(Published September 28, 2009)
A couple of months ago I wrote about résumés — ones that made you laugh and then were put in the "not for hiring" pile. That spurred some interest in good résumés – ones that you put on the short list for interviewing right off the bat. So I polled a group of HR professionals and asked them what it was that they wanted to see in a résumé.
They agreed that they did not want to see an "objective." They know what your objective is — you want a job. Rather, they would prefer to see a summary of your qualifications. What makes you stand out? What makes you different from the dozens of other people who are applying for the same position?
They also agreed that they didn't want to see a copy of your job description. What they would prefer to see is a description of your major accomplishments. A bulleted list is fine; in fact, some of the group I talked to would prefer to see the accomplishments in bullet points. They are less concerned about what you were responsible for because that says nothing about how well you actually did it; they want to see how you benefited the company. What kind of quantifiable goals did you achieve? Did you save the company money? If so, how much? Did you exceed sales goals? By how much? Did you increase something profitable or decrease something unnecessary or adverse? Provide details.
There was some disagreement about dates, since some of the group preferred functional résumés to chronological ones. However, it was unanimous among those who want to see dates that just the year is not enough. They want to see both month and year, citing some instances where an applicant listed, for example, "2007-2008" and the employer couldn't tell if the applicant had been in that position for two months (December 2007 and January 2008) or two years. Year-only is misleading, probably in some cases deliberately, and leaves a bad impression.
Without exception, everyone agreed that the résumé needs to look professional. It needs correct spelling and grammar. Name, address, phone number, and e-mail address should be at the top, and your name needs to be on each page, in case pages get separated. The e-mail address needs to be something professional, and not something on the order of sexkitten@domain.com.
Provide your educational information clearly, with the name of the institution, the city and state, and your major. This is one place where you should not provide your year of graduation; however, if you attended but did not graduate, that should be made clear. Include any special certifications, but include enough information so that the employer knows what they mean. Spell out acronyms in full.
Include volunteer work. This can be very impressive if you have not been in the workforce for very long or if you've been having a hard time finding a new job after a layoff. If you are a recent graduate, include leadership roles you may have held and any major accomplishments.
Different hiring managers or HR professionals will want to see different things, but we can agree on a few things.
Catherine Bannon is an HR consultant in Marshfield, MA (catherine.bannon@gmail.com). Bannon worked for 10 years in HR management before starting her consulting practice.
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