Get Your Foot in The Door With a Terrific Resume
Your resume is the first thing about you that most employers will see, so make sure it's polished and effective. Here are some ways to make sure that submitting a resume will lead to an interview.
Don't get too creative with fonts.
Unless you are applying for a design job, the font you choose will be less important than the work experience you list. Use a professional, easy-to-read font, like courier or times new roman. Resume Templates USA recommends fonts in the serif and sans serif families.
Be selective with what you include.
Most resumes are one page, or at the most two pages, long. If you are a former executive with twenty years of experience in the pharmaceuticals industry, you will want to put your most recent, highest-level position, which it took decades of promotion to get to, up front in your resume. Save the list of your hobbies for the end, if you include them at all.
Likewise, if you don't have a college education, there is no need to include an "Education" section in your resume. Use the extra space to describe the Employee of the Month awards you won for your dependability and punctuality, or the practical skills you have built up that can translate across a wide range of jobs. MSN Careers also discusses situations where you may want to leave a highly specific educational background off your resume that has nothing to do with the field you are applying for, so that you don't seem overqualified.
Describe your signature accomplishments.
Your cover letter is a great place to explain why you are an ideal fit for the position, but you can also tailor your resume to the needs of the particular job you are applying for. Put a career objective at the top, and take a few lines to describe what you have achieved for your previous employers, all with an eye toward highlighting your suitability for the current position. According to All Developers, this should take the form of an action-benefit statement, which describes a specific action you took and how it benefited the company.
There is no one boilerplate way to write a resume, and you should modify the format to suit your needs and objectives. If you want someone to take a look at a draft of your resume and give you tips, you can try an online service such as CareerPerfect.