Resume Style

Put Down the Glitter Martha!

This is a long document.  I’ve designed it so you can pick and choose what you want to read, but each piece is pretty important.  I’ve listed style tips in order of importance (according to my HR friends); but since everything on this page is important, you might want to read everything!

Here is a copy of my resume.  You can use it to follow along.

There’s nothing quite like drafting up a piece of paper that explains to someone why you’re worth thousands of dollars. It’s only reasonable that you should have a certain sense of style when it comes to that piece of paper. But I’m not talking about style in a fashion sense, I’m talking about format, position, and presentation. What it comes down to is – length of your resume, location and appearance of contact information, appearance of your information and how you articulate that information.

Size Matters (bet you thought you’d never see those words next to a picture of Martha Stewart)

Your resume should be as concise as possible.  This usually means your resume should not exceed one page. If it goes over one page, you’re going to the bottom of the pile, or worse – to the recycle bin. If you have a lot of experience, can it go over one page? If you are applying to be a senior nuclear analyst or something – sure. If you’re fresh out of college, no. Entry level or junior level? No way.

A lot of people argue with me on this.  I’ve confirmed it with a lot of HR people – one page is optimum.  Make whatever content can fit on that one page killer.  There’s no reason you can’t sell yourself with your last three jobs, your educational history, and your top-of-the-line skills.  Combine that with an amazing cover letter, an outside resource like an online portfolio, and you’ll have the hiring managers drooling.

If you can’t summarize yourself and your top 3 most relevant jobs for any one position on one page, you have a problem – verbosity. Unless the required skill list is truly huge, there’s no real reason to go past one page for any non-master-level positions. It’s easy to summarize that you have 12 years of experience in the field in your ACHIEVEMENTS section or during an interview.  There’s no need to include 12 years worth of jobs on your resume – they won’t read it anyway.

Most millennials have had an average of 9 jobs.  It can be hard to pick and choose, but you know based on the position you’re applying for which ones are the most important.

Think about it this way: how do you read a news website or a blog?  You go to the best part – the juiciest stories… but you don’t read every page, right?  The same holds true for your resume.

You’re hired! Now what’s your number?

If a hiring manager doesn’t know how to contact you, then you have a big problem.  It’s also a problem if they can’t read your name or *CAN* read your name but nothing else.  It’s a big problem.  Big like Justin Timberlake caused Janet Jackson to have a “wardrobe malfunction” big.

Your name (both the first and last, jackass) should always be at the top – not outrageously big, followed by your contact information.

I don’t personally find front-of-envelope style contact information aesthetically appealing. That is, with each piece of information on its own line, with nothing to the left or the right of it to take up that blank space. It eats up a lot of room you could be using to describe how awesome you are.  Also note how a font can be both disturbing and distracting.

This doesn’t mean that it is wrong, but just that I don’t care for it. I prefer to do this:

Name
Cell Phone | Email | Website
City, State, Zip

Now I have two more lines to describe how awesome I am.

What a job should look like on your resume

Here’s an example of what a job would look like on your resume.

Notice that I’ve put the title on the left-hand side, first.  English readers start upper left and move down to lower right, so it’s only right to put your title where the eyes will be first.  I’ve placed the company underneath in italics, because I find it easier to read.  Remember that optional styling should be kept to a minimum – a resume needs to be as simple as possible.  Next, I’ve placed the date on the right-hand side and the city and state.  Immediately underneath the “basic info”, I put a 2-3 sentence job description of the duties involved.  Then I list achievements with “Action Words” – Ate, overcame, led, managed, plotted, stole… you get the idea.

Notice I used the word “Achievements” and not “Duties” – guaranteed, you have done some amazing things.  Give yourself credit for them.

A bullet is worth a thousand… well, you get the idea

Bullet points are the only way to describe key things like relevant skills, achievements, duties at a previous job, and so on. Bullet points naturally segment your content, condense it and serialize it so that it is easy to read, easy to understand, and easy to remember. Much easier than long lines of text mashed together like they usually are in resumes.

• Easy to read
• Easy to understand
• Easy to remember

Get it? Good!

Be honest – you have ADD…

Put yourself in the shoes of a hiring manager. You post a requisition for a really cool position at a really cool company and in the span of 24 hours – lets say, for a back-up dancer for a certain ex-Teen Disney star, you find yourself immersed in multitudes of clamoring fans. Unfortunately, these fans are just as fickle as a certain bewigged pop princess’, and each one of them expects to hear back from their fan letters or they will become increasingly agitated with you. Glaring at your ever-increasing pile of fan mail, you aren’t going to spend 30 minutes agonizing over a hard-to-read letter. Instead, you’re going to put that one aside until you have more time to deal with it – if ever. After all, you do have that performance at the Music Awards coming up, that nagging husband to sue for custody of the kids.

And if a pop star won’t read your resume, you’re not going to get that job as a back-up dancer, no matter how well you can do the funky robot, ya dig?

The point is, no matter what you are doing or saying – be concise, to the point, and use active phrasing (action phrasing).

Consider these three examples:

“Helped to increase team performance”
vs
“Increased team performance by implementing weekly meetings”

“Responsible for management of marketing team”
vs
“Managed team of five marketing professionals”

“During a multimillion dollar presentation, used quick thinking skills to create a highly-publicized national news story.”
vs
“Busted out Janet’s righty.”

The verb is the most important part of the sentence because it is an achievement, a result. It tells a story of you doing something. Responsibilities, while also important, don’t tell a story at all – they tell the hiring manager what you should have been doing. In college, you should have been studying. You don’t want to say you were responsible for studying, so find an achievement you can tie to that position. Since you can’t list “24-hour kegger” on your resume – even though it is quite the achievement, your 3.54 cumulative GPA will suffice.

Format of Your Skills, Achievements, and Relevant Experience Sections

Here’s a general look of how I would format the skills, achievements, and relevant experience sections of my resume. Notice the use of bullet points and active phrasing.

Skills:

• Basket Weaving
• Nuclear Chemistry
• Cat Herding

Achievements:

• Pole Vaulted to 3 Gold Medals in the 2008 Olympics
• Ate 42 Babies at 1998 Annual Baby-Eating Competition
• Created a new method for extracting stupidity from hamsters and inserting it into neighbors

Relevant Experience:

Everycompany, Inc Escape Artist
Anywhere, CA June 1998-July 2008
Escaped from gigantic water tanks every weekend, overcoming obstacles such as handcuffs, straight jackets, uncooperative bunnies, and incompetent assistants.

• Five-time winner of the “Magic Hands – Fast Fingers” award
• Created a new style of escape routine
• Performed on Vegas for eight years

Of course, your styling might look different than mine – that’s okay. Go with what is easily readable, has all the required information and looks good to you.

Does order matter?  “Functional” vs. “Chronological” or “Funkylogical“!

There’s a raging debate amongst some very pernicious loudmouths claim that a “functional” resume – one that lists your skills, is actually a worse choice than a “chronological” resume – one that lists every job you had since you were born, in order.

Jackassery. Pure and simple. Anyone who asks for a PURE chronological resume is a nut job.  The chronological stuff is for the application, not for your resume.  A chronological resume wastes their time and yours – because you will inevitably have to list your Whopper flipping job at the BK Lounge. If you’re applying for a job as a structural engineer, it seems oddly irrelevant to list BK on your resume, doesn’t it?

They say that a “functional” resume leaves the hiring manager wondering about gaps in employment. It takes a special kind of hiring manager to overlook a candidate who has all the relevant skills, but didn’t list every irrelevant job on the resume. In fact, it takes a bosshole (urban dictionary).

Is it too much to ask to have the best of both worlds? Why not. Lets focus on a MIX of functional and chronological. We’ll call it Funkylogical.

List your most relevant jobs in chronological order if – and only if - all of your jobs had similar skill sets and they all apply to the job you are applying for.Now, having included all of that – you can feel okay to put your most relevant job on top, even if it is out of chronological order.