I’m just going to say this outright: resume tips are not going to get you hired. That is, resume tips won’t get you hired, but they will help get you hired.

The first step to landing a job is having a great resume, and having a great resume requires a lot of thought and effort put into every little detail. Tips are great for nailing down all of the details, and implementing many resume tips can add up to an overall better resume.

To help you put these tips into practice, the resume example below has been designed using the same tips offered in this article. Use this article and the resume example to guide you in creating a document that will land on the hiring manager’s desk instead of in the trash.

The Resume Tips

1. Choose the right format

There are four main types of resumes: chronological, functional, combination, and targeted. If you have a lot of experience in your field, you should use a chronological resume, but if your career path has been irregular or erratic, you should go with a functional resume. A combination resume lists both your experience and your skills, and the targeted resume is geared toward specific job requirements. You’ll want to choose the one that’s best for your background before you even begin writing your resume.

2. Make sure the style suits your background

Similarly, your resume should fit your background. There are a number of styles you can choose from, but three of the most common are classic, creative, and modern. A classic resume is best suited for professional jobs, as it provides a clean and simple format with information that is easy to find. A creative resume will help demonstrate your visual capabilities in an original and expressive way. Finally, a modern resume shows that you are up to date with current trends by providing a neat and refreshing document that avoids the outdated look of traditional resumes.

3. Know your audience

In any kind of writing, the best way to ensure you will write well is to know your audience. You should have a very good idea of what your potential employers do, how you can help them do what they do, and what you can get from doing something with them. Once you know these points, you’ll be able to begin writing your resume.

4. Look over your contact information

Write down your contact information at the top of the resume, where it will be easy for hiring managers to spot. Make sure you look it over several times. It’s a good idea to have somebody else look it over, too, because the last thing you want is to have written down the wrong information or to have left anything out.

5. List your experience, achievements, education, and skills

This is obvious, but outlining your resume in major sections will provide a clean document that is easy to follow and understand while providing all of the necessary information. You’ll need to include contact information, key skills, awards and achievements, education, employment, volunteering, and anything else that may be relevant for your prospective employer to know.

6. Only include what’s relevant

On that note, you should include only relevant information in your resume. If it doesn’t apply to the job at hand, that’s okay, but if it also doesn’t share any of the same skill sets, objectives, roles, responsibilities, or environment, you may not wish to include it on your resume. Conversely, if you don’t have a lot to include, be smart about how you use your time so you can include volunteer work or online courses that are relevant where nothing else is.

7. Use action verbs to describe your past roles

Action verbs draw the attention of your reader. However, avoid being too repetitive in your word choices. For creative jobs, you may wish to include verbs like brainstormed or designed. Similarly, if you are applying to a job with a leadership role, you’ll want to include words like established or improved.

8. Take keywords from the job description

If you’re struggling to come up with action verbs, you may want to take a look at the job description. Employers often, consciously or not, include action verbs that best suit the prospective employee’s skill sets. Since they know what they’re looking for, you can use these verbs to your advantage to come across as the perfect candidate.

9. Maintain a consistent tense

It’s important that you maintain a consistent tense in your action statements. You’ll use past tense for any jobs from the past and the present tense for anything you are still in the process of completing. Make sure you don’t switch tenses from bullet point to bullet point; doing so isn’t just wrong, it also gets confusing very quickly!

10. Avoid personal pronouns

Rather than using personal pronouns to describe your experiences, use strong, direct action statements to show potential employers what you have accomplished throughout your career and to give your main accomplishments the most attention.

11. Keep away from buzzwords

Stay away from overused descriptors like hardworking or team player. You can be hardworking and a team player, but instead of using watered-down, blanket terms, describe the accomplishments you’ve achieved through your dedication and ability to work with others.

12. Limit yourself to short and straightforward statements

Keep everything as brief as possible without losing context or necessary information. Include your core responsibilities in a detailed and concrete way. This will help you avoid generic statements (and the aforementioned personal pronouns and buzzwords). You should also try to remove any words that serve as filler, like unnecessary adjectives.

13. Only include what you can prove

For example, only list tangible skills or attributes, and avoid listing personal skills like adaptable or organized. Though these qualities are important, they are less impactful than tangible occupational skills because personal skills are much more difficult to prove.

14. Don’t lie

Never lie, exaggerate, or otherwise stretch the truth on a resume. Even if lying gets you to the interview stage, if employers discover that someone they have hired has lied about his or her academic or professional history, they will very likely terminate the employee immediately.

15. Choose or design a visually appropriate resume

An applicant may have impressive credentials and an extensive professional history, but without proper resume formatting, these credentials may be buried in an impenetrable block of text. You have worked hard to compile your resume’s content, so take care to ensure that you use proper formatting to grab a potential employer’s attention quickly.

16. Let the content speak for itself

Since your achievements and skills are the focus of your resume, you shouldn’t let its format consume the actual content. It is easy to get carried away with visuals, whether they’re colors, objects or fonts. However, your resume should be legible and professional rather than flashy or distracting.

17. Allow white space

Incorporating white space in a resume can be difficult; after all, you have a lot of information to include in a limited area. How can you make sure your resume is balanced? Use the quadrant test. Divide your resume into four equal sections, and make sure the text is evenly distributed in each section.

18. Customize your resume for every job

It’s a good idea to edit and revise your resume for every position you apply to, unless the resume will be submitted to several similar organizations with the same job requirements. This may seem tedious, but the more effort you put into creating your resume, the more you will gain from the entire job-seeking process.

19. Have references ready

You typically don’t have to provide your references on your resume, but you should prepare a list of references and their contact information so that they are available upon request. Ask the appropriate parties, and be sure that you notify your references when you are applying for a position so they can expect to be contacted in the near future.

20. Make sure nothing is missing

Ensure that all of the required sections are present, especially any information that is asked for in the job description or by the employer. In addition, make sure your name and contact information are there so the hiring manager can find you! When applying online, make sure you’ve completed all elements of the online application form, as the failure to do so demonstrates an inability to follow instructions.

21. Optimize your resume for applicant tracking systems

Applicant tracking systems automatically scan hundreds of applications for information related to job postings, including keywords, employment history, past employers, and educational background. So embed your resume with terms or phrases that represent the qualifications that are required for a position.

22. Think clean and simple

Look over your resume once it’s filled out. Are your name and contact information easy to find? Do the headings stand out from the body of the text? Is everything uniform? Is the formatting consistent? Have you used your white space efficiently? Are your statements short? Is everything legible? Are all of the fonts and visuals appropriate? Revise and make sure everything is clean and simple, from formatting to the actual content.

23. Have your resume professionally edited and proofread

It’s one thing to look over your resume for typos and errors; it’s another entirely to have a professional editor edit your resume. An editor doesn’t just catch spelling and grammar problems. He or she will also ensure that your biggest strengths are highlighted, everything is relevant, your resume is tailored specifically for the job at hand, the formatting is consistent, etc.

Conclusion

A resume on the hiring manager’s desk means your foot is in the door. After looking at the resume example and implementing these practical resume tips, you have a document that’s ready to land you a job!

 

When you’re a kid, you have the first day of school to contend with. When it comes time to trying your hand at “adulting,” you have to meander your way through the first day of work. Your first day at a new job can be almost as anxiety-provoking as a blind date set up by your mom. It can be especially daunting if you’re obsessed with making a good impression. That’s why you should do what I do on all of my dates with my mom’s best friend’s daughter’s boyfriend’s brother: go in as if you have nothing to lose.

Striving for success is a recipe for certain failure. Making failure your goal in the first place is not only a big time-saver but also a great way to alleviate your first-day-of-work jitters. So, without further ado, here are 14 ways to make a bad impression on your first day of work. You’re welcome.

1. Start by forgetting to set your alarm the night before. There’s no start quite like a late start.
2. Dress inappropriately. Everyone knows that personal style is more important than social conformity, and this rings especially true when you’re trying to make a bad impression on your first day of work. Yoga pants, anyone?
3. Don’t just show up a bit late; commit to your tardiness. After all, you’ve already had a slow start—why stress yourself out by rushing now?
4. Once you finally arrive at work, make an unfavorable impression on your coworkers by neglecting to introduce yourself to any of them. Ignore everyone who tries to make your acquaintance, or at most, brush them off awkwardly.
5. Don’t ask any questions. Instead, when faced with an unknown, take your best guess and hope for the best.
6. To continue your antisocial behavior, you should really consider eating lunch in the bathroom. Sure, Sally from the next cubicle invited you to join her in the break room, but you certainly don’t want her to think that you’re capable of normal social interaction.
7. Demonstrate almost immediately how you may have slightly fudged the details of your resume to get the job. (Sure, you can type 70 words per minute, but only if “70 words per minute” is actually code for “40 words on a good day,” and only then after two or three lattes.)
8. Show off your impressive multitasking abilities in the best way you know how: by texting throughout the entire day, of course. Your coworkers will be totally impressed with how you’ve managed to brush off their attempts at friendliness while clearly communicating with someone else throughout your entire first day of work.
9. Take lots of breaks. There’s no need to be too much of a keener when you’re trying to make a bad impression. A work-to-break ratio of 1:4 should suffice.
10. If you get bored with being antisocial and want to take a different route to making a terrible impression, mix things up by making off-color jokes by the watercooler.
11. Don’t just swear like a sailor—swear like a drunken sailor who’s forgotten his manners.
12. When your efforts (or lack thereof) start making you sleepy, go ahead and put your head down on your desk for a while. No one will begrudge you a short nap on your first day of work. Well, they will, but that’s the whole point, right?
13. Ask your co-worker when payday is. Then ask your HR representative, just to be sure. Then, for good measure, ask your boss. Everyone knows that important information should be verified at least three times by three separate (but equally knowledgeable) parties.
14. Leave early for an appointment or some other previous engagement, but be sure to reassure your boss that this kind of thing doesn’t happen often.

There you have it. Just follow these 14 tips and you’ll be sure to make a terrible impression on your first day of work, maybe even before break time. Once you’ve accomplished your goal and have subsequently lost your new job, you’ll be ready to return to the drawing board and revamp that old resume.

A resume objective is a brief, clearly written statement that explains your main skills and career goals. It is traditionally included at the beginning of your resume.

Resume objectives get a lot of bad press.

Many career and job-hunting experts say that including a resume objective is a surefire way to make your resume appear outdated. Even worse, resume objectives often come across as self-serving, focusing entirely on what the job seeker wants rather than the needs of the employer. And in the early stages of the recruiting process, the hiring manager likely has little interest in what you want as a job seeker.

However, resume objectives do serve a purpose: they give potential employers an idea of how your career has been progressing and where you hope to go. They also let you clarify what you want in your career, and they can help you ensure that your resume and career goals match a position or company.

Do some research to get a feel for how resume objectives are perceived in your field, and if you choose to include one, make sure you know how to write a resume objective that will catch the eye of hiring managers and help you secure a job. Keep the following best practices in mind when writing your objective:

Be brief and clear

There’s not a whole lot that can kill your resume faster than a lengthy resume objective. It should be brief, lest the hiring manager skip over the entire resume. A few sentences should be more than enough to communicate your objective clearly and efficiently. Cut any fluff or unnecessary words and descriptors. Get to the point! Short and sweet is definitely the best way to go here.

Ensure relevance to the target position

Make sure you can link your resume’s objective directly to the position at hand. Your objective should be a good fit for the needs of the employer. You might even want to check out the job description and pull out words directly from there. And since a good resume objective is relevant to the target position, you’ll need to customize your resume objective every time you apply to a new job. It might seem tedious, but it will ensure that you get the most out of the job-seeking process.

Be specific (but not too specific)

Though you want your resume to be specific and relevant to the target position, you don’t want to be too obvious about it. If the hiring manager catches on that your objective is too on the nose, your resume objective will come across as disingenuous. So be sincere while you write the objective, as doing so will help you avoid writing one that simply attempts to butter up the hiring manager.

Link your career goals to those of the organization

The point of the resume objective is to outline your career goals. You should do this as earnestly as possible without coming across as unprofessional. Nonetheless, be sure your genuine resume objective demonstrates that you share the same goals as the organization. This shouldn’t be too hard because that’s likely the reason you’re applying to this job in the first place! If your goals don’t meet those of the organization, you might want to consider applying for a different job.

Set yourself apart from the other candidates

Everyone applying for the position will be aiming to make sure the resume objective is relevant and specific. That means it’s possible to have a resume objective very similar to many other candidates’ objectives. You have to make yours stand out if you want to be set apart from other prospective employees. Do this by being sincere, as aforementioned, and not just trying to fit into a box. Be yourself. If your resume objective is genuine, it’s impossible for it to be identical to another candidate’s.

Be honest (but not too honest)

Part of being genuine is being honest. You have to be honest in your resume objective, not just for moral reasons but to stand out from the other candidates. That doesn’t mean your resume objective should say that you’re simply looking for a way to pay down debts (even though that may be true). While you should never lie in a resume, you don’t always have to say everything, either. Remain professional and positive.

Demonstrate your qualifications

When thinking about how to write a resume objective, you should first think of the target position. Include it in your resume objective with linking words to connect the position to your qualifications. For example, your resume objective might begin with the following: “Experienced customer service representative [the target position] seeking to use my [linking words] interpersonal skills [your qualifications].”

Explain how you can benefit the employer

It’s important that your resume objective doesn’t focus on what the employer can do for you. While the resume objective is self-serving (as it’s helping you seem like the perfect fit for the job), it also helps the employer by summarizing what skills and goals you can offer the organization. If you aren’t able to articulate some kind of connection between your goals and the company’s needs, your resume’s objective will only demonstrate to the employer that you are seeking self-advancement rather than a mutually beneficial partnership. You should focus on demonstrating how you can benefit the employer, not on how the employer can benefit you.

Conclusion

It’s easy to write a bad resume objective. It’s a part of the resume that many people struggle with because it’s easy to slip into vague and conventional statements (“team player and detail-oriented”) instead of making your resume’s objective clear and concrete. If you choose to include one, it’s important that you know how to write a resume objective. To write an objective that is objectively good, follow the advice above, and you’ll write an excellent resume that’s ready for the competitive job market.