A resume is a document that you can use in order to organize and present your background to someone. This is where your professional experience, education and skills can be presented to a potential employer, a university or a client. The most common purpose someone uses a resume is to secure a new job. If you’re wondering whether or not a resume is needed in order to be a successful job hunter, then the answer is- yes. Not only do you need a resume in order to find a new job, but you better have a good resume if you want to stand out from the other applicants that you are going to be competing against.
Compiling a Resume
A resume should be one page long. You don’t have to go into great lengths explaining what your background looks like. You simply want to give somebody a good idea of who you are. If they want to find out more about you, they can contact you for an interview. The general rule of thumb is, only include history for the past ten years or so. If there is something that is very important past that point, then you can include that information. Just don’t go on for ages about everything that you have ever accomplished. Stick to the most important, and relevant information. You don't want an employer to get lost in an overly lengthy resume. It could be helpful to look at examples of resumes in your field as well; and you can learn more here. If you don’t have a resume in hand when you are job hunting, employers don’t know that you exist. You may be able to speak five languages, you may have a master’s degree and you may be the current team lead at your company. None of this information can be relayed to a potential employer without a resume. Take some time to work on your resume periodically. Keep adding things that you may be working on. This will keep your resume fresh without having to sit and think back to the past ten years. If you need to remove information later on, this is much easier to do than finding things to add on.
What Should You Leave Off of a Resume?
In general, a company is going to want to know about your educational background and your professional experience. Unless you have some kind of interest in your personal life that is very relevant to what you are applying for, you want to keep your personal life out of your resume. Stick to your professional accomplishments and achievements. If you left a company on bad terms, you may want to leave that entire portion of your life off your resume. A company will often want to contact your previous employers to find out more about you. Don’t point them in the direction of failure.
In conclusion
If you apply for a job and don’t have a resume to submit, it’s very likely that you will be automatically discounted for that position. You can use a free resume builder to compile all of your information if that makes the process much easier for you. It doesn’t have to take very long to compile a resume but having a resume in hand when you are job searching is going to make a big different in your outcome.
