Job Interview Questions and Answers | Resume Writing Tips and Samples

The resume is typically the first document that a potential employer encounters about you. The resume is important because employers use the resume to screen applicants. A good resume can get you interviews where as a bad resume could get you eliminated from the interview within few seconds.
A resume is generally short. It usually contains one to two-pages description of you and your skills, education and experiences.

Information about What Your Resume Should Include

A good resume should provide a concise, adequate, and accurate description of an applicant's employment history and skills. Below is a list of things your resume should include.

• Basic contact information which includes your Name, address, phone numbers, and email address.
• An objective statement that makes the purpose of your resume clear.
• The summary statements that highlights your work experiences, achievements, and skills in order to generate interest and grab the employer’s attention.
• Your employment history that is listed in chronological format. You can include your job title, employer's name, address of employer, responsibility and accomplished.
• Your educational accomplishments which include your degree, the name of the institution attended, and its location.
• Other information that relates to relates to the job you are applying for.

You need to keep your resume to just one or two pages. In general, you do not include personal information (age, weight, height, etc), ethic, religion or hobbies unless you can see that including them will support your job objective. Furthermore, it is no necessary to mention of salary expectations or wage history. Finally, reference should not be listed on the resume.

Writing and Reviewing Your Resume

Your resume is the key to selling yourself to the potential employer.  It is an advertisement about your services. It takes only few seconds for an employer to decide whether to invite a job applicant for an interview and this decision is greatly affected by the presentation of resume. As a result, you should put more thought into writing a resume that will present you as a strong candidate for interview. There are many ways to write a resume. Below are some tips that will help you write a better resume:

• Include a clear objective statement that let an employer know your specific job or career goal.
• Create resume content that sells:
  • Use job titles and skill headings that match the job you apply only. You should avoid using unrelated job titles or skills. You can identify the keywords that match your job from the job advertisement.
  • Describe the benefits of your skills.
  • Include your employment-related accomplishments. The best way is to describe a problem, the actions you took to solve the problem and the results you get from your action. Use measurable outcomes, values, and percentages to describe your accomplishments. The more specific you can be in describing your accomplishments the better.
  • Avoid making statements that you cannot prove.
• Use design that grab attention:
  • Your resume should appear neat, well organized, and professional. Use generous margins and plenty of white space.
  • Prioritize and highlight the most important information about your work experience, skills and education.
  • Avoid using fancy typeset and binders. Never use colored paper.
  • Correct all typographical, grammatical, and spelling errors.
• Tweak and target your resume and cover letter to match the job you are applying.

Resume Format

Chronological formats: Chronological resumes are a listing of employment and employment-related experiences which are arranged in order of time of occurrence.

Functional Resume: Functional resumes highlight skills, experiences, and accomplishments without identifying specific dates, names, and places.

Combination Resume: Combination resumes allow you to focus on the best components of both chronological and functional resumes.