What to put on your resume
And what not to include
EVERYONE. has an opinion about your resume.
However, they don’t all really know what your resume is supposed to do, do they?
Your resume is not meant to get you a job. In fact, I can think of no time in my recruiting career that I hired someone because of their resume alone.
I can, however, think of plenty of times that I made the decision to NOT hire (or even talk to) a potential candidate because of their resume.
What should you have on your resume?
According to one recruiter with experience in manufacturing, engineering, medical device, home services and government contracting hiring (me) here’s what you need on your resume.
Your name.
A relatively professional sounding email address. Your name is ideal or your first initials and surname is fine. Resist cutesy or superlatives like “bestprojectmanager”at gmail.com.
Your city and state or closest metro area. Even remote jobs may have needs based on geography and time zones. A busy recruiter may ignore a resume without a location.
A summary. Include key words from the job posting when possible. Here’s mine (and yes it can use some work, but still landed me an interview and meeting with the c-Suite team):
Talent acquisition professional with over 15 years’ experience as a recruiter, recruiting leader and hiring partner. Provide consultative approach to working with Hiring Managers and Senior Leadership in developing outreach, employer branding and recruiting strategies.
· Detailed knowledge of end-to-end recruitment life cycle process, hiring up to 36 candidates in a 30 day period for a publicly-traded medical device manufacturing company
· Excellent negotiation, interpersonal, management, written and spoken communication skills
· Advanced skills in internet research, sourcing, data mining, employer branding and process improvement; ATS/CRM usage
Employment history. This includes your title, the company name (and location) and dates employed. In this space include specific results as they relate to the job your were hired to perform. If you were hired to revamp the onboarding process and implement a new HRIS system, highlight the timeline and approximate budget, the number of team members you managed and when the results were achieved.
Education, Certification and Awards. If you didn’t graduate, include the name of the school and “did not graduate” where you would include the degree conferred.
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What not to include:
A picture. (unless you need a headshot for modeling, acting, stagework)
Your street address
An aol or hotmail email address.
Employment history from more than 15 years ago
Date of degree/education
Awards received that are not related to the work you want to do
Hobbies (some people disagree, let’s discuss in the comments on this post)
“References available upon request” or an actual list of your references.
Have some thoughts on what works for YOU and your resume? Questions? Disagreements? - Let’s chat in the comments here.