reader so they read the rest.

Use Keywords

With thousands of resumes stored electronically, employers often search using keywords relevant to the jobs vacancies they wish to fill. By making sure you use appropriate keywords in your resume, you increase the chance of someone bothering to read it.

Good Luck!

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