Resume Preparation Hints

I refer to the resume template proven to be near-to-perfect in Toronto, Canada.
I would strongly recommend to follow the following tips during your resume writing:

Address, Objective, Summary sections and general comments

  1. Use nice, easy to read, Word formatting for resume sent by FAX; use plain ASCII for resume sent by email unless otherwise specified; Do not abuse the features of Word: background is a bad idea; equally bad is to use graphics in your resume. Try to be modest, strict and simple; Do not impress;
  2. If you have a diversified background, it is probably worth to create a several resumes for each direction; Be careful when you put too much in your resume - you may run into risk to be called "over-qualified." The resume should be well-balanced for the given position;
  3. Your contact information must be located in the top right corner of your resume;
  4. Contact information should include all possible ways of communication: address, telephone, FAX, email (some recruiters will contact you by email if anything else fails);
  5. Double check that your contact information is up to date. It is very frustrating when people has moved and has forgotten to change the contact information;
  6. Avoid extreme words in "Objective" section such as "challenging position", "front-end company", "leader in its field" and so on. Extreme words may cut some positions for you. Remember: the only purpose of your resume is to get you to the interview phase. Nothing else! This policy will help you to create a politically correct resume. You should not cry "I am clever, I am clever!", but rather modestly ask "am I eligible for your attention?"
  7. You should create a brief summary of your skills and to put it right after "Objective" section. The goal of this summary is the same as of the previous item: just put yourself in place of employer and imagine that you have to select 1 resume from hundreds sent to you. Summary will help you to make the right choice :-) Use bold font for the keywords such as C/C++, ActiveX and so on to make it even more easy to read;

Employment History section

  1. Employment history should be written in reverse-chronological order;
  2. You should use "active" verbs in passive form to emphasize completeness of the tasks; "Developed rocket science project" sounds better than "Rocket science project" which causes new questions; I would probably add some verbs in future, but currently you may use "participated", "developed", "finished", "organized", "coordinated", "maintained", "tested" and so on;
  3. In the date range of your working experience include months only if you changed a few jobs within a year. Generally, it is better to use only years even if you worked part of the year in one company and part of the year in another;
  4. Use short descriptive sentences for what you've done; long items is difficult to read;
  5. If you made too much in the project or worked on too many project during many years, try to emphasize only the most important things and completed projects;
  6. Again, like a summary, use bold font to emphasize the keywords. I bet the employer will not read the whole resume, but only keywords. If the list of them is compliant with what the employer is looking for, you have a good chance to be called to the interview;

Education section

  1. If you hold a university degree, forget about anything else and mention that degree in the summary above;
  2. You may mention the title of your thesis if this relevant to the position; You may even elaborate on the thesis title if you do not possess enough working experience for the given position;
  3. Do include the name of your day care (just kidding) unless the day care's name confirms that the position was the dream of your whole life;
  4. Special High Schools with relevant incline might have a positive impact in rare cases;

References

  1. Do not count all your friends, bosses and so on here. You should only mention that "references available upon request." Usually you have to provide the references from two of your managers and one co-worker from previous job. However, when you create a references list, keep in mind that sometimes your lovely smiling boss from your previous job keeps knife behind the back :-) Carefully choose the list of referees;