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CONTENTS

03 Tip #1: POSITION YOUR RÉSUMÉ WITH A TARGET IN MIND

05 Tip #2: REMEMBER YOUR READER!

09 Tip #3: INFUSE YOUR RÉSUMÉ WITH YOUR PERSONAL BRAND

10 Tip #4: SHOWCASE YOUR UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITION

13 Tip #5: BE SUCCINCT!

15 Tip #6: BEEN THERE, DONE THAT! GIVE THEM PROOF

17 Tip #7: START WITH THE SIZZLE

19 Tip #8: APPLY THE CARS TECHNIQUE TO WEAVE A

POWERFUL,COMPELLING STORY

23 Tip #9: WRITE A MARKETING DOCUMENT. NOT AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY!

25 Tip #10: LEAD WITH STRONG VERBS

26 Tip #11: LOSE THE CLICHÉS

27 Tip #12: INCLUDE IMPORTANT KEYWORDS

30 Tip #13: UNDERSTAND APPLICANT TRACKING SYSTEMS

32 Tip #14: THINK STRATEGICALLY

33 Tip #15: DESIGN YOUR RÉSUMÉ TO BE MORE SKIMMABLE & EASILY

UNDERSTOOD WITH A SPEED READ

35 Tip #16: ADD POPS OF COLOR

38 Tip #17: USE GRAPHICS, TABLES, GRAPHS & CHARTS

46 Tip #18: FINISHING DETAILS

47 Tip #19: PROOFREAD. PROOFREAD.PROOFREAD AGAIN

48 Tip #20: TAILOR CONTENT TO THE JOB



20 Tips to Modernize Your

Résumé for 2020

If you are thinking about making a career move, your résumé is probably top of mind.

While the importance for your career and job search of the internet and online profiles on sites such as

LinkedIn continue to increase, the traditional résumé isn’t going away any time soon. In fact, you may find

that your traditional résumé is now being incorporated into online profiles, both as a download and re-

purposed content.

Unfortunately, as essential as the résumé is, for many job seekers, writing and crafting a résumé is one

of the most stressful and daunting tasks they will face in the job search.

Complicating things further, résumé best practices and recommendations continually change, and this

has been especially true over the past decade as the need to make your résumé stand out in an increasingly

digital world has accelerated.

Fear not! Drawing on my near-quarter-century of experience as a professional résumé writer, in this

document I’ve outlined the 20 best ways you can modernize your résumé.

But what if you need more help or support?

At Distinctive Career Services, LLC, over the past 20+ years, we have worked with thousands of

professionals, managers, executives, and emerging executives, writing powerful, attention-grabbing

résumés and creating aggressive, successful strategic marketing campaigns.

As a partner to our clients in the job search process, we provide one-on-one, personalized assistance

creating résumés, cover letters, LinkedIn profiles as well as practical support, establishing the foundation

for your entire job search campaign and success in a market that grows ever-more complex.

If you think you might benefit from this type of support, I encourage you to book a free 30-minute

discovery consultation with us (https://www.distinctiveweb.com/dcb-resume-tips), to discuss your needs,

answer your questions, and see if we may be a good fit to work together.

https://www.distinctiveweb.com/dcb-resume-tips


https://www.distinctiveweb.com/dcb19



Tip #1: POSITION YOUR RÉSUMÉ

WITH A TARGET IN MIND

If you don’t know what you want and where you are going, what makes you think a busy employer will

take the time to figure it out for you?

Honestly, they won’t, and they shouldn’t!

Position your résumé with a specific goal in mind. The more specific you can be the better. Ask yourself

these questions:

1. What job function are your seeking to perform? (e.g., marketing, engineering, operations, etc.)

2. At what level? (e.g., associate, supervisor, director, etc.)

3. In what industry or industries? (e.g., software, pharmaceutical, energy, etc.)

4. In what size company? (e.g., startup, mid-size regional, large multinational, etc.)

5. Facing what type of challenge? (e.g., international expansion, sales turnaround, business

growth, etc.)

The first two questions are essential to answer, but the more of the remaining three you can answer,

the better focused your résumé will be.

Now that you are clear on your focus, how will you communicate it?

Objective statements are out of vogue. Employers are more interested in knowing what you can do for

them and how you will fit in their company and meet their needs than that you are "seeking a challenging

opportunity with room for growth."

But just because you ditched the objective, don’t waste the valuable résumé real estate the objective

used to hold. Instead, create a headline statement that immediately conveys your focus to the reader.



At a glance, your headline statement should inform the reader who you are, where you would fit in the

company, and what you offer them, illustrated in these examples.

Properly focusing your résumé is critical. Once your résumé is finished, show it to a few trusted family

or friends and ask them to tell you how they understand your focus. If necessary, edit your content until

your focus is immediately and clearly communicated.



Tip #2: REMEMBER YOUR READER!

Pre-screening often takes place electronically, but don't forget it is a person who really reads your

résumé and calls you for an interview.

That person may be the employer or they may be a representative of that employer. Either way, the

employer has needs and reasons they are hiring.

Your résumé should not be just a

listing of what you have done in the

past. Instead, it needs to speak to

the employer’s needs. It should sell

you and illustrate with examples

how you have the proven

capabilities to meet those needs.

When I share this advice with

clients, they immediately agree, but

almost without fail express

confusion about how to put this

into practice.

If you are struggling with this, let

me share an insider technique that

will help.

Do a little research on the job

boards. Go ahead and do it right

now. Pull up a Google search page

and type in “jobs” followed by a

title that describes the position you

are looking for.

Once you hit search, you will be presented with a page that allows you to filter even more precisely, if

you wish.



This is a great, little-

known technique that will

draw from postings on all the

major job sites.

Try to find at least six job

openings that you believe you

are qualified for, that appeal

to you, and that are

representative of the types of

positions for which you will

apply.

Save those descriptions to

your hard drive or print them.

Read through the job

descriptions with a

highlighter. First, highlight all

the keywords that describe

the soft and hard skills sought in a candidate. Also highlight keywords describing the experience they seek.

(We will come back to how you will use these keywords later.)

Now read through the job descriptions a second time, looking for the similarities and differences

between the opportunities. Since these are all positions that really appeal to you, you are likely to see more

similarities than differences.

Perhaps most of the opportunities come from a single industry.

Perhaps they are mostly in mid-sized companies that are currently in growth mode.

Maybe they all require experience leading a cross-functional, multi-site team.

Whatever they are, in the content of your résumé, you will want to prominently showcase your

capabilities relevant to these similarities.

But don’t discard the differences you find. If the different qualification sought has broad appeal likely to

be of interest to other employers within your target market, you should include it in your résumé even

though it wasn’t specifically called out in the other ads.



Or, if the different qualification sought is too specialized and unlikely to be of interest to other

employers, you may just wish to create a slightly modified version of your résumé specifically for that

employer in which you call out your experience in the specialty qualification.

Finally, read through the job listings a third time. This time, specifically look for clues that tell you the

employers’ motivation for hiring.

Remember that the employer is making an investment in hiring you. Like all investments, they will be

seeking a return on their investment (ROI). If you dig deep enough, most employers are seeking the

candidate who will deliver ROI in terms of making them money, saving them money, improving efficiency,

or solving some challenging problem for them.

If you can identify the most important ROI sought for the types of positions you are seeking, the

information will guide you in deciding what to showcase in your résumé.

Write a résumé that is relevant to the prospective employer’s needs. For example, do you know it is a

growing organization and you will have to build the department from scratch? Tell stories that illustrate

how you have done that in the past like in the above example.



You want to hit the employers' pain points. When they read your résumé they should think "That is

exactly what I am looking for!"

One really powerful way to capture the employers’ attention by speaking to their pain points is to

include 3-5 noteworthy achievements in a career highlights section. This is also a great way to call out

relevant accomplishments that may otherwise be buried on page two. Here are some examples:



Tip #3: INFUSE YOUR RÉSUMÉ WITH YOUR PERSONAL BRAND

Personal branding in the form of clarifying and communicating

what makes you different and special in the workplace is becoming

increasingly essential to achieve professional success.

Personal branding helps you convey a positive and memorable

image of your workplace value. Infusing your résumé with your

personal brand will allow you to clearly identify and communicate

what differentiates you from your job-seeking competitors while

piquing and inspiring employers' interest in you.

At the most basic level, a personal brand is comprised of the factors

that differentiate you and make you unique. Just like with companies

and products, branding is what sets you apart from everyone else (and what sets the companies and

products apart from all the other companies and products).



Taken a step further, from the perspective of the workplace, your brand is not just what sets you apart,

but what makes your contributions different, special, and valuable. For example, if you are a marketing

professional you probably have the same or similar qualifications and abilities as other marketing

professionals.

But perhaps you also have a special talent for resourcefulness and creativity that has allowed you to

deliver to your employers extraordinarily strong results on a shoestring budget, maximizing every

marketing dollar spent. A truly powerful personal brand and branded résumé could be created around

these differentiating factors.

So, what exactly do I mean when I recommend “infusing your résumé with your brand”? I’ll show you

some examples in a moment, but first let’s move on to the next technique, which is closely tied to your

personal brand.

Tip #4: SHOWCASE YOUR UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITION

Why you? What value can you deliver that differentiates you from all the other candidates out there?

Within the context of your job search, your Unique Value Proposition (UVP) is your promise of value

and benefits to be delivered to the prospective employer. Your “UVP Statement” is synonymous with

“Personal Brand Statement.”

Three areas of clarity are necessary to create a strong UVP/Brand Statement:

1. The unique skills and qualifications you offer.

2. Your personality and what you’re truly passionate about.

3. The needs, expectations, and requirements of the position or industry you’re targeting.

These three areas, added together and stated in a concise way, become the UVP for your résumé.

Your personal brand should be immediately discernible from your résumé, beginning with a vibrant UVP

and power-packed summary of qualifications or profile section. You should then carry that brand

throughout the entire résumé, providing stories of success that illustrate how your brand has been a theme

throughout your professional career and how you have applied it to deliver value and benefits to past

employers.



Let’s look at some examples:

The UVPs are clearly called out and communicated in the summary sections of the above two résumés.



This executive’s personal brand, which is clearly stated in the subheading of this résumé profile, is

further reinforced by the inclusion of a personal statement from the candidate.

This systems analyst’s personal brand was all about improving processes and implementing solutions

that create new efficiencies across an organization. This branding was reinforced through the stories of her

past accomplishments in the body of the résumé.



The above sales and account manager’s brand is reinforced through “social proof.” Including written

testimonials from bosses or colleagues can be a powerful brand reinforcer.

Tip #5: BE SUCCINCT!

Virtually all of us living modern lives today are absolutely overloaded with information.

We are being bombarded with information everywhere we turn! Emails. Texts. Tweets. Facebook.

We are assaulted with facts and they come at us fast and quick. And it is distracting, especially when

you figure in our digital gadgets! I was shocked to read that the average office worker checks their email

30X per hour; and checks their cell phone more than 1500 times per week!

Now add in the fact that humans’ attention spans are getting shorter. The average attention span is

currently just 8 seconds or less according to a recent Microsoft study, and this is 30% less than similar

research had found ten years prior.

The average attention span of a goldfish is 9 seconds.

Humans attention spans have shortened to less than that of a goldfish!



Knowing this, with several hundred résumés coming in for a single job opening, it isn’t shocking that a

study conducted by The Ladders a couple of years ago found that on average, recruiters spend only 6

seconds reviewing each résumé that comes across their desk.

What does all of this mean for your résumé?

It means you must write very succinctly, edit rigorously, and make every word count. This doesn’t mean

you should leave out relevant information. But it does mean that you should strive for tight, lean, clean

content presented in a format that makes it easy for the “skimmer” to come away with the key points

without reading in depth.

Except in rare cases, or if you are an entry-level candidate, one-page résumés are no longer the norm or

the expectation. However, two pages are the maximum you should strive for, with three pages being

acceptable for executives or others in highly technical or scientific professions.

Write your résumé first and then edit. Read what you have written and ask yourself if it can be said in

fewer words.

Don’t repeat similar job descriptions over and over. While you will want to sprinkle those job

description keywords liberally throughout the résumé, it is better to focus on your contributions and

accomplishments in each position.

Does the point you are trying to make truly relate to the employers’ needs? If not, leave it out. Learn to

separate the essential from the important.

Instead of lengthy paragraphs describing your job, consider the more modern technique of simply

listing the highlights:



Tip #6: BEEN THERE, DONE THAT! GIVE THEM PROOF

It is all about results.

Employers don’t just hire employees: they hire individuals who have the compelling potential to solve

their problems, surmount their challenges, make them money, and save them money.

Your résumé is a marketing tool for communicating with potential employers, giving them a glimpse

into who you are and what your abilities look like. Most important, your résumé communicates how those

abilities will translate into value for an employer when they hire you.

Understand that an employer is making an investment when they hire you. Your résumé must clearly

and convincingly demonstrate how you will deliver a higher return on investment (ROI) than your

competitors for that same job. What have you done to increase revenue, deliver cost savings, strengthen

profits, streamline processes, improve customer satisfaction, heighten productivity, etc.?



Be specific. Generalities and vague claims are unconvincing and will almost always hurt your credibility.

Quantify when you can, using whole numbers, dollar figures, or percentages to reinforce your claims.

Fill your résumé with quantified examples that illustrate how you have produced results in the past.

Ultimately, in relation to the employer(s) you are targeting, you will want to make sure your résumé

provides examples of past accomplishments and results produced that tell the employer you have “been

there, done that!”

More examples from our résumé files:



Tip #7: START WITH THE SIZZLE

Begin your accomplishment bullets with the result rather than the action. Remember, employers are

interested in the impact you can make and the results and benefits you will produce. Structuring your

accomplishment bullets so that all or most of them begin by describing the result followed by the action

that produced the result, is a great way to showcase what matters most.

You can follow this simple formula:

Accomplished Z by doing X.

Or even better…

Accomplished Z as measured by Y by doing X.



Consider the difference:

▪ Achieved 92% flawless launches for 3 consecutive

years by continuously monitoring launch KPIs and

conducting monthly production/project review

meetings with project managers to mitigate risk

and resolve issues early.

Versus

▪ Continuously monitored launch related KPIs and

conducted monthly production/project review

meetings with project managers to mitigate risk

and resolve issues early, achieving 92% flawless launches for 3 consecutive years.

They are the same accomplishment written in different ways, but the top one begins with the result

and grabs attention far faster. Here is another example:

▪ Bolstered launch profitability 15%, reduced BoM-to-sell ratio 1.2%, and improved other

profit targets from quote to launch by monitoring costs and leading cross-functional actions,

such as supplier negotiations and price increases.

Versus

▪ Monitored costs and led cross-functional actions, such as supplier negotiations and price

increases, bolstering launch profitability 15%, reducing BoM-to-sell ratio 1.2%, and

improving other profit targets from quote to launch.

One more example:

▪ Delivered $3 million savings through negotiation of new production partnerships that

reduced the costs of grain, pullets, packaging, and transportation.

Versus

▪ Negotiated new production partnerships that reduced the costs of grain, pullets, packaging,

and transportation, saving $3 million.

Quantified results are always eye-catching no matter how you include them. But by leading your

accomplishment bullets with the result you multiply the impact.



Tip #8: APPLY THE CARS

TECHNIQUE TO WEAVE A

POWERFUL,COMPELLING STORY

Imagine if you knew the formula for transfixing the reader of your résumé, weaving a spellbinding

narrative that was so compelling and relevant that it propelled you ahead of your competition and virtually

guaranteed you an interview for the jobs you most desire.

That is the power that storytelling can have when applied strategically to your résumé.

Now let’s be clear: I’m not suggesting weaving a fictional story into your résumé. Rather, I’m suggesting

bringing yourself alive on paper by telling your authentic, branded story in a way that creates a connection

with your reader, makes you memorable and intriguing, adds credibility to your accomplishments, and

evokes a desire in your reader to meet you and learn more.

Context adds meaning. Without a story, your résumé is just a bland recitation of power verbs and

disconnected facts on a piece of paper. Storytelling doesn’t just humanize you beyond lists of jobs and

education on a piece of paper; it does it in a way that creates trust and connects your value offering back to

the employers’ needs.

Of course, you also want to avoid writing a résumé that is flagrantly self-promoting. Nobody likes a

braggart, and a résumé filled with accomplishments but no context for those accomplishments is just that.

Remember, your résumé isn’t about you. It isn’t about how great you are. It isn’t about bragging and it

isn’t about your ego. Storytelling can help you transform a résumé that may otherwise be perceived as such

by removing the emphasis on self-promotion to engage the reader with a credible, engaging narrative that

shows exactly how the skills you bring to the table can be of service.

An accomplishment alone has little meaning without context. Understanding the adversity overcome

provides your accomplishment with the context that makes it meaningful and credible. What is the

conflict? Most frequently it will relate to:

1. A challenge related to an organization: Perhaps the one you work in, but it could also relate

to your competitors



2. A challenge or problem related to a thing: For example, outdated computer equipment that

needs updating

3. A challenge related to a situation: Such as the need to reverse declining sales, or the need to

redesign inefficient processes

4. A challenge related to a person: Perhaps you mentored several under-performing employees

who delivered record-setting performance the next year

In relation to these challenges, what were the results that you produced? What did you increase?

Improve? Enhance? Strengthen? Whenever possible, quantify your accomplishments. Employers like

numbers. Think in terms of your individual results, but also think in terms of overall strategic impact. How

did all of these results together solve the big picture problem and overcome the conflict?

To summarize, go through your work history and organize by employer or job. For each, ask yourself:

Context: What is/was the overall challenge or situation?

Actions: What did you do to meet those challenges?

Results: What positive things happened as a result of your actions?

Strategic Impact: What was the big-picture impact?

The goal is to align your stories to the types of position you are targeting and tell your stories concisely.

Get to the point using plain, simple and direct language free of clichés and fancy prose. Résumé stories do

not need to be long. They need to be relevant and engaging. Use short paragraphs and bullet points.

Some examples from our files. The format of each is different but story is still told in the CARS style.



Tip #9: WRITE A MARKETING DOCUMENT. NOT AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY!

Your résumé is NOT your autobiography and, in most cases, it shouldn’t even be a complete record of

every job you every held. Instead, it is a document where you can showcase your RELEVANT competence

and highlight your PERTINENT achievements in relation to the type of position you are targeting.

Here are some tips on what that means in practice:

Don’t date yourself unnecessarily. As a rule of thumb, when describing your experience, focus on the

most recent 10-15 years. Avoid including dates on your résumé that are more than 20 years in the past.

Experience older than that is almost always less relevant, but if you have a strategic reason for including it,

include a brief description without dates.



Leave out older or irrelevant education. If you have a college degree or have taken coursework toward

a college degree, the hiring manager or recruiter who is reading your résumé does not care about your high

school education. They also do not care about training you have taken that is unrelated to the job you are

applying for. Leave this out and use the room for more relevant data.

Personal information has no place on a résumé, especially if your résumé meant to be used for the U.S.

job market. Do not include a photo, your birth date, mention of unrelated hobbies or interests, info about

your family, info that reveals your religion, or any other personal data. Including such data in a résumé

meant for the U.S. market may actually eliminate you from consideration, as hiring decision-makers may be

concerned about discrimination suits.

If you are unsure about what to keep and what to

cut, imagine yourself in the position of the person

who is looking to fill the position you are applying for.

Will the information on your résumé convince them

that they need to bring you in for an interview? If not,

delete it.

Instead of listing every responsibility of your past

jobs, target your résumé copy directly at the job you

are seeking. All irrelevant data or other filler (also

known as “fluff”) should be cut. When you are

finished, every word in your résumé should have a

strategic purpose.



Tip #10: LEAD WITH

STRONG VERBS

Avoid the phrases "responsible for" or

"responsibilities included." Instead, use

dynamic, action-oriented verbs to tell the

reader what you did.

Imagine writing a résumé for a ten-year-old:

▪ Responsible for picking up and putting

away toys in an organized manner. Additional duties include putting dirty clothes in the hamper.

Did they do it? What does this résumé actually tell you?

Truthfully, nothing. All you know is what this child was supposed to do. Now compare this to an action-

oriented description:

▪ Earned 5 stars on weekly chore chart for 15 consecutive weeks as reward for cleaning and

organizing bedroom each night, neatly putting away clothing and toys.

This is a facetious example, of course, but makes a powerful point. Action words create a sense of

achievement in your work experience. While adjectives can be used sparingly, use concrete examples

headed by verbs to describe your work history.

Effective verbs showcase what you have done and highlight ways you’ve turned challenges into successes.



Tip #11: LOSE THE

CLICHÉS

You should avoid UNSUBSTANTIATED

clichés and over-used jargon in your résumé.

These are the words and phrases you read

repeatedly in résumés. Words and phrases

such as:

Results-oriented

Effective communicator

People person

Outside-the-box

Motivated

Dynamic

Visionary

Team player

Entrepreneurial

Instead of vague

buzzwords, provide

examples that illustrate the

concept you are trying to

convey. In other words,

show don’t tell.

This tip is often-repeated

résumé writing advice that

you have probably heard in

the past. However, I want to point out that in my opening I advised you to avoid UNSUBSTANTIATED

clichés. The key is to provide evidence with concrete examples. As long as you have done that, it is okay

(read: extreme moderation!) to use one of these phrases if it is essential to conveying your personal brand

or unique value proposition.

You will find phrases such as these in some of the résumés I have used for examples in this guide, but

you will always find them backed up with proof.



Tip #12: INCLUDE IMPORTANT

KEYWORDS

We’ve long been told technology is intended to

simplify our lives.

In general, technology HAS made the search part of job search easier. Where it has made it more

complicated, is the submission process. Of course, the act of submitting your résumé itself is very simple.

The difficulty, however, lies in getting that résumé read.

More than ever before, employers and recruiters are employing the use of Applicant Tracking Systems

(ATS). Essentially, these are databases and computer screening systems which assist in managing the often-

overwhelming volume of résumés organizations receive.

Simply explained, an ATS “reads” your résumé in order to measure or score your qualifications against

the requirements of the job the employer seeks to fill. Many recruiters and HR professionals have given up

on reviewing every résumé that comes in the door. Instead, they input it into the ATS to be recalled

(hopefully!) if it is a good match for a position they seek to fill.

Although this may seem like a good thing as it

streamlines the screening process, this is only true if

your résumé have been optimized to benefit from ATS

software that filters and screens your résumé, analyzing

it to identify keywords and word sequences in order to

extract information most relevant to making a hiring

decision.

Do you remember the exercise I had you complete in

Tip #2? I asked you to review job postings and highlight

all the keywords that describe the soft and hard skills

sought in a candidate. I also asked you to highlight

keywords describing specific experience the employers

are seeking. Now is the time to pull those highlighted

job postings out.



The highlighted words are often the very words that will be used when searching an ATS for ideally

qualified candidates. They are the words specifying the technical knowledge, soft skills, experience, and

abilities required to be successful in the position. Make sure they all (especially those that get repeated

over and over) are included in your résumé. Exactly those words.

Caveat – Only use those words if they apply to you. If they don’t because you’ve tried to trick the ATS,

you’ll pay for that later in an interview. Puffery doesn’t work any better here than it does when human eyes

review your submission.

Customization is critical. Specify, specify, specify. Words like “accomplished”, “highly-skilled”,

“professional” and the like are useless in an ATS setting. Remember, you’re attempting to illustrate to a

software system that you meet the systems minimum standards and those standards are, quite simply,

merely keywords. Be specific. Don’t just say you are skilled with Microsoft Office. Specify that you are an

“expert user of Microsoft Office, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Excel.”

Also remember that context is key. Refer to specific achievements when using keywords. When it

returns results, the

system highlights the

keywords in yellow for

the reader, and they

want and need context.

It is okay to list the most

important keywords t as

part of your summary,

but also use them in the

body of your résumé.

Here are some ideas

for ways that you can

include more keywords

in your résumé.

Include a key

qualifications summary

in the introductory

profile section your

résumé:



Consider using keyword phrases that summarize the meaning of a bullet, like in the following two

examples.



Find creative but still easy-for-a-human-to-read ways (because after it gets pulled from the ATS it still

needs to get the attention of a human reader) to incorporate more keywords into your experience section

like in this next example.

Tip #13: UNDERSTAND APPLICANT TRACKING SYSTEMS

I’m going to begin this tip by telling you that the vast majority of information you read on the internet

regarding résumé design and ATS compatibility is extremely outdated. Much of it is leftover advice for the

days when we had to worry about “scannable” résumés that were entered into the precursors of today’s

advanced ATS systems using OCR technology. Don’t worry if you don’t know what I mean. Just be happy

that we no longer have to worry about scannable résumés!

Today, it is possible to create attractive, well-designed résumés that are fully or mostly compatible with

ATS systems. The ATS simply reads the words and code behind the formatting.

That means, when you are concerned about ATS, the font type or style you use doesn’t matter. The font

size doesn’t matter. The font color doesn’t matter. You can even use white font, italics, bolding and

underlines—all those things that we used to be told not to use no longer matter.

Fancy bullets are often converted to junk characters, but that doesn’t impact the ATS compatibility of

the rest of the content in any way and doesn’t impact scoring. This means you can use any bullet you wish.

Graphics are “invisible” to an ATS. They just skip over graphics. That means you can use text boxes,

graphic lines, special monograms, charts and graphs, word art, smart art, and any other visual element you

can think of. The ATS will simply ignore it.



IMPORTANT: If you do use a graphic element in a résumé, understand that the ATS will not read any of

the text that might be in it. If the content within the graphical element is non-essential from a keyword

standpoint, don’t worry about it. If it is essential, make sure you have used those words elsewhere, in the

body of your résumé.

Do NOT use a table to set up your entire résumé or large sections of your résumé. Doing so will almost

surely jumble the text as it is read into the ATS. However, it is okay to use tables or columns to set up small

standalone sections of your résumé such as the qualifications summary example I showed you in the

keyword tip.

Don’t get too fancy with the way you name your section headings. Use heading names that the ATS will

understand like “Professional Experience” and “Education”

Never put important information into the header or footer of your résumé. Just like a graphic, the ATS

will skip anything in these sections of the document.

When in doubt, you can easily check your résumé. Open it in Word and “Save As” Plain Text.

Now close Word and open the document in your notepad or another text-based editor. What you see is

essentially what the ATS will see. It isn’t “pretty” but don’t worry about that. You are just concerned with

the text. If you see major sections missing or if the format is too jumbled, you know you still have work to

do to make sure your résumé is ATS compliant.



Tip #14: THINK

STRATEGICALLY

Rip your résumé in half.

Go ahead.

Do it.

Print a copy of your résumé and then take the first page and rip it in half.

Now throw away the bottom half and concentrate on the top half. This is the most important section of

your résumé. It is called the “above the fold” section.

This top half of your résumé must be absolutely compelling. It must seize the reader’s attention and draw

them in with content that leaves absolutely no doubt that you are the perfect candidate to fulfill their

needs and solve their problems.

With just a five-second glance at this section, the reader should come away with a crystal clear

understanding of your focus and exactly how you would fit in their organization; they must come away with

an accurate perception of your brand and the unique promise of value that differentiates you from your

peers and competitors.

And remember, you must not only tell the reader about your value proposition. You must show them with

examples of past accomplishments.

This same concept applies to the rest of your résumé as well. Arrange the sections of your résumé so the

most impactful material is at the top.

For example, a new graduate with little experience would list

education and training first. Professionals with any relevant

experience would likely list education near the end of the résumé.

Or, maybe you are returning to a career path that you veered away

from ten years ago. Your recent experience is not as relevant as

your past experience. What opportunities do you have to

restructure your résumé to bring the older skills to the forefront?

You should even rearrange statements within job descriptions and

re-order bulleted achievements so the most important points are

made first.



It is really all about how you frame and position your experience, your achievements, your educational

background, and any other qualifications.

Give some thought to the “problematic” areas of your experience. An example might be gaps in your work

history. Color, visuals, graphs, and bolded sections, among other design choices help your eye know where

to go when reading the page. Can you think of a way to "redesign" your résumé to take the visual emphasis

off the chronology/dates of your experience and place it instead on your achievements and results?

Having worked with many thousands of job seekers to craft résumés, I can assure you that there is almost

no problem that can’t be solved with a thoughtfully and strategically structured résumé. Just remember to

spotlight the information that is most important and use design to guide the reader to what you most want

them to read.

Tip #15: DESIGN YOUR RÉSUMÉ TO BE MORE SKIMMABLE & EASILY

UNDERSTOOD WITH A SPEED READ

From the many example résumés I have included in this book, you know I am a strong proponent of

well-designed, eye-catching formats.

The visual appeal of your résumé can make a huge difference in the overall results it produces.

However, the content of your résumé should always be your first priority.



Design choices should be made strategically and always with the goal of making your résumé more

easily skimmable (leave a dynamic impression and convey key points with a glance) and more easily

readable, for those who read it in depth.

The above example snippet of an executive résumé is highly stylized and eye-catching, yet there was a

strategic purpose for each design choice. The formatting was developed to draw the eye to key points.

Put yourself in the shoes of the résumé recipient.

Respect your reader.

Reviewing résumé after résumé is monotonous and boring. Design elements can be used to highlight

important information and breakup the monotony of reading typical résumés.

Short chunks of information are easier to read than long ones. As a rule of thumb, try to keep bulleted

statements to three lines or less. Paragraphs to 5 lines or less. But even shorter is better.

Formatting should be attractive, consistent, and clean with lots of white space.



In most cases, you should use no more than 2 fonts - one for headings and one for text. Make sure the

body font is large enough to be read without a magnifying glass but not so large your résumé looks

elementary. Also, make sure the fonts you use are commonly used fonts to maximize compatibility across

systems.

Headings and subheadings should be used to organize the sections of your résumé.

Bullets are great for calling out key accomplishments but try not to include too many in a row (no more

than 5 is a good rule of thumb) and apply them strategically rather than for everything in your résumé.

Tip #16: ADD POPS OF COLOR

Remember that at the core, your résumé is a marketing document.

Research has shown that using color in marketing collateral has a dramatic positive impact.



Color visuals increase our willingness to read by 80% and has been shown to increase comprehension

up to 73%. Color increases readers’ attention spans 82%. And people also appear to have a strong bias for

color as they are 55% more likely to pick up a full-color direct mail piece first.

Consider how all this translates to using color in your résumé. Imagine your attractively designed

résumé printed in color lying on a table along with other résumés, all text based and black and white.

Which do you think a recruiter will pick up first?

Another relevant statistic involves using color to highlight info on a page. Research has shown that

doing so improves the ability of the reader to pick out important info 39% faster than just using different

font styles like bolding or italics. How important might that be when we know that the average recruiter

spends only 6 second reviewing each résumé?

As you begin experimenting with color in your résumé, be conservative. It is easy to go too far and

transform what could have been an attractive, eye-catching résumé into a garish, unprofessional document

that repels rather than attracts. Changing the font color of headings is common. Also consider adding color

with graphics or photos, tables and graphs, shaded boxes, shapes, and borders and lines.

Some more examples to help give you creative inspiration:



Tip #17: USE GRAPHICS, TABLES, GRAPHS & CHARTS

Research tells us that we only have about 15 seconds of interacting with a stranger before they form an

opinion of us and approximately 70% of that impression is based on appearance.

Whether we like it or not, appearance counts and attractive packaging helps sell.

Marketers will tell you that if you are selling a product, one of the best forms of advertising is the

packaging that holds your product.

As I’ve touched on many times in this e-book, I believe that the same is true about the eye-appeal of a

résumé. In many ways you can think of a résumé as the packaging that advertises you.

Marketing professionals seem to be coming to the same conclusion. The use of visuals in marketing and

literature is increasing exponentially in recent years.



Why is this? Well, the simple fact is that humans are visually wired. And graphics and other visuals help

us cope with information overload. Not only do our brains register graphics 60,000X faster than text, but

graphics are also more memorable. Research has shown while we remember on average only 20% of what

we read and 10% of what we hear, we remember 80% of what we see.

Yes, the visual eye appeal of your résumé matters and infographic résumés are getting a remarkably

positive response in the job market. If you are interested in really standing out and getting positive

attention in the job market, you may wish to consider creating a résumé that includes some graphical

elements such as charts, graphs, and callouts.

1. Charts, Graphs & Tables

If you have a lot of numbers to include, especially numbers that show an increase or improvement of

some sort, consider presenting the data in an easy-to-read table format. Or, it can be very impactful to

create a graphical chart or graph to present the data. Microsoft Word has powerful tools to help you with

this, or you can create the graph is Excel and import it into your executive résumé. Some examples of what

is possible (you’ll find many other examples scattered throughout this book):



2. Graphical Elements

Experiment, as appropriate, with including photos or clipart in your résumé. Additionally, the Shapes

and SmartArt features in Microsoft Word is easy to use and provide the tools to create all sorts of graphical

elements in your executive résumé. The standards offered are highly customizable and are great ways to

showcase a list of key qualifications or other information and data pieces that can be presented as a

process, a cycle, hierarchy, matrix, or more. Some examples:



3. Callout Boxes

Callout boxes are another way to draw attention to key information. Microsoft Word’s Text Box feature

can be used for this or depending on the layout you can use a single cell table or even simple borders and

shading around paragraphs. This is a great technique to showcase signature accomplishments, a personal

branding statement, or even a quote from a reference letter. Some examples:



4. Traditional Design Options

In many cases, even simple design elements such as selective shading, page borders, paragraph

borders, ruling lines, designer bullets, monograms, strategically applied white space, and drop caps can give

your executive résumé the extra visual pop that it needs to stand out from the masses.

Finally, remember that too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. Inappropriately or excessively

applied design can make your résumé look gaudy or flashy. This is not the first impression you want to

make. Think strategically and have a reason for your design choices. With a few exceptions for clients in

more creative or trendy industries, my rule of thumb is to use muted rather than bright colors and to shoot

for a distinctively understated and sophisticated look.

Tip #18: FINISHING DETAILS

Including your contact information on your résumé seems obvious, but it is one of the areas that I

frequently see fatal mistakes.

First, never, never, never use a

graphical text box to set up your

header UNLESS you have hidden

the actual text under the box.

Similarly, do NOT set your name

and contact details in the header

within Microsoft Word. Make sure

you have included them in the body

of the document, instead. I see

these errors all the time, and they

are fatal ones.

To understand why these are

such huge mistakes, go back and read the section on structure and formatting for ATS compatibility. Unless

your name and contact information are in the body of the résumé, the ATS won’t “read” it. Imagine a

situation in which your résumé tags you as the #1 candidate for a position based on the included keywords,

and yet your name and contact information never made it into the ATS! The recruiter won’t know who you

are or how to contact you.



A few other tips related to your contact information:

Include a link to your LinkedIn profile, also your Twitter or other social media accounts, but ONLY if the

content is professional and potentially relevant.

If you have a blog or personal website relevant to your focus, include a link. Again, the deciding factor

on whether to include it or not is relevancy. If not relevant, leave it out.

Make sure your email address is professional (nothing cutesy) and never use your email address from

your employer. Also upgrade outdated aol.com, hotmail.com, or other similar email addresses as using

email accounts such as these date you.

Include just one phone number - preferably your personal cell with a professional sounding greeting on

your voice mail. Also, make sure you keep your box cleaned out!

Finally, City, State and Zip only - no need for your physical address. If you are making a planned

relocation, use the City, State, and Zip of the area where you are moving (bonus tip: make sure to change

this on LinkedIn as well).

Tip #19: PROOFREAD.

PROOFREAD.PROOFREAD AGAIN.

Grammar: The ‘effect’ of your résumé shouldn’t be

‘affected’ by poor grammar. Review sentence

structure, verb tenses, and word usage

Spelling: While spell check can be a handy tool at

times, it isn’t the last word in correct spelling. If you

have extensive and impressive public relations

accomplishments that are referred to as pubic relations accomplishments, you may have a problem.

Punctuation: When you write about the success of past CEOs, don’t write about the success of past

CEO’s. Make sure that your punctuation marks are in the right place, and never use an exclamation mark on

your résumé.



Word Choices: Use a thesaurus to minimize redundant words. The person reading your résumé will lose

interest if you repeat yourself multiple times. Don’t use “flowery” language. Instead aim for powerful

simplicity and try to create clean, compelling, well-structured sentences.

Formatting: Once you are finished, review it several more times to make sure that you have kept the

format consistent throughout the entire piece. Check for uniform spacing, properly used bullets, and

consistent fonts and font styles.

Contact Details: Check, check, check your contact information. Transposed digits in a phone number

are a common error. If links to online accounts are live, click on them and make sure they point where you

expect them to point.

Finally, keep in mind that it is very difficult to find errors in your own writing. It is always a good idea to

have at least one other person proofread your résumé before you use it.

Tip #20: TAILOR THE CONTENT FOR THE JOB

If you have properly focused your résumé as suggested in many other tips within this guide, your need to

customize your résumé for individual positions will be minimal. Still, it is a smart idea to change some of the

wording in your résumé to reflect the requirements of the specific position you are applying for.

For example,

consider the résumé

that we have written

for Thomas

Jobseeker. He is

looking for an

executive-level

business

development, sales,

or marketing position

in the

telecommunications

industry.



Thomas wants to apply for a position he found on LinkedIn. The open position job title is

“Telecommunications Sales Management Executive.” The position description indicates they are looking for

a candidate with experience executing sales and marketing strategies, opening new distribution channels,

increasing market awareness, performing market research, providing customer support, and tracking and

reporting KPIs.

How might you tailor the résumé for this position? The highlights in the modified version of the résumé

show the changes that were made to align with the specific position. These minor changes took no more

than 5 minutes and will likely make a big difference in positioning Thomas as a candidate for this position.

Take the time to tailor your résumé for specific positions. It is fast, easy, and will have a big impact.



CONGRATULATIONS!

You’ve made it through all 20 tips!

Gleaned over the past near-quarter century working with job seeking professionals around the world, I

have shared all my best résumé writing tips and advice in this book, holding nothing back.

Some readers will be able to follow this guide and create a stellar résumé for themselves. But for most, the

support of a résumé writing professional will still be invaluable.

If you are not confident that your résumé is the absolute best it can be, I urge you to seek assistance.

If you were launching a new product with multimillion-dollar potential, would you “wing it” with

questionable marketing materials?

Sadly, that is what many people do with their own careers, needlessly struggling through long, costly,

stressful job searches. Then, when they do finally land jobs, they are often below their true potential, all

because they didn’t market themselves effectively.

Don’t waste another day sending out an ineffective, less-than-competitive résumé! You only have one

chance to make a first impression. Make it count!

Call us at (800) 644-9694 or book a free 30-minute discovery consultation with us today

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