Resume Writing Skills: "The Power Is In the Details!"

We've all heard the saying, "The devil is in the details." Well, in effective resume writing you have to pay attention because, "The power is in the details."

First, it needs to be emphasized that typos, misspellings or grammatical mistakes should never appear in any written material you send out. From an email to your resume it all should be free from errors. Miss a mistake in grammar and your otherwise well written resume could never be seen again.

The second resume writing detail that you should pay particular attention to is how you list your employers. With no supporting information the name of your employer on your resume indicates nothing.

The goal of your resume is to create as complete a picture of your experience as possible. Failure to describe any of your employers diminishes the value of your resume and raises questions in the mind of the reader. The hiring manager is not going to connect the dots for you and questions leads directly to a rejection.

Don't assume one company knows what is going on in another company, even if both are in the same industry or are in the same general area. A customer service manager in one company may have 20 people working for them while in another similar sized company in the same industry may have outsourced the function.

You want the reader to understand your experience in the context of the size of the company, what business it's in and who are their customers. These details allow the hiring manager to understand your level of experience in relation to the needs of the position.

Even if you worked for a company with a household name, at a minimum you need to provide: How did your job fit in the employer's operations? Division or corporate? Size in sales or number of employees? Any subordinates? Their functions? Without providing details of the context of previous positions the prospective employer is left with questions, and your goal in writing a resume is to eliminate questions not create them.

Screening resumes is more of an art than a science. Rather than looking for reasons to put your resume in the interview pile more often the opposite is true. First it's skimmed. Hard to read with bad formatting doesn't make the cut. Don't immediately see needed skills another rejection. Questions are raised about your experience, depending on the job and number of candidates, you might move on but don't count on it.

In a competitive job hunting environment part of your overall marketing effort is to stand above the crowd of other candidates. Briefly describing the context of other jobs is just one additional way to stand out.

Another important detail that does not need to be included in your resume is the address of previous employers. Name and city will suffice in your resume. If you are required to complete a full application, store the information in your phone or blackberry so it can be easily retrieved.

A careful listing of previous employers is just one additional way to get your resume read. If your resume gets the hiring officials attention because you are paying attention to the important details you have a powerful document.

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