Recent graduates who are now job hunting are probably inundated with advice from friends and family. Some of the classic advice: Get a haircut; buy interview clothes; tell everyone you’re looking for a job; get an internship; go on informational interviews. Other advice is geared toward protecting your online reputation: Google yourself to make sure nothing incriminating shows up (e.g. your MySpace page that displays photos of you guzzling beers); consider how professional your email will sound to a prospective employer (fuzzybear @ gmail .com?).
It’s all sound advice, but the good old fashioned résumé is the major cornerstone to getting a job. Even if you’ve never had a “real” job outside serving beer at the student union or being an RA, you can create a résumé that will catch the eye of a prospective employer.
Here are a few of the best résumé advice sites:
The Wall Street Journal’s Career Journal has a whole section of their site devoted to Résumé Advice. Recent articles cover sneaky job hunter tips, tips for writing broad résumés, why lying is hard to cover up, and writing thank you notes.
Purdue University has many résumé writing articles in addition to articles about writing great cover letters, writing a Curriculum Vitae and business writing.
All Career Schools has a section on résumé tips that includes résumé strategies and online networking resources for creating a great résumé.
Career Builder’s resume advice by Robert Half International emphasizes the importance of keywords, concise résumés, and video résumés.
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workOne of the best resume tips I ever received was to add numbers. Basically, quantify what you did with specific numbers – if something you did increased revenue, add a ballpark figure as to HOW MUCH you increased revenue by.
Comment by Beth 07.26.07 @ 11:16 amSome of the best resume advice I got was actually about presentation–keep the length down to one page, use bolding and italics to make sure the right information pops out (i.e. bold your job titles), don’t try to cram too much onto the page, and use a professional looking font (I once saw a resume written in comic sans and it made me feel a physical pang of embarrassment for that person).
Comment by Julia 07.31.07 @ 10:05 amThe most important piece of resume advice I know of is to make job-specific resumes. If you’re applying for seven positions, make one version that is tailored for each job. That way the content sounds genuine. HR managers always notice that.
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Comment by Internzoo 09.22.08 @ 2:34 am