Magic Pot of Jobs

I am not a perfectionist.

My house is messy, there is often a spot on my glasses, and I always forget to set aside some extra frosting when decorating a cake. (Take that, Martha Stewart!) As a result, I rarely expect perfection in other people, with one glaring exception. Please don’t submit a resume with spelling and/or usage errors.

Before you send off your well-crafted cover letter, make it a priority to proofread your resume. Better yet, have someone else read it for you. One thing that I learned as English major was that your eye sees what your brain intends, not what your hand wrote. So have mom, your best friend, your cube-mate, someone other than you carefully read the piece of paper that is supposed to represent you and your accomplishments.

Think about it — wouldn’t you rather have someone you trust break it to you that you’re the “director of pubic relations” for a major company, than have the CEO laugh at you and dismiss your accomplishments?

Here are a few points to look out for when proofreading your resume:

1. Font consistency. A resume that uses four different fonts, some bold, others italicized, and a few underlines thrown in for emphasis, is flat-out distracting. To spot this common complaint of resume readers, look at the first thing that you bolded/italicized/underlined/changed style/changed case: was it a header? Are your other headers bolded/etc.? Rinse and repeat for all font changes.

2. Periods. If you use them after bullet points or sentences, make sure they’re after all bullet points and sentences.

3. Spelling. Check the spelling of companies and computer programs. These are often not spotted by spell check. I recently read a resume for someone looking for an advertising position. She mentioned that she worked with “Leo Brunet.” What she meant was “Leo Burnett,” a prominent, well-known advertising agency. I wonder if hiring managers at the major ad agencies overlooked her resume based on this error.

4. Headings on multiple pages. If your experience warrants more than one page (more on that on another posting), create a header with your name, e-mail address, and phone number on all pages after the first. Most recruiters and HR folks still print and read resumes.

5. And + &. Only use & or + as a substitute for “and” in official company or product names. For example: “Created brochures + flyers for a local marina.” doesn’t look artistic or creative, it looks sloppy.

6. Too, to, and 2, two. For too and to, see http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/to.html. For 2 and two, Associated Press style dictates that numbers less than ten are written out. Exceptions include dates, addresses, phone numbers, and software versions. For 2 and two see http://www.utexas.edu/coc/journalism/SOURCE/journal_links/AP_style.html#d.

7. Verb tense. If an accomplishment was from a past job, it should be in the past tense, as should all other accomplishments and duties from that job. If you are discussing your current role, define your tasks in the present tense.

8. General quirkiness. This is not always easy to spot when you proofread, but another person should be able to see anything strange. If you can’t rely on anyone else to proof your resume, try reading it aloud, SLOWLY and CAREFULLY. If you (or ideally, your proofreader) have to re-read something to understand it, it needs to be rephrased.

These are the first things that I look for when reviewing a resume. I’m interested in hearing feedback or your favorite tips.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 19th, 2005 at 5:56 pm and is filed under Resumes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.