If you have to head out of your front door and find a new job, you want to have a good resume to get that foot into someone elses door. Its surprising how many mistakes are made just in sending in a resume, but now you wont be making them with our tips for resumes.
Tips for resumes #1 – Being neat
Why some job seekers send in resumes with coffee stains and wrinkles is a great mystery. If youre looking for a job, you need to look as though you can handle being an employee. You wouldnt turn in your weekly sales report on a sheet of toilet paper, so why on earth would you send in a resume that isnt presentable?
Get some nice grade office paper to print your resume on and a matching envelope. Its not going to cost you that much, but it will keep your resume from ending up in the trash.
Keep the font size fairly large (12 point is standard) and easy to read. This isnt the time for fancy lettering or bold type. You want to look clean and crisp, not like youre trying to talk the reader into hiring you (even if you are).
Tips for resumes #2 – Correct yourself
Another way to get your resume into the nearest trash bin is to have a lot of spelling and grammar errors in it. While you dont have to have a degree in English to send in a proper resume, you will want to run that spell check program and read through the sentences a few times to be sure that you arent missing words and saying something that you dont mean.
The best way to handle this is to read your resume backwards. Yes, this sounds odd, but it helps stop your brain from skipping over words. You have to focus in order to read the text backwards and youll notice errors more quickly.
Another great way to find mistakes is to read your text out loud. Find a quiet and private area to do this and youll be amazed at how different your words sound. This is one if the big classic tips for resumes taken from writers as a computer screen doesnt always translate the content well.
Tips for resumes #3 – Send it to the right person
When you send your resume to a company without a direct person in the address, you may as well be sending the resume to the company trash can. Yes, youll need to spend a few moments figuring out who is the head of hiring, but its well worth the effort.
You can simply call the human resources department to see who is in charge of the department that you are applying for. Having a name to refer to is the best way to leave an impression in someones mind.
These simple tips for resumes are nearly guaranteed to get your resume seen and read. Now, all you have to do is start writing it. But thats the easy part.
