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The Ultimate Resume Checklist

What to Include in a Resume

If you’re reading this article, then you’re probably also in the process of applying for a job. In that case, you’ve found the right place! Here at Inklyo, we know that even the mere thought of creating your resume can be daunting, so we’re here to help. Resumes do take time and patience, but if you’re equipped with the right tools and resources, you’ll have no trouble breezing through the resume writing process . . . and who knows, you might even have fun along the way! This resume checklist will discuss what to include in a resume and will focus on the following topics:

  • Sections (or headings) to include
  • Information to omit
  • Design elements
  • Spelling, grammar, and punctuation
  • Additional tips to make your resume stand out and help land you that dream job

The Resume Checklist

Feel free to read this checklist as you’d like—from beginning to end, or just the sections that pertain most to your resume writing needs. We do, however, suggest reading through the tips to the end—you’ll find some great advice that will really take your resume, and resume writing skills, up a notch!

What to Include

✓ Contact information. Full name, address (street name and number, city, state, and zip code), phone number (home or cell; choose the one you use most often so it’s easier to reach you), email address (keep it professional), and a link to your LinkedIn profile (if you have an account; optional). Depending on your industry, you can also include a link to your professional website (if you have one) or a portfolio of your work.

✓ Summary. A few brief but comprehensive sentences at the top of your resume highlighting how your skills and accomplishments will benefit the company you are applying to. Try to match this information with the qualifications outlined in the job description.

✓ Relevant knowledge and skills. A concise bulleted list of your knowledge, skills, and attributes that apply to the position at hand.

✓ Work experience. A comprehensive summary of your work history from the past 10 to 15 years. These must be listed in reverse chronological order, which means listing the newest positions first. For each job, include the company name, your position, the dates you worked there (months and years), and a few bulleted points outlining your duties and accomplishments in your role.

✓ Education. Also list your education in reverse chronological order. Unless you’re in high school, it is not necessary to include your secondary education. Rather, focus on your post-secondary education (university and/or college).

✓ Volunteer experience (optional). List any volunteer positions you have held, especially if they’re relevant to the job you’re applying to.

✓  Industry-specific extras (optional; list each under its own heading). Licenses and Certifications, Publications, Professional Affiliations, Professional Memberships, Awards and Recognition, Portfolio

What to Omit

✓ Non-job-related social media profiles. This includes Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google+.

✓ A “Career Objective” section. Instead, write a summary that explains why you’re qualified for the position and what makes you the best candidate.

✓ A “References” or a “References Available upon Request” section. If a potential employer needs references from you, they will contact you.

✓ Pictures, tables, graphs, or charts. They are unnecessary and will cause confusion for both readers and applicant tracking systems (ATS).

✓ Gender, age, or marital status. These personal details are not necessary to include, as employers are not allowed to make decisions based on an applicant’s status.

✓ A photo of yourself. Save this for your LinkedIn profile, and make sure it’s professional looking.

✓Fraud, padding, and exaggeration. Don’t lie!

✓ Clichéd words. Avoid words such as try, love, seasoned, experienced, creative, and innovative. Many of these words are vague, over-used, or have lost their strength. Focus on showing your skills rather than telling about them.

Design Elements

✓ Document type. Unless the employer asks for a specific format, prepare your resume as a Word document (.doc or .docx). Word documents, as opposed to PDF or other file types, are the most common and are, therefore, the easiest to be emailed/attached, opened, and read.

✓ Format. Write your work experience and education in reverse chronological order. This means listing your positions from the newest to the oldest.

✓ White space (or negative space). This refers to margins (the areas between the main content and the edges of the page), gutters (the vertical space between columns), and the spaces between lines of type and graphics or figures. Having a balance between white space and content will keep your resume from looking cluttered while drawing the reader’s eye to certain sections.

✓ Font style, size, and color. Use a font that is easy for both ATS and a real person to recognize: Arial, Calibri, Verdana, Times New Roman, Georgia, Lucida, Tahoma, or Trebuchet—these fonts were designed for the web. The font size should be between 10 and 12 point, and the color should be consistent throughout (black).

✓ Margins. Use 1-inch margins all the way around your resume. This will ensure that no information gets cut off if a paper copy is printed and that no information will be lost to ATS if it falls outside the margin.

Spelling, Grammar, and Punctuation

✓ Attention to detail. Spelling and grammar are important indicators of a candidate’s attention to detail; they highlight defects rather than spotlighting qualities. It is nearly impossible to recover from spelling errors on your resume.

✓ Action words. Use words that convey action, such as advised, examined, oversaw, prepared, resolved, and compiled.

✓ Consistency. Be consistent with your punctuation throughout. This includes putting periods at the end of complete sentences, using only single or only double quotation marks, using the serial comma, and using only straight or only curly quotes.

✓ Acronyms. Always make sure to spell out any acronyms in full upon their first use.

✓ Editing. Make sure to take the time to thoroughly edit and proofread your resume. Even the smallest spelling mistake can have a disastrous effect, so pay extra attention when reading through your resume. You may even want to use a professional editing service to have an extra set of professional, discerning eyes catch any errors you may have missed. Editing is crucial for two reasons: 1) ATS software will miss important keywords and phrases if they’re spelled incorrectly, making your resume more likely to get rejected and 2) A hiring manager who sees mistakes in your resume won’t take you seriously and will think you are lazy, which also makes it more likely for your resume to get rejected.

✓ Punctuation. Make sure to use punctuation marks properly. Know the difference between a hyphen (-), an en dash (–), and an em (—) dash; when and how to use a semicolon (;); how to properly use a comma (,); and how a period (.) should be placed at the end of each complete sentence.

✓ Capitalization. Capitalize words correctly. Do capitalize names; proper nouns; names of cities, states/provinces, and countries; languages; company names; brand names; and months. Do not capitalize job titles (unless they come before a name); college/university majors; important-sounding career words that aren’t proper nouns; seasons; or directions.

Bonus Tips for an Outstanding Resume

✓ Customization. Tailor your resume specifically to each job that you apply for. This means incorporating words and phrases from the job description—as they apply to your skills and experience—directly into your resume. Try to put most of these words and phrases in the top-third of the first page of your resume.

✓ Template. Stay current and use a modern and professional resume format, but avoid using a template. A template will make your resume look too generic, and it won’t stand out to a potential employer.

✓ Pronouns. Don’t use third- or first-person pronouns. For example, instead of saying “Annie prepares” or “I prepare,” just say “Prepare.”

✓ Email address. Make sure your email address is professional and appropriate, and avoid using a nickname. Think john.smith@email.com as opposed to crazyjohnny27@email.com.

✓ Metrics: Include performance metrics to show exactly how you helped the company. This could mean percentages, dollars, percentages, or time frames.

✓ Keywords. Include industry keywords in your resume, but not too many.

✓ Cover letter. Supplement your resume with a cover letter, especially if the job description calls for one. If you don’t include this important document when it’s asked for, it’s highly unlikely that the hiring manager will even look at—let alone consider—your resume, regardless of how qualified you are for the position.

Quick Reference: Resume Sections

If you’re a bit unsure about how to structure your resume to include all the required information, here’s a tool you can use to guide you. This isn’t the only way to structure a resume, but it’s a great starting point from which you can expand and personalize as much as you want.

Resume Section

Where Is It?

What Does it Tell the Reader?
Main Header (Name and Contact Information) Very top of first page Tells the reader your preferred name and the best ways to contact you
Summary Top of first page, under main header Explains why you’re qualified and sums up why you’d be the best candidate for the job
Knowledge and Skills Top third of first page, beneath Summary Tells the reader how your knowledge and skills match those required by the position
Work Experience Middle of first page, beneath Knowledge and Skills Explains how your professional achievements could benefit the company you’re applying to
Education Beneath Work Experience Shows the reader whether you meet the educational   requirements for the position
Other Information Beneath Education Shows how your other assets would be beneficial to the role being applied to. Examples include volunteer work, additional honors or completed courses, etc.

Conclusion

So there you have it—the ULTIMATE resume checklist. Comprehensive? Yes. Helpful? We hope so! Now that you’ve read through the resume tips outlined above, you should be confident in creating an outstanding resume that’s up to date, modern, and exactly what your potential employer wants to read. You now know exactly what to include in your resume and what to avoid, how your resume should be designed and formatted, and how to put it all together. But before you send it off, make sure to edit, edit, edit! Using an editing service will ensure your resume is error free so that you land that dream job.

Take these tips, apply them, and share them with your friends! There’s nothing better than that sense of accomplishment you feel after completing something you worked really hard on, and that’s what we want to help you achieve. Best of luck!

How to Perform a Social Media Cleanup Before a Job Search

Performing a social media cleanup has become an important part of the job search process. Whether you realize it or not, what you post online becomes part of your personal brand, and those pictures from that one summer camping trip you barely remember from your early 20s can come back to haunt you. Potential employers can and do check job candidates’ personal social media accounts, making social media etiquette an important factor to keep in mind. How you are portrayed online can affect an employer’s impression of you before you even meet face-to-face.

To begin a social media cleanup, run a Google search on yourself to see what a potential employer might find. It is likely that your various social media accounts will appear, which employers will look at to gain more insight into your personality, opinions, and lifestyle. This is where understanding how to present yourself professionally via personal branding and social media etiquette is important. Note: if you aren’t willing to change your online habits, consider changing your privacy settings to hide your activity.

Twitter

What to remove

Everyone needs to rant sometimes, and Twitter has become an outlet for many peoples’ pet peeves, strong opinions, and personal views. A well-worded tweet reflecting on a trending news story is one thing, but if an employer finds a Twitter account filled with complaints about work and coworkers, or repeated tweets to other companies in attempts to get free stuff, it might make the employer second-guess whether you’re a fit with the company. It’s also a good idea to make sure you’re presenting a good impression of yourself, and while the occasional cat meme is harmless enough, keep the vulgar language or pictures to a minimum.

How to remove a tweet

  1. Sign in to Twitter.
  2. Click on your profile.
  3. Choose the tweet you wish to delete, and select the ellipsis (“…”) at the bottom of the tweet itself to view more options.
  4. Select “Delete Tweet,” and confirm that you wish to delete it.

Personal branding

Personal branding on Twitter is easy because of the simplicity of the Twitter profile. Make sure you provide a professional profile picture that reflects you, your business, and your niche. For example, if you’re a hobby photographer, make sure your profile picture showcases your photography style. Your profile bio is limited to 160 characters, but you should remember to include the most relevant keywords associated with your personal brand or niche.

Take your time writing your bio, and make it interesting by being authentic and true to your lifestyle. You can also include hashtags in your bio that directly connect to aspects of your brand. Be sure to include your website address or link to another social media account. If an employer finds a well-presented Twitter profile highlighting your accomplishments and talents, the employer is more likely to gain a good first impression of your value as an employee.

Facebook

What to remove

Facebook can be especially problematic because so many people have used the social network for years, and it is possible to be tagged in posts and pictures that you may not have written or posted. Social etiquette has changed over the years, depending on what stage of life you were in when you began using social media. For many millennials who opened their first Facebook account nearly a decade ago, this makes a social media cleanup essential.

It may be a good idea to remove or hide any questionable pictures from your college or university days. (You know—the ones that feature beer bottles and strange outfits.) It’s also a good idea to scan your status updates, shares, and posts to remove anything too extreme; you want to make sure your rant about ignorant people or that post including a video of Kim Kardashian selfies isn’t the first thing a potential employer sees. On Facebook, much of this information can also be hidden instead of deleted.

How to remove or hide pictures and posts

Photo Albums

  1. Log in to your Facebook account, and go to your profile.
  2. Select the Photos tab.
  3. Select the Albums tab.
  4. You can make the photo album private from the Settings menu in the bottom right-hand corner of each album.
  5. You can delete an album by clicking on the album and choosing to delete it from the Settings tab in the top right-hand corner.
  6. Confirm that you want to delete the album.

Pictures

  1. Log in to your Facebook account, and go to your profile.
  2. Select the Photos tab.
  3. You can delete photos individually by going to the Photos tab (for all photos you have uploaded to an album or your timeline) or by searching for them in the Albums tab. To delete, hover over a photo, and select Delete This Photo from the Edit option found in the top right-hand corner.

4. Confirm that you want to delete the picture.

5. To hide the picture, choose the option Hide from Timeline.You can remove yourself from pictures in which others have tagged you by hovering over the photo and choosing the Remove Tag option from the Edit feature found in the top right-hand corner.

Status Updates and Posts

  1. Log in to your Facebook account, and go to your profile.
  2. Scroll down your timeline, and find the post or status update you wish to remove.
  3. Select the downward arrow in the top right-hand corner of your post, and select Delete.
  4. Confirm that you want to delete the post.
  5. To hide a status or post, select the Hide from Timeline option from the same menu.

Personal branding

Personal branding on Facebook is not something many people think about in relation to their personal accounts. But Facebook can work for you both personally and professionally. Make sure you present a professional profile picture and cover image. This doesn’t mean they have to be stuffy or formal, but high-quality, appropriate photos will significantly contribute to others’ impressions of you.

Fill in all of your professional information—potential employers might check this against your application. Follow groups and pages that relate to who you are and your interests; presenting the most authentic version of yourself online is a key part of personal branding. Be aware of what you post on Facebook, and perhaps substitute that extra cute cat mash-up video for a think piece on something about which you are passionate.

Instagram

What to remove

Like Facebook, you might want to consider a social media cleanup of your Instagram feed, considering that the two platforms are so closely intertwined (and that Instagram is now owned by Facebook). Remove any questionable photos that may not show you in the best light if an employer were to stumble across them, or you can set your account to private. Removing any off-color quotes or images is also an important aspect of social media etiquette.

How to remove

  1. Log in to Instagram on your phone or tablet—pictures cannot be deleted from the computer dashboard.
  2. Go to your profile.
  3. Select the photo you wish to delete.
  4. View more options by selecting the ellipsis (“. . .”).
  5. Select Delete from the Options menu.
  6. Confirm that you wish to delete the photo.

Personal branding

Instagram has become a significant platform for personal branding. To utilize the app to its best potential, upload a professional profile picture, and really consider what you post. You are more likely to gain followers if your images are edited in a similar manner so that the photos flow together nicely or have the same aesthetic. Try to showcase photos that you have taken yourself that reveal who you are and what your lifestyle is like in an authentic way.

Conclusion

The key to knowing what to post on social media, especially when embarking on a job search, is to consider each post from the perspective of someone who doesn’t know you. Ask yourself, “If this one post were the only thing somebody knew about me, how would I come across?”

Even though your friends and family may know that a certain status update is meant to be sarcastic or that you only use the word totes ironically (s-u-u-ure), remember that potential employers don’t know you well and are still in the process of forming their opinions about you. Make sure your social media accounts help them form accurate and positive opinions that reassure them of your professionalism and reliability.

 

How to Build Your Brand

We’ll start with the basics: What is a brand, anyway?

A brand is a representation of your relationship with your customers. It determines how they view and interact with your business. Put another way, your brand is like a promise.

Since the Internet has become a critical place for traffic and information, building an online relationship with your customers through a brand is imperative as you strive to make your business successful. To improve this relationship, you need to make sure your business is doing everything possible to build the brand and create a reputation.

So how do you use branding to build your business? How do you create a positive image so customers will feel a connection and sense of loyalty?

Think about your customers first

Before you can think about how your business will look online, determine what your customers want. Think about what will appeal to your customers when you start devising a business marketing strategy. For example, the types of colors that would attract them, the kinds of messages they like to hear, and the kinds of products they’re likely to buy. Once you have an idea of what your customers want in a brand, you can craft your image for them.

Think about what makes you unique

Before your customers can figure out why they’re going to choose your business over another one, you need to determine what makes it stand out among the rest. When you pinpoint your company’s strengths, you can use them to your advantage when creating your brand. On the Internet especially, your business needs to distinguish itself from all the rest, and promoting what makes you unique is the best way to market your business.

The logo

Logos are an excellent tool to help craft your image. Logos are symbols and they can generate an emotional response from your customers, if you build the right context around them. What emotional response do you want from your customers? A feeling of calm or confidence? Excitement? Strength? Think about how you feel about your business. How can you translate that into a logo?

The slogan

To your customers, your brand represents a message, or a set of values, that they can internalize when they purchase your product. A slogan can help your brand create this message. The one-line slogan that you choose will be how customers remember your business and identify with it through a single idea. Incidentally, you don’t have to have a slogan, and you don’t have to use the same slogan forever either. Most of the hamburger chains you know and love change their slogans for every campaign.

Get your brand out there

Once you have your desired image for your brand, you need to make your business widely known. This means putting your brand in front of your customers everywhere they’re likely to be. Forbes publishes a list of the world’s most valuable brands, and you probably know most, if not all of them. Consider where you’ve seen their advertisements, and then consider who they’re trying to reach. How can you apply that process to your own brand?

Consistency

Brands become familiar over time, and can even provide a sense of comfort. Once you build a brand, you build a relationship with your customers that rests on a foundation of reliability and consistency. So long as you maintain that consistency, you will be able to maintain your relationship with your customers and build a brand following online. And that, as you can see by the numbers on that Forbes list, can be worth millions.

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