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The ABCs of Effective Resume Writing Part 5:

Second Opinions Count or A Once Over Will Never Do

by Heather Eagar

Part 1: It's All in Your Head

Part 2: Flush Out Your Achievements

Part 3: The All Important Format

Part 4: Make Your Achievements Pop

How many times have you written a document or email, sent it out, and then discovered some major typos or even words missing? What if it doesn’t get your point across – or worse yet – give off the exact opposite impression? If you’re like most, it’s happened to you at least once.

How do you keep yourself from making the same mistake when it comes to your resume? Here are a couple of necessities when it comes to having your resume stand up to the scrutiny of Hiring Managers.

1. Give your eyes a break. Do you notice that when you’re finding a task particularly difficult that if you take a break for a few hours – or even overnight – you can tackle it with a freshness and vigor that you had lost? You need to recharge before you require yourself to inspect a document that you’ve been working on for hours. The words all start to run together and nothing even makes sense to you. The passion for which you originally wrote with is lost on you due to mental fatigue. You need to take a step back, refresh your eyes and mind, then go back and take another look.

2. Have a friend (or family member) take a look. Having another person read your resume can be extremely helpful when it comes to having a fresh perspective. You are so close to your resume that you tend to not be very objective when it’s all said and done. It’s beneficial to have someone completely new look over it. Why? What important information can you gleam from this exercise?

• What’s their first impression? Professional? Amateur? Sloppy?

• Do they know what kind of job you are applying for and how you are qualified?

• Are they impressed with your achievements?

• Is there too little information? Too much?

Be sure that the person or people you choose can give you an honest opinion. You don’t want to depend on someone who is afraid to hurt your feelings or thinks that everything you do is great. It is best to choose someone with business acumen as well. It’s not necessary that they be efficient in human resources and the like, but the more they’re involved with the business world, the better.

3. Have a professional review it. There are many resume writing services who offer a free review of your resume. They can provide some great tips that you might never have thought of to improve your overall success at getting interviews. However, you want to choose one that is personalized and not just a checklist. Not that you won’t get anything out of a checklist but you’ll get a lot more out of a more thorough review.

Resume writing is an exhausting task so you need to be sure not to jump the gun and send out your resume package immediately after you complete it. It’ll pay to take one – if not all – the tips above to heart before you apply if you decide to write your own resume.

Now that you’re all set to send out your resume, we need to review some tips on how to do that effectively. But…that’s for next time.

 

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