1. What is a resume anyway?
Remember: a Resume is a self-promotional documents that you in the best possible light, for the purpose of getting invited to a job interview.
It’s not an official personnel document. It’s not a job application. It’s not a “career obituary”! and it’s not a confessional.

2. What should the resume content be about?
It’s not just about past jobs! It’s about YOU. And how performed and what accomplished in those past jobs especially those accomplished that are most relevant to the work you want to do next. A good resume predicts how you might perform in that desired future job.

3. What's the fastest way to improve?
Remove everything that stars with “responsibilities includes” and replace it with on-the-job accomplishments.

4. What is the most common resume mistake made by job hunters?
Leaving out their job objective! If you don’t show a sense of direction, employers won’t be interested. Having a clearly stated goal doesn’t have to confine you if it’s stated well.

5. What's the first step in writing a resume?
Decide on a job target (or “job objective”) that can be stated in about 5 or 6 words. Anything beyond that is probably “fluff” and indicates a lack of clarity and direction.

6. How do you decide whether to use a chronological resume or a functional one?
Chronological format is widely preferred by employers, and works well if you’re staying in the same filed (especially if you’ve been upwardly-mobile). Only use a functional format if you’re changing fields, and you’re sure skills-oriented format would show off your transferable skills to better advantage; and be sure to include a clear chronological work history!

7. What if you don't have any experience in the kind of work you want to do?
Get some! Find a place that will let you do some volunteer work right away. You only need a brief, concentrated period of volunteer training (for example, 1 day a week for a month) to have at least SOME experience to put on your resume.
Also, look at some of the volunteer work you’ve done in the past and see if any of THAT helps document some skills you’ll need for your new job.

8. What do you do if you have gaps in your work experience?
You could start by looking at it differently.
General rule: tell what you WERE doing, as gracefully as possible rather than leave a gap.
If you were doing something valuable (even if unpaid) during those so-called “gaps” you could just insert THT into the work-history section of your resume to fill the hole.

Here are some examples:
.  19193-95 Full time parent-or
.  1929-94 Maternity leave and family management –or
.  Travel and study-or full-time student-or
.  Parenting plus community service

9. What if you have several different job objectives you're working on at the same time? Or you haven't narrowed it down yet to just one job target?
Then write a different resume for each different job target. A target resume is MUCH, much stronger than a generic resume.

10. What if you have a fragment, scrambled-up work history, with lots of short-tem jobs?
To minimize the job-hopper image, combine several similar jobs into one “chunk”, for example:
.  1993-1995 Secratery/ receptionist; Jones Bakery, Micro Corp, Cater jewelers- or
.  1993-95 Waiter/Busboy, Mc Dougal’s restaurant, Burger king, Traders Coffee shop.

Also you can just drop some of the less important, briefest job.
But don’t drop a job, even when it lasted a short time, if that was where you acquired important skills or experience.

1. What's the best way to impress an employer?
Fill your resume with “PAR” statements. PAR stands for Problem-Action-Results; in other word, first you state the problem that existed in your work place, then you describe what you did about it, and finally you point out the beneficial results.

Here’s an example: “Transformed a disorganized, inefficient warehouse into a smooth-running operation by totally redesigning the layout; this saved the company thousands of dollars in recovered stock.”
Another example: “Improved an engineering company’s obsolete filing system by developing a simple but sophisticated functional-coding system. This saved time and money by recovering valuable, previously lost project records.”

2. What if your jour title doesn't reflect your actual level of responsibilities?
When you list it on the résumé, either replace it with a more appropriate job title (say” Office Manager” instead of “Administrative Assistant” if that’s more realistic) or use their job title and your fairer one together, i.e. “Administrative Assistant (Office Manager)”

3. How can you avoid age discrimination?
If you are over 40 or 50 or 60, remember that you don’t have to present your entire work history! You can simply label THAT part of your resume “Recent Work History” or “Relevant Work History” and then describe only the last 10 or 15 years of experience. Below your 10-15 year work history, you could add a paragraph headed “Prior relevant experience” and simply refer to any additional important (but ancient) jobs without mentioning dates.

4. What if you never had any "real" paid jobs just self-employment or odd jobs?
Give yourself credit, and create an accurate, fair job-title for yourself. For example:
.  A&S Hauling & Cleaning (Self employed) – or
.  Household repairman, Self-employment – or
.  Child-Care, Self-employment

Be sure to add “Customer references available on request” and then be prepared to provide some very good references or people you worked for.

5. How far back should you go in your Work History?
Far enough, and not too far! About 10-15 years is usually enough – unless your “juiciest” work experience is from father back.

6. How can student list a summer jobs?
Students can make their resume look neater by listening seasonal jobs very simply, such as “Spring 1996” or “Summer 1996” rather than 6/96 to 9/96. (The word “Spring” can be in very tiny letters, say 8-point in size.)

7. What if you don't quite have your degree or credentials yet?
You can say something like:
.  Eligible for U.S. credentials – or
.  Graduate studies in Instructional Design, in progress – or
.  Master’s Degree anticipated December 1997

8. What if you worked for only one employer for 21 or 30 years?
Then list separately each different position you held there, so your job progression within the company is more obvious.

9. What about listing hobbies and interests?
Don’t include hobbies on a resume unless the activity is somehow relevant to your job objective, or clearly reveals a characteristic that support your job objective. For example, a hobby of sky diving (adventure, courage) might seem relevant to some job objectives (Security Guard?) but not to others.

10. What about revealing race or religion?
Don’t include ethic or religious affiliations (inviting pre-interview discrimination) UNLESS you can see that including them will support your job objective. Get an opinion from a respected friend or colleague about when to reveal, and when to conceal, your affiliations.

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