Resume Tips

I read two articles giving tips to resume writing. One article was named "How to Pinpoint Accomplishments that will make your Resume Shine." In this article it said that displaying results on your resume was 3 times as important as displaying responsibilites. It said that you should intergrate the results into each job listing. The article gave 5 tips for making your resume shine. The tips were as follows: ditch the modesty, review a performance checklist, use job evaluation, measure your results, and cite recognition. What I got most from this articles was 3 questions as a way to determine your accomplishments. Sometimes its hard to think about what your accomplishments are. The three questions are:
What was your impact on your division, company and group?
What would not have happened if you hadn't been there?
What are you proudest of during your time with the company?
I also learned from the article that being appointed to head up a special project or finish projects ahead of time can also count as accomplishments. It is also good to use numbers to quantify your results.

The second article I read was "Finding the Right Keywords to get your Resume Noticed." It gave 6 tips. The tips were to first of all use the job posting to find keywords to use in your resume. I found this interesting. This way you make your resume sound like the perfect fit for the job they are looking for. The article also recommended that you should visit similar job postings and looks for words that are repeated. This way you know what keywords to include to get the job title you desire. The second tip was to use golden keywords such as communication skills, problem solving, team work, leadership, business development, computer skills and other golden key words. A later tip, however, said not to go overboard using keywords that do no technically apply to you and your skills. Another tip said to use keywords that describe your value such as "driving gross" or "increased efficiency." This goes along with what the previous article said about quantifying your results. Another tip was to still use action verbs. Even if a resume is electronice and nouns are supposed to be used, it is still okay to incorporate a few action verbs in the description. This allows your resume to be positive and active. Finally, the last tip says to "Go with a text file" when posting your resume online.

I found it interesting that in both of the articles it referred to online resumes not paper ones. I am a traditonal person and would much rather do things on paper. However, through these articles I found that I am going to have to do things electronically or else I will limit myself from many job opportunities. Needless to say the times are definitely changing.