Ok, in my last blog we talked about how to best present your career history. I established that teaching your recruiter how to suck eggs (telling the recruiter things they already know for those of you unfamiliar with that phrase) isn’t a game plan that often works out. In brief, tell them what your job was, then tell them how well you did it utilising as many figures as you can to catch their eye and make them want to know HOW you achieved this success. They will call you to find out and this again is the entire purpose of a resume.

Ok, so today I want to help you finish off your resume. This bit is simple. Keep it short and sharp.

Education, Qualifications & Training. Extended personal contact details (if required). All in dot points. Done!

The very last Rule!

Rule #3 of your resume is about your references. This is a controversial topic and a million recruiters out there are about to form a lynch mob and come after me for saying this: Continue reading →

Last week I talked about what a resume is designed to do in the job hunting process. To recap:  We discussed that while the content of the resume is there to give a brief and accurate report on what you’ve done and how well you’ve done it, the reason for the resume is to stand out from the pack and gain the interest of your recruiter and prompt them to call you for more info (phew, long sentence!) Last week I showed you one way to present the first part of your resume, the professional profile and major skill sets. Now it’s time for rule number 2. 

Rule #2 Career history. In brief, it’s about short sentences, dot points, and figures. Make it easy to read. Nothing too wordy about your position descriptions and results, results, results!

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The following blog series I wrote a number of years ago when I was still working as an IT / Telecommunications Recruiter for Transparency IT. It was well before I ever considered a career as a professional resume writer, but probably marks the very start of thinking that it should become my focus. Some of the ideas I write about here have changed over the last few years as new thinking around how best to write your resume has come to light through studying the success of the resumes I now write for a living. I hope you enjoy the read and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to comment!

I have been given permission to re-post it here as their blog site is coming down in the very near future and it is still of interest to candidates and job seekers across the world.

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5 to 7 seconds is the amount of time the average recruiter, internal or agency, will give your  Resume if they don’t see something that catches their eye. It doesn’t matter how good you are, or think you are at your chosen vocation, if you can’t get it across in less than 10 seconds, you won’t get a call.

So how do you write a CV that 1: Hopefully catches their eye and 2: Gives them a reason to read it a second time, more thoroughly?

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To start this off like a million other blogs on the topic… hasn’t the employment market in Australia changed over the last 5 years? From the giddy heights of the Mining Boom and the launch of what was expected to be a massive domestic Oil and Gas industry to the insane growth in all of the associated support industries across the country. From Hospitality and IT to Logistics and Geotechnical Engineering…to what we have today. Close to record low prices for all of our natural resources and a slump in permanent, full-time work across the nation.

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