Right out of college, I was under a false impression that landing a job wouldn't be as complicated as landing on the moon. I watched my friends - the business majors and teaching majors - entertain offers from various companies and establishments, while as an English major I began to realize that literature firms were 1) not hiring and 2) not actually in existence.
I eventually got a job as a recruiter for an employment placement agency, where I learned the importance of a resume. Resumes weren't only important in getting a job, but they were also important once you landed it. To get promotions, win proposals, and bid on projects, your resume is an important vehicle on the highway of your career. So it is essential to do them right.
Presentation: One day at my recruiting job, I met an applicant who turned up with a resume written on a napkin. Now, in this applicant's defense, she was under the impression that our agency would write a proper resume for her and she only needed to submit a general outline. Nonetheless, because of this occurrence, I find a need to clarify a few things about proper resume presentation.
Basic Paper: Resumes should be typed on simple, plain white paper.
Cover all bases: Including a cover letter, when the cover letter is professionally written, can benefit the applicant greatly. Though many times the employer will bypass reading the cover letter, as a means to get right to the meat of the resume, the fact that a cover letter was written, and the overall presentation was professional, will be noted.
Short and Sweet: Resumes are synonymous with the word "summary" and antonymous to the word "epic." While they should be written in a manner that conveys all the applicant’s qualifications, actual resumes should not exceed one or two pages. Employers are busy people and they will surely ignore John Doe’s Resume: Volume 1 for a shorter, more precise rundown.
Friendly Font: Just because a resume shouldn't be lengthy, the font on a resume shouldn't be so small that the employer needs a magnifying glass to read it. If the font is too small, the employer will likely pass it up for a resume that doesn't have a built-in vision test. On the flip side, however, a resume with an overly large font may convey that the writer is trying to stretch out or exaggerate limited skills, limited knowledge, or a limited amount of computer ink.
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