The Vet2Work Job Procurement and Advancement
Series
Top Notch Resume Strategies
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The civilian resume rule of thumb is to list
between 5 – 7 years of employment/experience history on your resume.
You should omit any jobs previous to that date and move
any relevant gained abilities from that time frame into your
acquired skills list.
You can explain how you acquired the skill or skills in
an interview.
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More senior workers should
emphasize jobs and de-emphasize dates.
Never list your birth date, high school graduation date,
and don’t list any dates for schooling that is over 7 years old.
If you remove dates from your lists, then you should list
number of years in the position.
Remember to not go past 7 years...
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Soften past job titles listed on
your resume if you feel your resume represents you as over
qualified to employers you are applying to; for example you
could use “senior manager” instead of “senior vice president”.
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List your most current
professional development activities to demonstrate you are
keeping your skills up-to-date.
Note: Volunteer opportunities are an excellent way to
hone your skills and also to demonstrate your community
involvement.
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Demonstrate your transferrable
skills from past positions.
Demonstrate your ability to adapt and learn.
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List all of your
technological/computer based skills, including your social
networking abilities.
However, if you cannot type more than 30 words per
minute, do not add words per minute to your resume.
Today, most employers want at least 40-45 wpm for any
position.
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Fully list your accomplishments
and achievements.
What did you do in your position(s) that set you apart from your
co-workers? Were
you an active member of a team?
Were you a team leader?
Did you leave your former employer better off than when
they first hired you? Can
you demonstrate how?
© Copyright Vet2Work/Naturallysilver 2011. No re-publication of this article is permitted without express permission.
