Resume Writing

CHANGE YOUR LIFE IN A PAGE (OR TWO)…

Forget everything you learned about writing a resume in school. It’s a whole new world and that job is yours to lose if you do not write and update your resume correctly.

Here are my Top 5 rules for drafting a resume that will at least get your foot into all those digital doors that have been closed without you knowing it:

When an applicant starts to tell a behavioral or situational story, the interviewer should investigate further for more depth or detail by asking questions such as:

• 1. It’s the Bots…. Especially in employer driven markets Hiring Managers are flooded with digital submissions. It you think they are reading your resume to learn that you are a Division 1 varsity basketball player or the president of your school’s political science club you are sorely mistaken. Hiring has become so specialized that the thousands of submissions are scanned by sophisticated computer software and only those resumes deemed worthy of review see the eyes of a human being. Therefore, watch your key words and choose them wisely based on the job description. Use your networking connections (Friends, past Co-workers, family, LinkedIn…) to bypass this initial screening and get your resume directly into the hands of the Hiring Manager.


• 2. Know the job you are apply for and tailor your resume to that specific job. The days of delivering a stock resume with generalized work history and personal descriptions like, “I am a people person” are over. Do your research on the company, the job, and (if possible) the hiring manager. Make sure to keep your resume focused on the job description and be mindful that the individual ultimately reading it is looking for a narrowly qualified candidate


• 3. Fluff is for peanut butter sandwiches. If you make it through the digital jungle to a human’s eye, you will quickly lose your place in line by embellishing your resume with extraneous words which are not so subtly included to satisfy an electronic key word search. Hiring Managers will see through this and either skip right to your work history or move on to the next resume.



Fluff is for peanut butter sandwiches.

• 4. Exploit your successes. If you have had a particularly successful project or received an industry accolade, and if and only if it is relevant to the job description, make sure you highlight it early in your resume. And be prepared to speak about it at your interview.


• 5. Tell the Truth and Only The Truth So Help Your Job. Every claim you make in your resume is only a google search away from the hiring manager. And don’t think they don’t do it and cross check it with your LinkedIn.

Despite these 5 rules, ultimately there are no rules. Your resume is a sales tool, nothing more, nothing less. The challenge is to get through the digital screening process and peak the Hiring Manager’s interest enough so they will allocate precious interview time where you get an opportunity to expand on the words on the page and close the deal.

Dana Tarlow is a Senior Account Manager at Digital Prospectors an IT staffing company located in Boston Massachusetts and Exeter New Hampshire. She is an active skier and Heavy Hitter fundraiser and rider with the Pan- Mass Challenge.

She can be reached at dtarlow@digitalprospectors.com