With the current job market being so tough, it is important for your resume to stand out from the competition. There is one easy way to help you in this process and that is to avoid the types of common errors that get most of these pages tossed in the round file.
There are at least five different areas that you can use to gain a competitive advantage over the competition and make your paper stand out from the crowd.
The first thing that you need to do is make sure that your most recent accomplishments are listed. Most employers don't care about what happened a dozen years ago. Not only is this ancient history, but as technology is moving so quickly, many of these skills are unfortunately outdated. Focus on the most recent employment and use bullet points to highlight these areas.
Next, make sure to focus on the advertisement that listed the job posting. Your resume is likely to be skimmed anyway, so it is important to get the most important items at the top of the page. Since you should already be a good match in some ways, be sure to include what the employer is looking for as the first or second item on this document. That is more likely to stick in the reader's mind and get you the chance for that all important interview.
It is also important to stress your positive attributes and qualities. Almost every other resume will have such things as "hard working" or "self starter". It no longer means anything to include such phrases. In order to be unique, you must demonstrate these qualities to a prospective employer. Be sure to include some good examples of how you have used these skills to benefit a previous company.
Another good tip is to make sure that your very best accomplishments are included. The reader will want to know how these can benefit their company. You should be able to provide proof in a concrete fashion of how a previous firm achieved something tangible from these kinds of efforts. This may be in the way of numbers - such as sales figures or possibly repeat customers.
Writing from the viewpoint of the human resources person who will read your resume will greatly enhance the chance of making the cut into the favored pile. These are the only people who will get called for that all important face to face meeting.
Proofreading is the one item that most people seem to neglect. Although this doesn't cost anything but time, it is the single most overlooked aspect when submitting a resume. Research done in this area indicates that as much as 20% of papers are sent off with errors in their content.
Get somebody else to proofread and check this all important document before putting a stamp on it. One simple mistake can mean the difference between getting noticed and getting laughed at. A human reader is the best bet her as automated programs will only say if a word is spelled incorrectly but not used incorrectly.