Resumes

My buddy Dave has thrown me some work to post four jobs on a couple of popular job search sites, and to filter and forward the resumes to him and his colleagues. It's mostly a clerical thing which doesn't involve much brain power, but I find myself frustrated by some simple resume writing tips that most people don't know about (or they do know about them, but they don't do them). So for my personal venting, I'm putting these very simple rules here for my own edification.

• Spell check. Everyone submits their resume online now, and every computer has a spell checker. Use it.
• Grammar check. Same as above. If you can't speak English, find someone who does and can proofread for you.
• Read the ad! If I put "please send your cover letter and resume as attachments to the email" I don't think that's too hard to understand. I'm cutting and pasting all over the place because 1 in 10 actually does this.
• When you are smart enough to attach documents, chances are you'll call them something like junecv-oct2009.doc. How about call it John Smith Resume.doc and John Smith Cover Letter.doc Better yet, send them both (with similar names) as PDF files so anyone can read them.
• I can't stand applicants that won't take an extra 45 seconds to write a cover letter. I'd even accept a cover email. Given my drothers, an application received without a cover document would be sent to the trash immediately (without opening). Note that I forward these on as "John Smith Resume - No Cover". 

Remember, the person reading your application has likely received hundreds. These days, they are rarely going to be printed off, so the name of your document (resume or cover letter) needs to describe what it is - and make it easy to find.

The job of a resume or an application is to get an interview. The easier you make it to read/find/file your application, the higher the likelihood you'll get a phonecall about the job.

My ideal resume would pass all the spell and grammar checks, would have an email cover letter, a copy of that same cover letter as an attachment and a resume as an attachment. The attachments would have clear names describing who and what they are - like my example above.

I've yet to receive one of these.