I talk about resumes, enhancing your career, and finding your dream job at various events. This might be one of my most popular talks, and I’ve been lucky enough to give it to many audience across the years. Quite a few people have taken my advice and used it to further your careers, and I’m always pleased when I hear from them.
I don’t give any great advice, but I do try to get people to think about how they present themselves. Your resume (or CV) is often the first way that you present yourself to a potential hiring person. Even if you’ve used your network and someone gives a recommendation for you, your resume is the first way the interviewer sees you.
In the Brent Ozar newsletter a few weeks back, he had a link to a “how to write a resume” guide. There are a lot of tips, but I agree with Brent that the layout in a number of these samples is really nice. At least, it’s well spread out and easy to read from an organizational standpoint.
A couple things I’d disagree on. First, be careful of colors. Personally, in the “reverse chronological resume format” example, the blue is hard for me to see, even on my 26” monitor. Be careful about colors that don’t provide enough contrast. Plenty of people hiring are my age.
The other thing I disagree about is the skills being too prominent at the top. Remember, I won’t spent a lot of time looking at the resume, so be careful of drawing too much attention away from your summary or work experience. I usually search for skills, so take advantage of the 30s of my attention and impress me with a well written opening.