Resume Examples

Job seekers overuse the phrase “Responsible for” on their resumes. It is an easy phrase to use. Just put “responsible for” at the start of a bullet and describe some aspect of the job.

Continue reading Eliminate “Responsible for” From Your Resume

The career progression of most job seekers follows a typical pattern. It starts with an entry level job and progresses to positions of increasing responsibility. At any point in time, the job seeker holds a single full time position. This progression is very common and easy to understand. So, what do you do if your career isn’t typical?

Continue reading Resume with an Atypical Career Progression

Buzzwords are used so commonly they lose their impact. The resume I read today illustrates this. At the top of the resume was a Summary of Qualifications section. In it, there were a number of buzzwords. The overall effect was to hurt the impression the resume made.

Continue reading Using Buzzwords Without Substance

In our Military Resume Benchmarking Report, we assessed the writing style of the resumes and found 31% of the resumes had inconsistent sentence structures.

Continue reading Resume Writing Style

I read a resume today with an accomplishment that stood out. The accomplishment stated the job seeker had saved $60k in the last year on a $14 million budget. This works out to 0.4% of the budget – a very small amount. Despite this, the accomplishment was noteworthy.

Continue reading Resume Accomplishment: Saved Less Than 1%

I read a lot of resumes that are nothing more than copies of the job descriptions the employers wrote. The basic responsibilities from a job description do not demonstrate any ability or skill. One resume I read recently was especially bad.

Continue reading Successfully Showed Up

One of my primary goals in writing the this blog is give you the ability to look at your resume the same way a recruiter or hiring manager will. I ran into a resume today that illustrates a common mistake I see, although this example is worse than most.

Continue reading A Recruiter’s Perspective

I read two resumes today with accomplishments that appeared to have nothing in common. One is from a senior manufacturing executive and the other is from an individual in the Navy. The scope and type of the accomplishments are vastly different, and yet, they both are impressive.

Continue reading Identifying Impressive Accomplishments

I read a functional resume today that illustrated clearly why most people should avoid this resume structure. Functional resumes organize information according to the skills or experiences of the job seeker, not the individual jobs. This resume type can be effective for some individuals, but most people are better served by a chronological resume.

Continue reading Functional Resume Example

A resume should be a concise summary of a job seeker’s background and potential. Resumes are not designed to provide every detail about the job seeker. The resume I read today was far from being concise.

Continue reading The 2,600 Word Resume