1. Be targeted and personalized.
Now more than ever it is critical that you leverage your social and professional network. In your cover letter, be sure to mention any contacts you have within the organization or the names of influential people or consultants who have referred you.
2. Clearly demonstrate your value.
If you are responding to a specific job advertisement, review the description of the role, responsibilities, and qualifications, and carefully craft your cover letter and your resume to highlight the salient points in your experience and skill set that speak to the needs of the employer.
3. Quantify your experience wherever possible.
Employers need to understand what you've done and accomplished: BE SPECIFIC: All your accomplishments MUST BE: quantitative or numerical in description. For example:
1. Increased sales 15% over prior year
2. Increased national account revenue by 20% over prior year
3. Negotiated three national accounts, resulting in an increase of 3 million dollars in revenue.
4. Begin sentences with action verbs.
Portray yourself as someone who is active, intelligent and gets things done.
5. Don't sell yourself short.
This is by far the biggest mistake of all resumes, technical and otherwise. Your experiences are worthy for review by hiring managers. Treat your resume as an advertisement for you. Be sure to thoroughly "sell" yourself by highlighting all of your strengths.
6. Be concise.
As a rule of thumb, resumes reflecting five years or less experience should fit on one page. More extensive experience can justify usage of a second page. Consider two pages (about 15 years or more experience) an absolute limit. Avoid lengthy job descriptions. Remember, potential employers are more concerned with your accomplishments and achievements than lengthy paragraphs about what you did.
7. Omit needless items.
Leave all these things off your resume: social security number, marital status, health, citizenship, age, scholarships, irrelevant awards, irrelevant associations and memberships, irrelevant publications, irrelevant recreational activities, a second mailing address ("permanent address" is confusing and never used), travel history, previous pay rates, previous supervisor names, reasons for leaving previous jobs, and components of your name which you really never use (i.e. middle names).
8. Have a trusted friend review your resume.
Be sure to pick someone who is attentive to details, can effectively critique your writing, and will give an honest and objective opinion. Seriously consider their advice. Get a third and fourth opinion if you can.
9. Proofread, proofread, proofread.
Be sure to catch all spelling errors, grammatical weaknesses, unusual punctuation, and inconsistent capitalization. Proofread it numerous times over at least two days to allow a fresh eye to catch any hidden mistakes.
10. Laser print your resume on plain, white paper.
Handwriting, typing, dot matrix printing, and even ink jet printing do not look professional. Stick with laser prints. Don't waste your money on special bond paper, matching envelopes, or any color deviations away from plain white. Your resume will be photocopied, faxed, and scanned numerous times, defeating any special paper efforts, assuming your original resume doesn't first end up in the circular file.