Happy New Year! We thoroughly enjoyed our holiday break here at First and we hope yours was relaxing and full of time with loved ones. We’re back in business now and gearing up for an exciting and busy 2019! Before the break, we left you with some guidelines to write (or rewrite) your first draft of your resume. Now, it’s time to jump in deeper and start polishing.
After you’ve constructed your resume and you’ve written it all down, you’ll need to start thinking about revising. Ideally, a resume should be no longer than two pages. There are some exceptions to this and depending on your profession it might be perfectly reasonable to extend your resume beyond two pages. Generally speaking though, try to make two pages your max. If you can get yours to fit on one page and still represent you well, that’s even better. So, grab your resume and go back (preferably after a few hours, or even a day), and start paring down what you’ve written.
Cutting Content
There is a balance to be struck here. You should avoid taking away so much of what you’ve written that your future employer can’t get a good idea of what your job entailed. But you should also avoid making them sort through an excess of information. Here are a few things to keep in mind when revising your resume’s content:
- Keep the things you did regularly (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly).
- Keep things you did occasionally if they were noteworthy or are things that make you stick out for the position you’re applying for.
- Get rid of unnecessary detail – bullet points were not meant for paragraphs.
Varying Verbs
Once your resume consists of the most pertinent information, the next step is to change or consolidate repetitive verbs. It shows a more expansive vocabulary and helps your future employer read through it easier.
Consider either changing the verb to an appropriate synonym, or – if the content of those bullets are similar – combine them together. It will fill more of the dead white space and will improve readability.
There are deeper depths to be dived…
If, after all your revising, your resume is just barely spilling over onto the next page, don’t fret. Try adjusting the font style or size, or the size of your margins. We’ll be covering visual readability next, too, which will include more tips and tricks on formatting your resume if you find yourself getting stuck.
In the meantime, if you’re in the job market, head over to our Open Jobs page! You’ll find all our open positions in need of applicants. If your resume is still in progress don’t let that hold you back. Our recruiters have years of combined experience in polishing resumes, and they’d love to hear from you!
We hope you have a wonderful start to your 2019, and we’ll be back soon with more. Stay tuned!