Funny thing about resumes – everyone has a different opinion about what’s right and what’s wrong, though it’s never really clear what those right and wrong techniques are. With that kind of confusion about what you should do, no wonder people spend too much time thinking about resumes.

The most important thing to remember is that a great resume is the basis of your self-marketing, and your script for networking and interviewing. First, you’ll need to find a style you’re comfortable with – one that you think will work well for you. Then, you might want to run it by either a knowledgeable friend or professional, so that you might tweak, edit, and reformat aspects of it.

After that, you test it with people in your target market. If you hear consistent suggestions for revision, you might want to consider making some changes. But don’t take each single opinion as The Answer; make sure that it’s something you have heard a few times from trusted sources. There will be contradictions in those opinions. Taking them all too seriously is the last thing you need in a search, which is already difficult enough.

My clients know I see a resume as just one part of a comprehensive job search, but that doesn’t stop me from having my own definite opinions about what works and what doesn’t. Here are a few very basic guidelines:

• Make them easy to read. Lots of white space on the page. They should be visually appealing. Short bullets. No paragraphs longer than four or five lines.

• Times Roman 11, Garamonde 10, and Arial 10 or 11 are good fonts – easy to read, not too small or big.

• No “references available upon request”. What are you going to say otherwise -
  “NO references available”? Of course they’re available; why bother saying it?

• No objective. They’re out of style now, and considered presumptuous. (Like, who cares what YOU want? It’s what THEY want.)

• Summary statements are a good idea most of the time, but not always. (For example, some Wall Street professions require a quick one page resume, no summary, with a clear, skill-oriented sequential work history.) Summaries are intended to be a distillation of what will be your “two minute pitch”, and will explain quickly, right on top of your resume, exactly what you are professionally and how you’re positioning yourself for your next career move. This makes it easy for the reader to understand exactly what skill sets and experiences you’re presenting, and how you’re positioning yourself. There are many types of summary statements, including the extended summary which is shown in The Five O’Clock Club-style resume, the short paragraph shown in many others, and the bulleted skills style.

• Don’t write “health: excellent”. What would you write otherwise – health: deteriorating”? This is not relevant, along with age, gender, religious references, etc.

• I don’t like most hobbies/interests listed in an “Additional Relevant Information” or “Other” section. Some of my peers like that, because it might provide some material for conversation on an interview. My take is that it’s not all that important that you participated in intramural ultimate Frisbee when in college (unless you’re a recent college grad and don’t have much more to talk about). In some unusual circumstances, your extracurriculars actually might help; if you were an Olympic athlete or a musician in a recent production off Broadway, that might be a good item to put on a resume. But, putting “avid reader” or “loves to cook” just doesn’t do it for me. How do those things help your self-marketing? I think that if you have skills to sell, sell them and leave the rest out. Include the languages you may speak fluently, or the unusual technological skills, but leave out the fraternity presidency.

• Once you’ve researched your market and validated your targets, give the resume a rest. Many job searchers end up changing and reformatting the resume for hours and weeks on end, and sometimes I think that’s a way of avoiding the real work of search – getting yourself out there and in front of decision makers.

• Try hard not to offer your resume. One of the reasons that I realize that a client is not executing a successful search is when I hear the sentence, “But I’ve sent out over 14,000 resumes!” That’s not a job search; it’s deforestation. I strongly believe that sending out unsolicited resumes is not an effective strategy. Frequently, resumes will not, as many say, “get you in the door”. It’s quite the opposite; unsolicited resumes will usually screen you out, for one reason or another. Here’s a good strategy: Only give out your resume when it’s requested. Otherwise, you’re just another job seeker, and you want to separate yourself from the pack. The best way to do this is to not lean on the piece of paper, but to lean on your own presentation – with the resume as a support.

Thanks to The Five O’Clock Club, Columbia Business School, and some of my former private clients for lending suggestions and resumes to the following collection of sample resumes:

Files are in the PDF format and will require Adobe Acrobat to view.