Jill MacFadyen's Career Coach Blog

The chronological resume is the most widely accepted.  Start your work history with your current or most recent employer.  You only have to go back 10-15 years unless you were with your most recent employer for a longer period of time.  Put your dates out to the right hand margin.  This makes it easier for the reader to see the flow of your work history.  First put the name of your firm, the city and state, and then the years (e.g., 1998-2007) you were with the firm.  Resumes no longer include months.  After the company, give a brief description of the company so that the recruiter can see where you did your work.  You can get this from the company web site.  On the next line, put your title and on the following line put your job scope.  If you had more than one position with an employer, you put your overall years of service on the right hand margin on the same line as the company and then the actual years in each position behind each title.  This reduces confusion and doesn’t lead the reader to think that you were a job hopper. 

Under each position, use bullet points to outline your accomplishments.  Do not use huge, clunky paragraphs.  You need to lead the reader to your accomplishments, not describe in detail how you achieved them.  Try not to use the word, “responsibility”.  What you were responsible for is not as important as what you accomplished.  Ideal accomplishments have three parts—challenge, action and result. 

• Challenge—why was it difficult. 
• Action—what did you do (not what you were responsible for but what did you do).
• Result—why was it good for your company or your client.

I had one client who listed numerous awards as bullet points.  Although it was impressive, there was no explanation of what he did to deserve those awards.  The work behind it was most important and I wondered if this young man could work without praise every step of the way.

PLEASE COMMENT 

Once again, I would appreciate any experiences, comments or questions that will help other readers.  I would particularly enjoy some humorous experiences and success stories.  Once a month, I will choose one commenter to contact for a free coaching session.

HOW TO REACH ME

FUNNY EXAMPLE FROM A RESUME 

Recent Posts

If you are recently laid off, start with the bottom listed blog, Ouch—Job Lost—How to Get a Fulfilling New Job, and then work your way up to the top. 

•  
  • The Resume—Summary
  • The Resume—General Comments
  • The Resume—Your Ticket
  • Get Rid of the Rocks
  • Reinventing ourselves
  • But I don’t know What I want to do When I Grow Up
  • How Much Do You Like Yourself?
  • The Leaving Statement
  • A Continuation of Perspectives
  • Change your thoughts and you can change your world
  • Harder to get a job while “in transition”?
  • Ouch–Job Lost–How to Get a Fulfilling New Job   

Thanks to tech guru David Behrens (http://neptunestudios.net), and editor M. C. Pastoret.