Your resume is the first thing your future employer will see and you won’t get a second chance to make a good impression! You must make sure that it looks good, but more importantly it must give employers a strong introduction about your skills and work history. The goal of your resume is to get a phone or an on-site interview!

The following are some tips that will help you write a resume that gets you noticed

1. Appearance counts – Make sure you use the same type setting for each paragraph.
   Additionally, make sure there are no spelling or grammatical errors.
2. Objectives – Leave your objective off of the resume. Employers know that your objective is to gain employment with them.
3. Skills – List your skills in the first paragraph. Employers scan the skills section to ensure you have the knowledge and background they are looking for before they look down in the job history section.
4. What have you done lately? – List the last job you had first and work backwards from there. It’s called reverse chronological.
5. Gaps in work history – If you have a gap in employment explain it in the resume body. An example of this is when you stop work to get your associates or bachelors degree.
6. Size does matter – most employers do not have time to sift through three page resumes. Adjust your type size to ensure that you have a one or two page resume, at the most.
7. Tell the Truth – Do not fudge job titles or dates you held jobs to make yourself look better. Companies conduct background and reference checks and if they find that you stretched the truth, you will not be considered.
8. Make sure you list all civic clubs, religious organizations, church membership, family members and activities. Do not be too “wordy”. List them but be short and sweet.
9. Do not use strange or hard to read fonts. Use the basic Times Roman or Arial font. Something that is easy to read.
10. Make sure that when listing education or past work history you list all awards, accomplishments, etc. You want to your resume to sell you as a “Must talk to..” kind of candidate.