The First Impression is the Most Lasting Impression

Hiring managers receive stacks of resumes on a daily basis. Getting your resume to rise to the top is vital to reaching the next stage – interviewing. Even if you have the finest credentials, a poorly presented resume may be passed over. Here are some tips for getting your resume noticed.

General Resume Tips

• Write an objective statement targeted towards the job you are applying.
• List a summary of your skills, briefly describing how each was used. A hiring manager will decide within the first few lines to read on.
• Use achievement statements with active words such as: developed, implemented, managed, etc. Include the tools or skills used.
• Whenever possible, use measurable achievements. For example: Implemented process change that resulted in $250,000 cost savings.
• Use bulleted lists for a quick read.
• A chronological resume is usually the best approach. List each employer in reverse chronological order, highlighting responsibilities and successes for each position.
• If your employment history consists of many contract positions, use month and year for employment dates. This shows the manager there are no gaps.
• As long as the resume has substance, the length is not limited to one page.
• Include a footer on each page with your name and page x of y.
• Remove Hobbies/Activities.
• ALWAYS use spell check. Have at least one other person review. Spell check is not fool proof.

Electronic Resumes

• Resumes should be attached in rich text format or pasted in the body of the email message.
• When attaching a resume, avoid special fonts and characters. Depending on the receiver’s word processing set-up, your special bullets may show up as question marks or worse. You don’t want to imply your resume is questionable, now do you?
• If pasting from a word-processed resume into an email message, beware of “curly” quotation marks and apostrophes. These characters will frequently be converted to another symbol like a bar.
• Test out your electronic resume by emailing it to yourself or a colleague.

Sample Resume #1
Sample Resume #2
Sample Resume #3

Send your resume (.doc or .txt) to info@aesi.com