Resume writing is in part an art, but mainly it is a science that plays upon the psyche of the reader.

Leaving your resume written unscientifically will jeopardize your job prospects. There are many professional resume writing services available both on the Internet and probably in your town. But if you want to do it yourself, here are the sure-fire tips that will definitely make your resume better:

Five Tips to Write Your Resume

1. Plan your resume to target the industry in general and the interviewer in particular. Doing this quickly brings the focus to:
   
   
   • Your Qualifications Summary: Be practical with this part; avoid making goal statements because they may be out of line with a particular company’s positional standpoint. Also, don’t get your personal goals and qualifications mixed up; this section is about your qualifications, it should stay away from any statement about your personal goals. This may seem obvious, but it is a mistake that is often made.
     

   • The Goal Statement: This is the section for your statement on the goals you want to achieve. Here again, avoid mistakes like "to serve the organization as long as possible and grow to greater heights". The reality is, your employment’s longevity is riddled with many practicalities and ever-changing market dynamics.
     

   • Your Salary Expectations: Your resume is not the place to have this discussion. Unless, of course, you want to torpedo your chances of either getting the job or getting a higher salary. Leave this section for oral negotiation.
   
   
2. Never write vague descriptions like ’10 years experience in store management’. Instead, explain what and how you did in stores. A chemical store and an engineering materials store differ hugely in functionality. A description that applies to the former will not to the latter. Just like you were selling something (and you are!), it is better to be specific. Apply this principle to your specific career.
   

3. Your experiences are not true testimonies of your abilities until you make them link together. How do you do this? By highlighting verifiable and practical justifications. What you talk about in the interview must match the highlighted strengths on your resume. If they do not, you’ll just raise red flags.
   

4. Letting typos, grammar errors creep in suggests an unorganized character and uneducated behavior. It might not be fair, but that’s the way it is. Since your resume is in fact, your advocate, you must get the most mileage out of it by having it edited or proofread by others, if you can’t do it yourself for some reason. Do it twice or three times if necessary, but get the job done to perfection.
   

5. If you are a fresh grad, a new set of rules apply to you. As you can’t possibly be show extensive work experience, you need to highlight your educational achievements and extracurricular activities, in place of the experience and accomplishment sections.
   

   You can use this to your advantage by reflecting on your leadership skills- for example, if you were a football team captain, organizational skills and accomplishments- or if you were an editor of your school magazine, your meticulous attention to detail.

The way you write your resume can either make or break your job candidacy. Also, if your resume will be posted on the Internet on some of the popular job boards, this means that it will be visible by nearly everyone. Not writing your resume properly, then, has the potential to sink your job prospects entirely. Don’t let this happen to you.

By following the resume writing tips above, you will position yourself as a strong candidate and make your resume stand out from the crowd.

© Heather Eager, All rights reserved