Since my current company is moving to Pittsburgh our HR department is doing a great job with helping us beef up our resumes and interviewing skills. We acquired a larger company and some of our jobs are redundant or no longer needed, or some of us just plain don’t want to move to Pittsburgh.
Anywho, below are the tips that I took away from the meeting on building your resume:
-Resumes should steer away from being traditional (chronological) and move to being more functional. Instead of having sections for each job and what you did within them, you should list all relevant tasks/experience together towards the top of your resume. List the most important tasks/experiences at the top, and the less important ones towards the bottom of your list. At the bottom of your resume list the jobs and their dates. This makes it easier for them to read as they don’t have to jump reading your experiences from job to job…they care more about what you did that’s relevant to the position you are applying for.
-List the college you went to, but don’t list the year you graduated. I believe this has to do with figuring out your age based on the year you graduated. If you leave it out, they can’t discriminate against that.
-Cover letters aren’t as important. They are secondary to the resume. Most HR people don’t even read cover letters, and sometimes just throw them away. I still think it’s good to have to just in case, but she did make a point that they look at the resume well before they glance at a cover letter.
-Not all companies have programs to filter resumes. However, if you want to get past those programs, modify your resume to include words that they mentioned in the job description for the job you are applying for.
invest in yourself 