A resume is a marketing piece that speaks for you if you cannot be there in person. In most cases it is the first thing a hiring manager sees. They see your resume before they see you. And, if you want them to see you it is in your best interest to make your resume a strong story.
How do you go about writing a resume? Resume writing is a fine art, and something you can master. To begin, write down your technical skill sets, i.e. programming languages, operating systems, databases, modules, any programs you are intimately working with and have some familiarity with. Include the latest software versions you have worked on as well. Or if you are doing hardware design include the materials you are working with, the types of designs you are doing, technologies you are working with, the size of the designs, software used, model numbers, and so forth.
Write down your degrees and certifications and when and where you obtained them.
Then, start with your most current job. Go through your day mentally and write down everything you do on a daily basis. Next, write everything you do on a weekly basis, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, every 6 months and every year. Some tasks are done daily and some are done to summarize or plan for future tasks. (These are tasks that do not occur daily, but are important to bring up to the hiring manager.) Be sure to include all of the software you use, the designs you are doing, technology you are working with and so on. Include if you are working with end users, vendors, management, anyone you work with on a regular basis if it is important to the nature of your job.
Go through this process with every job you have performed for the last 10 years. Hiring managers are most interested in what you are doing now, not what you did 20 years ago. They want to hire someone who is current with the latest technology. For jobs greater than 10 years back, you can briefly summarize things, unless they highlight a skill that is important for the hiring manager to know.
Next, make sure you have all dates organized on the resume. Write your resume backwards, starting from the most current job and moving to the least current. Include start and end dates, including the month and year you began and ended your job. If there are any gaps in your job history, explain the gaps.
Now you are ready to make your resume. Formatting your resume is important. Make sure everything is uniform. Do not throw in too many different fonts and type styles. Also, make sure the type styles are easy to read. Do not put all of your type in CAPS. Make sure you space things appropriately to make them stand out. Bold things to make them stand out, but do not bold too much or they will not stand out.
Make sure you use spell checker. In addition to using spell checker, have a few friends review your resume for spelling errors. There is nothing that kills your chances quicker than not knowing how to spell things or sloppy formatting.
How to do resume writing is not complicated, it is systematic. If you take the time you should end up with a winning resume that tells the hiring manager why they should hire you instead of someone else.
