Your resume is your first impression for hiring managers. The strategies below show you how to write a great resume in English.
Organization
Length
Resumes should be one or two pages, depending on your experience. For people with less experience, one page is fine. Most people will use two pages. However, your resume should never be more than two pages. If you can’t fit your experience on two pages, you should look at writing more concisely.
Sections
Your headings depend on your experience, but all resumes should have two important sections:
- Education
- Professional Experience
In addition to these, you want other sections to highlight your experience and skills. Here are some of the most popular:
Achievements
Many great resumes start with a summary of key skills and experience. This quickly summarizes your value to the company. This section should often change depending on the specific requirements for the job.
You may see advice to include an objective statement at the top or four resume. Don’t do it. The achievements section is much better. Why? Objective statements are a waste of space. They are either too vague or too demanding. Take a look at these two examples:
- “To obtain a customer service position in a retail company”
This is obvious. If you are applying for a customer service position in a retail company, do you really need to say that at the top of your resume? That’s the most valuable space on the entire document. Don’t waste it stating the obvious.
- “To obtain a sales position where I can use my experience and have the opportunity for professional growth”
This is a list of thing you need from the job. It doesn’t tell what you bring to the position. Should the first thing on your resume be what you need? No. Hiring managers will start to think you are a demanding employee who constantly need to feel challenged and satisfied at work.
Volunteer Experience
This can be as valuable as paid experience. List your volunteer experience like your professional experience, with the organization name and your tasks and achievements.
Certificates and Training
Many industries expect you have taken professional development courses or attended conferences. This section can show the employer how you are building your skills or how you are qualified.
Skills
This section can have different names depending on your industry. For some people, it could be called software skills. Others may list languages they speak. This would be a section to list your English skills, for example with a TOEIC score.
Structure
You should design your resume in the order that best fits your skills. For example, if you have little experience but impressive education, put education first. If you have good experience, it is a good idea to place that first.
Most resumes come in two formats: chronological and functional. Chronological is the most common. This is where you organize your resume like a timeline. A functional resume is organized by skills, for example customer service or sales.
You want a chronological resume. You may find advice on the internet for a functional resume, but the truth is hiring managers hate these. When your experience is not grouped chronologically, it makes it tedious to understand your career path and your experience. Hiring managers end up having to search through your resume looking for information they want. In reality, they won’t do that. They will throw it out and move on.
Use a chronological resume to clearly show where you worked and when. And make sure you use reverse chronological order, meaning your most recent job is first.
Language
A resume is a written document much like a report, email, or essay. It has specific language requirements you should follow. Here are some language tips to ensure your resume is grammatically correct.
Verb Tenses
You should only have two verb tenses on your resume: simple present and simple past. Use the present for jobs you currently have and the past tense for any other jobs you no longer work at. Here are the two examples:
- Answer telephone and email inquiries (Current job)
- Answered telephone and email inquiries (Past job)
Never use any other verb tense. This keeps your resume simple and easy to understand.
Parallel Structure
Each point in a bulleted list must have the same grammatical structure. Take a look at this example:
- Managed a team of 12 cashiers
- Responsible for opening and closing the store
Can you see the problem? These two statements are not parallel. The first starts with a verb (Managed). The second starts with an adjective (Responsible). This creates confusion and makes it harder to follow. The easiest way to fix this is always begin with a verb, like in the correct example below:
- Managed a team of 12 cashiers
- Opened and closed the store
Concise Writing
You need to write as concisely as possible. Remember, hiring managers take only a few seconds to look at your resume, so any extra words are only going to get in the way of your great experience. Here are some tips to help you shorten up your writing for your resume. You should notice some of these tips are different than standard business or academic writing.
Avoid personal pronouns. You don’t need to include “I” on your resume. It is redundant and takes up extra space. So instead of:
- I taught grade 7 and 8 science classes
You can write:
- Taught grade 7 and 8 science classes
Your resume is all about you, so there is no reason to include “I”.
Limit your articles. You don’t need as many articles (a, an, the) as normal writing. Removing them can make your points quicker and easier to read. Here are some examples:
- Managed the marketing department and oversaw a budget of $500,000
You can remove the articles here to make it shorter:
- Managed marketing department and oversaw budget of $500,000
This makes your writing a little snappier and crisper. It also leaves the focus on your experience, where it should be.
Avoid adverbs. These little words love to sneak into resumes. We naturally want to impress, so we use adverbs to do that. Here is a common mistake:
- Produced budget reports promptly.
Although you may want to show you finish your work on time, you don’t need to do that on a resume. First of all, what does promptly even mean? One hour, three weeks? Adverbs alone or vague. You could use numbers instead:
- Produced budget reports in 24-36 hours
Another problem is that these impressive adverbs are often a simple requirement of the job. Shouldn’t you always complete a report on time? You won’t impress an employer by showing you do the basic expectations of your job.
Avoid extra language. Cut out any words that aren’t absolutely needed. Especially watch out for extra phrases at the end of your points, like in these examples:
- Assisted store manager with payroll when requested
- Completed sales reports as needed
These phrases don’t do anything for your resume. Take them out.
- Assisted store manager with payroll
- Completed sales reports
Visual Appeal
Most hiring managers take only a few seconds to look at a resume. This means the look of your resume may be the most important feature. A good resume is pleasant to look at and guides the reader through the page. Let’s take a look at how you can do that.
White Space
This is the breaks between lines or the empty space on the page. This is crucial. Resumes packed with words are annoying to read. Most hiring managers will throw them out right away.
You can create white spaces with a few techniques:
Use bulleted lists. These lists make your experience easier to understand and read.
- As a sales manager, I was responsible for a team of 10 sales associates in a retail store with $20,000 in daily sales. I trained staff, created schedules, and monitored performance. I also performed sales duties when needed.
Isn’t that a handful to read. Here’s how you can make it look much better:
- Managed team of 10 sales associates
- Trained staff and monitored performance
- Sold merchandise
What a difference! In the second example you can clearly see the tasks performed without the extra language.
Use line breaks. It is tempting to compact your material together to save space and have your resume fit on two pages. This is a mistake. Hiring managers won’t read text that is all slammed together.
Professional Formatting
You need to follow professional writing standards for your resume. Here’s how you can do that.
Use even margins. Make sure your margins line up perfectly. Because a resume has headings, job titles, dates, and lists, your margins can become complex. Always double check everything is lined up.
Avoid widows and orphans. These two words are when you split a paragraph between two pages. On a resume, the common mistake is to start the explanation of one job on the first page and continue it on the second. Don’t do that. It makes it difficult to read. Format your resume so you never split one job across two pages.
Use a professional font. Business communication should be with a sans serif font. This means font without a tail. You may be accustomed to using Times New Roman, but that is an academic font. Microsoft Word has a default of Calibri. Use it. It’s perfect.