What are the three most important resume tips? In my view, they are…

1. Target your objective. You need to make sure that your career objective matches as closely as possible with the position for which you hope to be hired.

A lot of people miss this by using (and not really modifying) one resume for every job. To do so, of course, their objective statement has to be pretty vague and all-encompassing.

But what will the hiring manager think upon reading such a resume? He or she will have a very clear set of parameters to use that will help narrow down the field. So, if the job title or description is x and you send out a resume that says you want y—or if you say that you want anything from q to z, this means you are not perfectly equal to x. And anything not perfectly equal to x equals an excuse to toss your resume, thus narrowing down the field, which is a big part of the hiring manager’s job.

2. Target your skills. You might have 400 skills. If so, congratulations. However, the job description lists 8 specific skills that will be needed to perform the job you’re trying to get.

Here’s an example. You are applying to a job for Marketing Coordinator. The required skills include MS Word and Publisher, Quark, customer service experience, et al.

Now, let’s say you’ve got all these, and they’re on your resume, but you also chose to include the following indispensable skills, along with the other 397 you happen to possess:

• Sanitation
• Fast food
• I can tear a phone book in half

It’s just possible that the hiring manager will only read the first 10 or 15 skills, not see the ones related to the job in question, and move on to the next resume.

3. Target your experience. This really requires skill, and a resume expert may be required. As much as possible, you should only highlight the areas of work experience relevant to the job you’re trying for.

So remember the three most important resume tips: target, target, target.

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Writing an effective resume is both an art and a science. And, as with anything that involves a certain amount of skill, it is much easier to do it poorly than to do it well. Hence the following resume writing samples from an admittedly hypothetical computer programming professional.

Part 1: The skills list

Experienced in C++, C#, asp, jsp, php, perl, sql, xml, & alot of other “language’s”.

There’s English, which most of us speak, and then there’s developer-ese, which only programmers and developers understand. In this bizarre but necessary world, periods are placed after quotation marks; apostrophes tend to be a mystery; and hundreds of years of grammatical progress comes to a screeching halt.

Now, to be fair, these folks are nothing short of brilliant when it comes to making computer-related stuff work. In fact, were it not for them, you wouldn’t be reading this blog right now, and I would have had to use pen and paper to write it in the first place. Yikes.

But resume writing is a different animal. We’re talking about the realm of grammatical perfection and pedantic attention to detail if you want to not give the hiring manager an excuse to toss your resume. Therefore, the above list of skills should be stated something like this:

Programming languages and databases include C++, C#, asp, jsp, php, perl, sql, and xml.

Part 2: Experience

Worked in alot of company’s were I helped develop software & build big companies database’s & new state off the art program’s for integration in to other software’s, did this for 5 year’s.

How about this for a revision:

Five years’ experience in software and database development for major companies.

Of course, these are just generalizations, with a certain amount of obvious exaggeration, to make a point. And that point is simply this: Do what you’re good at. If you’re a developer, go out there and make the rest of us take your work for granted by continuing to make great computer-related products. But to advance your career, be sure to employ the services of a resume-writing professional.

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You should always have an up-to-date resume. I’ll repeat that. Even if you love your job. Even if you work for a rock-solid company. Even if you OWN the company and love your job. You should always have an up-to-date resume.

If you are looking for a job, of course, having a current resume is your first step. Because fortune favors the fast. It wasn’t so long ago that employers asked you to mail your resume and a cover letter. Then you were asked to fax. Now the keyword is e-mail, and the preferred time frame is … immediately.

Having a resume on hand means you can jump on an ad posted on JobsCareersEtc.com, or another job board, as soon as you see it. There’s no time lag and sometimes–especially with freelance gigs and part-time work–employers are looking to fill their positions RIGHT NOW. (more…)

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It’s happened to me and I bet it’s happened to you. You interview for a job. Everything seems to go well. The interviewer shakes your hand as you leave and tells you, “I still have a few people to talk to, but I’ll get back to you soon.” And then you never hear from that person again. Ever.

When a week goes by, you make a call to check in and end up leaving a message. Additional follow-up calls go wherever pink message slips go to die. If you try to connect via e-mail, your tracker tells you that “your message was deleted without being read.” Maybe one day you’ll get a letter thanking your for applying and wishing you luck on your job search. (I once got such a letter nearly two years after I sent in a resume.) But chances are, if you’re getting the cold shoulder, there’s never going to be a thaw. (more…)

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Cece is 52 and has just been laid off from her job as an education specialist for a county school system. She suspects a younger co-worker who had “issues” with her age had something to do with her ouster, but she’s not one to sit around and brood. After taking a week off to watch Ellen and eat junk food, she polished up her resume and hit the job hunting trail.

After six weeks, her optimism is flagging a bit because she’s running into the twin bugaboos of job hunters over the age of 40: she’s over-qualified and, according to prospective employers, overpaid. “I’d be happy to under-report my salary,” she says mournfully, “but everywhere I’ve applied, they want a salary history. What am I supposed to do?” (more…)

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