Your Resume Is Professionally Produced And Formatted

Do you keep losing out to people that probably aren't as qualified as you? These days it's not so much about who is best suited to the role, it's more about who is best prepared for the interview process. This also includes being ready and able to communicate their value and worth during the interview. This is one of the most critical and yet highly overlooked pieces of job seeking skills.

If you don't have this skill, and one of your competitors does, you could easily lose out, even you are better suited to the job. This is even more likely if their resume is professionally produced and formatted. It is not uncommon for the job hunter to mistakenly assume that the potential employer is easily able to sort the highly
qualified from the less qualified job applicants. When you consider that you will be competing with hundreds, possibly thousands of other job seekers, you will appreciate that your chances of being successful are significantly reduced. Then when you take into account that your potential employer is likely to have a 'screening' process in which the goal is to reject as many applicants as possible before actually looking to see who might be suitable, you are sure to realize that you really do need to do something that makes you stand out.

Less than 5% of job seekers take the time to invest in a professional, high quality resume. Do you think, of all those potentially qualified applicants, if you are the one with the resume that stands out, that your chances of being selected might increase exponentially? 

Once you have been selected to take part in the interview process, then it is up to you to communicate, to the potential employer, that you are not only the best qualified applicant but you are also ready, willing, and able to do the job at the highest level.

Every potential employer will want to see a resume from you and it is the quality of that resume that will determine who gets a job interview. Your resume is tantamount to a sales brochure about you. After having read your resume the potential employer should have a better understanding of who you are and your possible suitability for the advertised role. It serves to get the employer better acquainted with you so that, hopefully, they can decide if they want to get to know you better.

The resume is the first step. It is your introduction to an employer and it is where the employer will get their first impression of you. First impressions really do count! If you make a poor first impression, you'll never get to take part in the job interview process. You will never get a second chance to make a first impression, so make the most of the chance you get.

The best part about developing a high quality professional resume is that all of the hard work has been done for you. Almost every high quality resume will follow the same general formatting, so you don't need to change that part of it. After all, there is absolutely no point in reinventing the wheel. You want a resume that is bold, exciting, and enticing but also a little be conservative. In other words, it needs to stand out but avoid being flashy at the same time. You must show that you are confident of your own abilities, but not sound like you are blowing your own trumpet. It is good to appear eager to do the job, but not so much that you sound desperate. 

There is an extremely fine line that you must walk in order to produce the best possible resume. You want to use intelligent language, however, you don't want to go overboard with hyperbole, or uncommon words or phrases. It is important to use everyday language whenever possible. Obviously, if you are applying for a highly technical position, it will be necessary to use some of the technical terms and specialized lingo that is used in that particular profession. As a general rule of thumb you should keep everything simple and straight to the point.

The word resume comes from the French language and is defined as "use of past participle of resume mar to resume, sum up". Therefore it is the purpose of a resume to summarize your experience, knowledge, skills and accomplishments. In the spirit of summarizing, it is therefore, important that your resume is from 1 to 3 pages long. Don't be tempted to make your resume any longer than this, even if you have a lot to tell, after all you certainly don't want to bore the reader...

Of equal importance is the overall appearance of your resume. The first thing any potential employer, or personnel manager, evaluating your resume will notice is it's appearance. There are a number of things you can do to improve on the overall appearance of your resume. Using a higher quality of paper to print your resume on is easily the simplest thing you can do if you are sending a potential employer a printed copy of your resume. Pick out a nice looking, more expensive grade of paper. The next thing to consider is the quality of the content in the resume. It's very important that you make sure the writing on your resume looks good so be sure to use a clear and easy to read font.

Never overcrowd the resume. Leave some "white space" so that important points can appear to pop out. Never, ever, submit a resume with handwritten corrections. You can highlight sections of a resume by using a different typeface or size or by using "bullet points." If possible, use larger font, and bold, for the headings used in the separate sections of the resume. It is important that you don't try to be too fancy by using different colors and cute graphics. 

A simple, structured, factual resume is all you need. Last but not least when assessing your resumes appearance is its accuracy. Make sure that you use spell checker and get someone else to proof read your work before you start applying with it. Mistakes will not paint you in a good light. Make sure that the grammar and punctuation is correct. Be sure that all of your columns and margins line up, use the 'Tab' button to do this. Ensure that all of your facts are correct and accurate. Potential employers will note all inaccuracies and wonder why they appear in your resume.