resume basics

Keep it short

The grim truth is that recruitment consultants are going to spend at most a minute reading your resume; when compiling a long list. A huge slab of text at the top of the page is not going to be read. Keep it to around three bullet-pointed sentences: one to outline in the most general terms your career to date including your current (or last) employer ("20 years’ experience in IT sales culminating in the position of VP Sales at Widget plc"), one to highlight your most significant experience ("Spent five years as deputy head of sales and marketing for North America for Widget plc"), and one your most significant achievement ("Introduced new sales structure that increased year on year sales by 14 per cent with a cost reduction of three per cent").
Final Point

If you work on the basis that a recruitment consultant may scan 100 resume;s in a day, and yours is the 97th, consider what that person would want to see: something simple, easy to read, clear, which shows clarity of thought and the ability to present the most salient facts concisely.

Back to the beginning: What is a resume?