Our Professional Resume Package makes the perfect gift, because it’s something that your (starving) student can actually use and will impact their life for a long, long time. Research shows that the first job you have out of school impacts your career development and earning potential throughout your entire life, so setting them up with a resume toolkit (resume, cover letter, thank you/follow up letters) that is guaranteed to get results is the perfect gift.

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Can you communicate effectively?
All jobs, from pest exterminators to Fortune 100 CEOs, require the ability to communicate effectively. A quick glance at a well crafted resume will reassure hiring managers that your communication skills are worthy. Conversely, a typo or ill-formed narrative creates a first impression that is often impossible to overcome.

Do you work well in team environments?
Can you work well within a larger team? Unless you’re in an outside sales role, you’ll likely rely on co-workers (and vice versa) to complete your work. A resume that highlights examples of this collaboration puts your future employer at ease that you’ll fit in.

Are you adaptable?
With corporate employers relying more than ever on a smaller amount of employees to do more work, employees with broad skill sets are far more valuable. While your resume should remained focused on your core talents/pursuits, sprinkling in other workplace skills and successes you’ve had will definitely elevate your candidacy.

Do you learn new and increasingly specialized skills?
Hopefully, your resume demonstrates a progressive history of responsibility and skills. That is to say that each job is a little more important and demands more skills than the one preceding it. As the manufacturing base shrinks, the knowledge, engineering, healthcare and service sectors are going to drive growth – all of which require the ability to rapidly learn and master new skills.

Do you “own” your role and require less supervision?
Valued employees all exhibit one key characteristic: a strong work ethic with a keen sense of personal responsibility. Your resume should tell that story, through accomplishments and duties that indicate that you require limited supervision in effectively carrying out your job.

If your resume can answer “yes” to most or all of these questions, the chances that it leads to an interview are greatly improved. If it doesn’t, well then, you’ve got some changes to make!

Make sure your outgoing voicemail message is professional.
What could be worse than having a resume that catches a recruiter’s eye, only to have them call your number and hear a ridiculous outgoing message like this: 

By the way, the same goes for email addresses. Nobody wants to hire ‘sexmonster69@gmail.com’.

Don’t share credit
This flies contrary to what we learned in kindergarten, but in the cutthroat world of resume evaluation, it’s every man (and woman) for himself. If you were part of a team that managed a spectacularly successful project, your resume should focus only on your contributions. It’s not in any way dishonest, and puts your best foot forward.

The things you find most interesting about yourself, aren’t.
A lot of our clients can’t resist the temptation to list hobbies or unusual skills on their resumes, likely with the thought that it will help them stand out from the crowd. The truth? It certainly does make you stand out – you look unprofessional and less than serious about your career search. Leave the fact that you are an aspiring magician for your Facebook page.

Leaving information off your resume can make you look better
If you have a number of employers in a short time span or took a job that was a big step back in terms of career progress, it might make sense to leave one or more jobs off your resume. The resume is a sales document, not a full factual accounting of your career history, and accordingly it is your duty to present the information in the most favorable light to yourself.

One resume simply doesn’t cut it anymore.
In this day and age of job boards, applicant tracking systems and social media, recruiting and hiring has taken on a laser like focus. To succeed, your resume needs to be just as focused. Instead of a general resume that you blast to everybody like an untrained monkey, you should be tailoring a resume for each and every job your pursue. Sure, it takes a lot more time, but the more effort you put in, the more you’ll get out.

The Situation
An undergrad came to us needing help creating a resume for a prestigious summer internship for a large hospitality multinational. He said that his professor had looked over his resume and given him some advice, and that he was struggling to incorporate it. I gave him a free resume consultation and laid out a plan to improve his resume. He liked what we had to say and hired us on the spot to create a resume that would garner attention for the internship he desperately wanted.

Which is exactly what I did as his resume writer. In fact, I:

• Improved the visual appeal of the resume
• Corrected numerous grammar mistakes
• Added a list of skills that could be skimmed instantly and picked up by ATS keyword algorithms
• Removed wacky volunteer activities such as ‘Picked up garbage from the street’

All in all, it was a very well crafted resume and (putting on my hiring manager hat) one that would have definitely merited consideration. He looked at the draft and indicated that he loved it. I made a few minor tweaks and sent him the final version along with my best wishes and a plea for him to let me know how it turned out.

Sometime in the next two days, he shared the new resume with one of his professors. I was shocked when I got an email two days later, stating that among other things, the resume didn’t need to be so fancy because it was just an internship, the list of skills was redundant, and that his volunteer experience picking up garbage from the street really needed to be highlighted in the resume. I felt very strongly that this was bad advice and advised him accordingly. After some back and forth, we incorporated the changes he and his professor wanted (in the end, we always give clients what they want because it’s their resume, not ours).

The Outcome
Flash forward to today: this morning that client followed up to tell me that he got an email shortly after he applied that he did not meet the criteria for the position.

The Lesson
By and large, professors are a wealth of resources and connections that can help their students achieve wonderful results in their career searches. In fact, one of my professors at UCLA put me in touch with an alum whose company hired me in my first writing gig. That said, many professors are woefully out of touch with current HR practices and methods for evaluating candidates. In this case, a professor’s bad advice quite possibly cost this young man a significant career opportunity.

HR is a constantly evolving practice. Laws change, technologies improve and market dynamics fluctuate to such an extent that even seasoned HR professionals struggle to keep up (for example, I personally spend 3-4 hours each week reading blogs, tweets and LinkedIn articles just to make sure that the resumes I create are exceeding current expectations). To expect your economics or classics professor to have this same level of understanding is unfair and foolhardy.

The good news is that there IS a resource on campus that does have the expertise and awareness of current HR practices and hiring trends: your campus career center. We follow over 150 campus career centers on Twitter and see a steady stream of great advice and insider connections. Many of these career centers even have free resume clinics that offer the same sort of services that we do – at no cost.

ATS is used by nearly all major corporations and being adopted by small businesses, too
Virtually every large employer uses one or more automated tracking systems to manage their recruitment and resume screening process. If you’re submitting a resume to Google or Target or Goldman Sachs, it’s being digitized and summarized in an ATS. It used to be that the expense and complexity of setting up ATS prevented small businesses from using them, but new Software as a Service (SaaS) ATS vendors have begun marketing their offerings to small business owners.

What a recruiter or hiring manager sees when they view your resume through an ATS
Firstly, they don’t see your resume, so all the hours put into creating the perfect presentation largely go unused. Not to say that a resume that looks good is not important (it’s vital), but at this stage of the game, its not even visible.

Sample Screenshot of how your resume looks in an ATS

Instead, they see a snapshot of your information like the screenshot above. Think of it like a FICO score – all of your information distilled down to a single numerical score.

ATS has a very high error rate
As noted by CIO Magazine, applicant tracking systems are error prone. To work properly, they require standardization – in file formats, resume wording and resume structure. I can tell you first hand that resume wording and resume structure are not standardized – and really shouldn’t be.

ATS exists to kill a large number of applicants – fast
CIO estimates that 75% of resume submissions are rejected by automated tracking systems – just as their makers and users intend. Hiring is frequently a numbers game, and any tool that can help you take 237 applications down to 38 will find widespread use. Remember, ATS is their friend, not yours.

How to kill (or at least tame) the beast
Standardization and customization are the only surefire ways to get your resume through to a human reviewer. Following these four steps should receive a suitably high score to pass beyond ATS’ all powerful gates:

1. Mirror keywords from the job description in your resume
2. Create a bulleted list of keyword-heavy skills
3. List your work experience as Company Name, Title, and then Dates Worked
4. Upload your resume as a Word document or plain text file. PDFs are great for human readers, but ATS tend to have problems parsing the information

That’s the bad news. The good news is that you can easily determine how well your resume passes this initial screening (and by extension, fix any problems that pop up). You’ll need a friend, colleague or some random stranger to help you – the less informed about your background the better.

Find a timing device – I prefer my iPhone with an obnoxious alarm. Set the timer for 30 seconds. Tell your unwitting victim they have 30 seconds to read the resume. Pass it to them, give them 30 seconds and then take it back. Ask the following questions:

1. What are my top skills?

2. Where am I working now?

3. Where did I go to school, and what did I study?

4. Bonus Question: Why should you hire me?

If your resume is well laid out, you should receive accurate answers to the first three questions. If you get a cogent answer to the fourth question, then congratulations – your resume is going to pass the first screening. On the other hand, if your helper can’t answer one or more of the first three questions, then you have work to do. Take a look at our 50 Resume Writing Tips for a good place to get started. Or better yet, send us your resume for a free resume review.

Resume styles and purposes are always evolving
Unlike Mom’s apple pie recipe, resumes need to change. It used to be that objectives and references were a must for resumes. Nowadays, these two dinosaurs are nowhere to be found on professional resumes. Why? Because the standards of resumes have evolved and resumes are now supposed to be extremely polished sales documents that sell your services to potential employers. This means that every inch of space on your resume should go to telling the reader of your accomplishments and what sets you apart from other candidates.

The introduction of keyword scanning systems in HR departments is driving further evolution. A bulleted list of skills (thinly disguised keywords) is now a must for most resumes and will be for the forseeable future.

In the end, if it’s been more than six months since you updated your resume, its time to look it over and make sure it meets modern HR expectations.

Resumes aren’t nearly as important as they used to be (or will be again)
Coming from a resume writing firm, this must be sacrilege, right? It feels weird writing that, but our job is to help customers land new jobs by creating compelling resumes, and we’d be doing a disservice to not mention this phenomenon.

When the economy is roaring along and unemployment is low (think 5% or lower), the resume is the most important tool in the job seeker’s arsenal. Employers are fighting for quality candidates and can’t afford to be choosy. Job seekers can virtually guarantee themselves an interview with a well crafted resume.

Conversely, when the economy is shrinking or sputtering (like now), the resume loses some of its importance as employers have their pick of qualified talent. Personal connections and networking become the primary drivers of interviews and job offers. Social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook are extremely valuable because they combine resume aspects with personal connections.

You must have a quality resume, but you also need to be out in the real (and virtual) world developing and deepening relationships.

Like the suit makes the man, the fonts make the resume
Mom always said that what’s on the inside is what really counts. When it comes to resumes, this is 100% false. In many cases, your resume is the first impression that someone has of you and your resume has less than 15 seconds to make a good one.

Using a standard font like Times New Roman, Arial, or Courier creates boredom and conveys a lack of inspiration. Conversely, choosing a couple of easy to read fonts (We like Garamond, Adobe Gothic S, Palatino Linotype with a little bit of style not only sets your resume apart visually, but tells the hiring manager that you are the type of employee who puts thought into the little touches that separate good from great.  Like one of our writers told Fast Company last year, you want your resume to be “on the outskirts of conformity,” and “just different enough to capture attention without being off-putting.”

P.S. If your resume has any amount of Comic Sans, you might as well give up.

The resume submission/hiring process isn’t designed to produce the best candidate, but the candidate that HR can best justify
Think about all the steps involved in hiring a new employee. First, a potential job description is written. Then compensation levels are decided upon. The job is posted and resumes are screened. From those resumes, interviews are scheduled. A candidate is selected, background information verified and an offer extended.

Now, think about all the pitfalls that are contained in this process that might prevent the best candidate (let’s call her Jane) from being hired. What if the job description doesn’t accurately describe the job? What if Jane never sees the job posting? What if Jane has a typo on her resume and doesn’t make it past the initial screening? What if Jane has a cold on the day of the interview and comes across as a sub par choice?  Or what if the compensation is not at a level that Jane can or will accept?

It becomes clear that unless a company is extraordinarily lucky, they won’t be hiring the absolute best candidate for the job. What they will be hiring is a candidate that ensures that the hiring manager won’t get fired: knowledgeable, professional, poised and priced right. Keep that in mind when creating and sending out your resume.

All of these nuggets of information fit into a broader thesis on modern resumes – you have to continually stay on top of and incorporate current style and formatting preferences. Of course, you could always just hire us to write your resume and not have to worry about it!

1. Prioritize your time.
Looking for a new job is a job in and of itself. If you’re already employed, in school full time, raising a family, or any combination of the three, it can be very difficult to find the time to do what’s necessary to land a new gig. The good news is that everybody has at least an hour a day to devote to these tasks – if you structure your day right.

2. Review and update your resume.
5 or 10 minutes should suffice. Look over the resume to make sure that it looks clean, has no mistakes and, most importantly, matches the type of job you’re searching for. Job searches and careers evolve – your resume has to as well.

3. Call your mom. Or brother. Or cousin. Or best friend from high school.
The idea is to reach out to people you haven’t talked to in a while. Not to ask them for a job, but to re-establish connections and lay the groundwork for recommendations that will pay off in the long run. Sending out blind resumes works, but having connections and getting introductions is many times more productive and rewarded. Plus, your mom will be happy that you called.

4. Send thank you emails.
Send thank you notes for everything – job interviews, casual conversations, recommendations, chance meetings on the street. Each email should take about a minute and puts you in front of that person, however briefly.

5. Fire up Twitter.
Finding a job in 2013 is a social activity. Twitter is swimming with recruiters, career experts (including @ResumeExpress),  college career centers and fellow professionals just waiting to be networked with. Check out Susan Joyce’s comprehensive Twitter list for a great place to start.

6. Contact your college’s career center.
If you’ve attended college, chances are that you are eligible to use their career center at little or no cost. Career centers offer wonderful networking opportunities, career advice and hidden jobs that might not be visible elsewhere.

7. Follow up with leads from two weeks ago.
There’s a fine line between following up and being a nag. There’s no hard and fast rule for waiting to follow up with interviewers or other referral sources, but I have always found success with sending quick notes on the second Monday after last contact. It’s soon enough that you’re still current and enough time has passed that you don’t seem to be a creepy stalker.

8. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is up to date.
I’m assuming you have a LinkedIn profile already (because if you don’t, I know I wouldn’t want to hire you and the same goes for many of my recruiter sources), so take a few minutes to curate your profile and make sure that the information is up to date and matches what is on your resume.

9. Read at least two article related to your search.
Pretty self explanatory – there are a lot of resources out there on the web. I’m betting that you’ll read many more than this - especially once you harness LinkedIn and Twitter to their fullest abilities.

10. Make a list of 10 things to do tomorrow.
Lather, rinse, repeat.

16. “We can’t pay you this much.”
You hear this when your resume includes salary history. Except for federal resumes, which are governed by strict compensation scales, your resume should NEVER list salary history. If the job listing says that resumes with salary history will not be considered, you may want to reconsider that company – odds are they are looking to hire as cheaply as possible.

15. “I don’t see any support for these skills.”
You REALLY don’t want to hear this one. If your resume doesn’t demonstrate real world application of claimed skills, it is almost assured that you will be passed over. Hiring managers see boastful claims every day and have a strong preference for those resumes that back up claims with results and achievements.

14. “Why is there so much information on your resume?”
Long story short – your resume is too long or too dense. If you have five years of experience or less, your resume should be one page; five to ten years supports one or two pages, and more than ten years of experience usually demands two pages. Remember, hiring managers have a lot of resumes to evaluate and generally give each one 10-30 seconds depending on the individual. Taking as few words to accurately convey your impact is vital.

13. “Where did you go to school?”
Also known as “your resume is so indecipherable I couldn’t get the information I wanted from it.” Whitespace, section headers and visual separation between elements will easily fix this problem.

12. “We don’t feel your qualifications match the job.”
Hearing this isn’t necessarily a failure of your resume, and more likely represents a failure in choosing the opportunity to pursue.  Be realistic about your chances. It’s very hard to be objective, but you will save yourself a lot of heartache and wasted time by picking appropriate jobs.

11. “You’re clearly overqualified for this position.”
Unfortunately, there is not much you can do about this one. ‘Dumbing down’ your resume is an acceptable strategy, but usually unravels under closer scrutiny in the interview and verification phases.

10. “What were you doing during this these years?”
Gaps in employment are troublesome and difficult to overcome. In our years of experience as professional resume writers, we’ve found that a hybrid format works best: Detailing your skills and then listing your career history in summary form. In this way, you emphasize your expertise while minimizing your career timeline.

9. “Did someone else write this resume for you?”
In the resume writing business, we strive to match our clients attitude and tone. There is certainly nothing wrong with hiring a resume writer (and we recommend it, for obvious reasons), but it is something best left between you and you your writer.

8. “I’ve never seen a resume quite like this before.”
And not in a good way. There are some resumes that defy logic, whether they list kindergarten education (personally witnessed), children’s names and ages (personally witnessed) admissions of embezzlement (personally witnessed) or anything else that common sense dictates keeping off a resume. It should go without saying that you really don’t want your resume in this pile.

7. “Domestic Engineer? What’s that?”
Because we offer job seekers a free review of their resume, we see a lot of resumes each day. Recently, one woman (who later became a customer) listed a job title of Domestic Engineer and that she “Sustained life for 3 separate individuals, while molding them into physically and mentally healthy teens.” The attempt was admirable, but ultimately will result in your resume being tossed and more than a few snickers shared.

6. “The formatting looks screwed up.”
A lot of job seekers like to send their resumes in Microsoft Word. The problem is that unless the recipient has exactly the same fonts as the ones you’ve used in your resume, Words font replacement system will destroy a carefully crafted document and turn it into a monstrosity. We always send clients a matching version of the resume as a PDF because it will look the same on all computers (and tablets, etc.). Bullzip makes a free PDF printer that will allow you to print from Word into a PDF.

5. “What was your biggest accomplishment?”
If your resume doesn’t clearly spell out your biggest accomplishments, then its not doing its job. Your job descriptions should tell the story of what you did and how your work impacted your employer. Accomplishments always boil down to one of three things: making money, saving money, or improving the perception of the company.

4. “You think very highly of yourself.”
While a hiring manager will likely not say this, many of them think it. If your resume is packed with over the top boasts that aren’t backed up, the chances of being taken seriously are next to nil. Sales professionals are especially guilty of this; stating that you are a top ranked sales rep and not listing any hard figures is a sure fire way to be passed over.

3. “Your resume just doesn’t stand out.”
In this day and age where there can be hundreds of applicants for the same job, you might hear this one a lot. If you use a Microsoft Office template or your own formatting, its very easy for a resume to appear flat and uninspired. Try some interesting fonts (Garamond, Gothic S and Palatino are some of our favorites), ample white space, mixing narrative with bullet points and horizontal lines to separate elements. Little touches go a long way.

2. “I couldn’t open your resume file.”
If you send your resume in a format other than PDF or Word Document, chances are that it may not get read at all. As per above, we recommend sending your file in PDF, as its near universal adoption and consistent appearance makes it a safe choice. 

1. Nothing at all
Pretty self explanatory. No comments, no feedback, nothing to use to improve your resume.

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