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Resume Writing: Quick Hits
Formatting Basics
✔️ First and foremost: do NOT remove important details in attempt to keep your resume to one or two pages. However, keep it limited to four pages.
✔️ Use a modern font.
✔️ Keep the font size fairly normal and avoid crazy text colors, text boxes, and double-spaced lines.
✔️ In addition to your name, phone number, email, and City, State, use a hyperlink to your LinkedIn profile.
✔️ Don’t forget to spell check or use Grammarly to proof your resume.
✔️ Convert to a PDF format.
Content Tips
1. Summary: the first thing people read on your resume, and you control the narrative.
✔️ Consider “titling” yourself, so it’s clear to the reader what you do. Objectives are mostly obsolete, but some companies still require them in official applications. Keep an easily customizable version in a separate document you can reference if needed.
✔️ Each bullet in the summary should hit on your top 3-5 most marketable skills.
✔️ Avoid bullets dedicated to personal traits, as everyone is a self-starter with great communication skills. Skip the fluff.
✔️ Consider using the last bullet to list pertinent education, certifications, or training. This ensures the reader sees it up front in case they don’t make it to the last page.
✔️ Best practice is to avoid using the first person and past tense. Third person and present tense is preferred (e.g. possess 10 years of experience in infrastructure management).
2. Professional Experience: what you’ve accomplished is what matters most.
✔️ Your most recent position should have the most information listed. Preferably, 5-10 detailed bullets, as this is the crux of where the reader will focus.
✔️ The more detail the better! Listing specific responsibilities, size, and budgets of projects, and selected technologies leveraged is helpful. Find more information here: How to leverage numbers on your resume.
✔️ If you need inspiration, look at the role’s original job description and edit some of the responsibilities listed for your role.
✔️ If you have held multiple job titles at the same company, list the total years of experience next to the company name, then list each job title help with dates in those roles next to them.
✔️ All previous experience outside of your current role, the number of bullets can become less and less, highlighting to major points of the job.
✔️For roles over 15-20 years ago, you can simply list the company name and job title, and for jobs over 20 years ago, up to you if you want to list them at all.
Resume writing can feel overwhelming, and BridgeView is here to help. Find all our resume-specific recommendations below:
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Insider Tips for Technical Resume Writing
Leveraging Data on Your Resume
LinkedIn has become the most popular resource used by recruiters in all industries.
✔️ The most important part of your LinkedIn profile (besides a nice current photo) is how you choose to title yourself. This is the first thing people see on your profile, so it should be as dialed in as possible. It does NOT need to be your current job title, think of this as personal marketing. Use a title that best represents your experience paired with a job title that is most relevant to your desired job or industry.
✔️ A close second in importance is searchability. Think of your entire profile like “Google” for your skillset. You need to have content that will show up in searches.
✔️ The “About” section is a great area to focus on your key strengths, similar to your resume summary. You can show a glimpse into your personality, strengths, soft skills, etc. If you choose to do this, make them meaningful and TRUE.
Find more information here: LinkedIn Profile Tips
Job Search
There is no one answer to this ever-evolving task when looking for a new role. For the most up-to-date best practices, check out these resources:
Free Resources for Growing Your Tech Career in Colorado
Create a Game Plan to Find Your Next Job