- Give the name, location, and dates when you worked at each company in reverse chronological order. That is, list your most recent job first.
- Give your title. If you held several positions over the years at the same company, list each title and the years (or months and years) you held that position.
- Use a paragraph to describe your job duties with knowledge and skills. Use bullets to highlight achievements with knowledge and skills.
- Start each sentence with a verb; for example, “Provide complete background needed to rank applications while documenting and providing information about each client by following the Data Assessment Plan (DAP) format.”
- Do not start bullets with “Responsible for” and avoid using the same verb (such as “Led” or “Ensured”) over and over.
- Use the present tense (“Document…”) for current accomplishments and skills in your current position; everything else should be described in past tense (“Documented…).
- Insert numbers wherever possible (answered 40 calls daily; supervised 4 staff members; saved $8 million; improved revenue 60% in 2 years; cut time-to-market by 4 months).
- Be specific. If you traveled on the job, name the countries; if you sold more than any other salesperson, indicate how many salespeople you competed against; if you had important clients or customers or sold specific products, name them.
- Use appropriate keywords. For example, if the advertisement or posting asks for a “customer service representative with 5 years of experience” and you qualify, make sure the equivalent words appear somewhere in your work history (for example, “more than 5 years of customer service experience”).
- Never ever lie and make sure that your paper resume matches any information you have posted online so that there is not even the appearance of lying.
At Robin’s Resumes®, we have decades of experience in writing strong work histories: accurate, precise, concise, and interesting to recruiters and hiring managers. Contact us today. Next week we will discuss how to handle dates on your resume.