Tim Yandel: Tips to Make Your Resume Sizzle

You need to know the truth about the people reading your resume before you even start writing one. It’s the cold truth but you need to hear it: they don't read your resume, they scan your resume. It's a filtering system that weeds out the bad from good and ensures that the recruiter calling you doesn't waste their time. Just like a restaurant and your resume a dish on the menu -- there needs to be both some sizzle that draws you to the meat of the dish. You're the dish that everyone has to try out, so here's how you get your sizzle to lure the scanner to the meat of your resume. Bon' appetite!

The Sizzle

• Don't show all your cards… If you've had more than five years out of college and have two or more jobs on your resume, you can consider going to two pages, otherwise keep your resume to one page. Anything longer than three pages is self indulgent. Remember, a resume is an attempt to give the recruiter a taste of who you are and to entice them to engage in a conversation to find more.
• Avoid too much visual noise… Don’t get overly creative on resume formats like the tag cloud, graphics or a picture of yourself. You'll catch someone's eye, but usually for the wrong reasons.
• Use chronological format if you have experience… Chronological is laid out very well: CONTACT INFO, SKILLS SUMMARY, JOB HISTORY…. Etc.
• Use a functional resume if you have limited experience or are changing careers… it’s best used to highlight your soft skills like a bullet on Leadership and where you exhibited leadership skills.
• Write a skills summary… This should be at the top of your resume right underneath your contact information. Make sure to list your core skills and don't go overboard, this is a list of skills you've gained in your career; it's not your bucket list.
• If you've got it, flaunt it… Know what your biggest accomplishment has been thus far. If you've graduated from a great school or if you have experience in a rare skill or technology - that goes toward the top.
• Stick to bullet points… This will make it easier for the manager or recruiter to scan. No one wants to read long paragraphs!
• Don't shoot yourself in the foot… leave off your objective. You want to eliminate anything that can hurt you and an objective never lands someone an interview but it has crippled chances on getting one.

The Meat

• Industry experience is important… provide a short description right below in italics and include the company's URL in a hyperlink. The old lead a horse to water analogy, make it easy for the scanner to click and lead them to your company's URL. If you don’t have a past company, include a hyperlink to some of your online work.
• Describe what you do… In describing your past job/s or projects at school it's important to list what you did in certain projects, how large was your team and your role in it, and frame your responsibilities in a % breakdown starting with the most prominent duty.
• Include a summary below each job… of what hard skills you used at this job or project. For technical candidates it's easy to describe as technology buzzwords. Again, your mission when writing a resume is to make it simple and to the point.
• Describe the purpose of your role… Keep the scanner engaged in what the purpose of your position was or the importance of a project. Don't get caught up in your own world that you can't explain it to someone that isn't.  
• Lead with action verbs… that emphasize your overall responsibility.
• Never use adjectives… (built a "stunning" piece of software) or pronouns ("I" or "me”). They come off as self-absorbed.
• Less is more… Wait a day and read through the resume with the intention of cutting out a few redundant or less important parts.
• Provide references upon request… putting them at the bottom of your resume just adds to the bulk of the resume. 

Tim Yandel has been a tech recruiter in Chicago, San Francisco and Boston. He currently heads up Workbridge Associates, a nationwide technology staffing firm located in Boston’s Back Bay. His office specifically places developers in the Boston Metro area on both a permanent and contract basis. Tim lives by the mantra that relationships truly matter in recruiting. Get in touch with Tim by emailing him at timothy.yandel@workbridgeassociates.com or on Twitter @tyandel.

Photo Credit: Izik on Flickr.