6 Small Résumé Changes That Have a Big Impact

6 Small Rsum Changes That Have a Big Impact6 Small Rsum Changes That Have a Big ImpactIfyoure sending out rsums and not getting many calls to interview, theres agood chance that your rsum is the problem. If youre like most people, yourrsum could use some work and like most people, youre probably not koranverswhere to start.But youprobably dont need to start from scratch. You can often significantly improveyourrsumby just making ahandful of changes. Here are six small changes youcan make that will have a big impact.1. Get rid of the objective.Rsum objectives never helpand often hurt. Not only do they feel outdated at this point, but theyre allabout what you want, rather than what the employer wants, which is what thisstage of the hiring process is all about. Your rsum should be focused on yourshowing your experience, skills and accomplishments. Its not the place totalk about what youre seeking in your next job.2. Add a profile section to the top of yourrsum.Profile sections or summar ies havereplaced objectives at the top of current-day rsums. A profile is just aquick list of the highlights of your strengths and experience, summing up injust a few sentences or bullet points who you are as a candidate and what youhave to offer. A well-written profile or summary can provide an overall framingof your candidacy, preparing the hiring manager for the rest of yourrsumthrough that lens.3. Focus on workaccomplishments, not job duties. If youre like most job seekers, your rsum lists what youwere responsible for at each job you held, but doesnt explain what youactually achieved there. Rewriting to focus on accomplishments willmake it far more effective and more likely to catch a hiring managers eye.For instance, get rid of lines like managed email list and replace them withlines like increased email subscribers by 20 percent in six months in otherwords, something that explains how youperformed, not just what your job was.4. Get rid of big blocks oftext. If yourrsum is fil led with large blocks of text as opposed to bullet points theres a good chance that youre putting hiring managers to sleep. They wantto quickly skim the first time they look at your rsum, and big blocks of text makethat difficult and make most hiring managers eyes glaze over. Theyll paymore attention and absorb more information about you if your rsum is arrangedin bullet points rather than paragraphs. 5. Shorten it. If your rsum is multiplepages, you might be diluting the impact of its contents. With a shorter rsum,youll ensure that in an initial quick scan, the hiring managers eyes fall onthe most important things. Plus, long rsums can make you come across assomeone who cant edit and doesnt know what information is essential andwhats less important. As a general rule, your rsum shouldnt be longer than twopages, maximum. (And if youre a recent grad, it should only be one page,because you havent yet had enough work experience to justify a second one.) 6. Give yourself permission tor emove things that dont strengthen your candidacy. You dont need three linesexplaining boring, basic job duties especially if these responsibilities aregoing to be implied by your title. Similarly, you dont need to include thatsummer job from eight years ago, that job you did for three weeks that didntwork out or every skill you can think of. Your rsum is a marketing document,not a comprehensive listing of everything about you include the things thatstrengthen your candidacy and pare down the rest.Alison Green writes the popular Ask a Manager blog, where she dispenses advice on career, job search, and management issues. Shes also the co-author of Managing to Change the World The Nonprofit Managers Guide to Getting Results, and former chief of staff of a successful nonprofit organization, where she oversaw day-to-day staff management, hiring, firing, and employee development.