The Most Important Resume Writing Tip

Here's the biggest secret to resume writing: People who are good at what they do do not need a resume. A Google search is now your resume.

That being said, what if you don't have published work or a website? What if you insist on going the conservative route and sending your resume to potential clients/employers? Well, at the very least, you can make your resume not suck.

How to Make Your Resume Not Suck

I still feel the need to point out that if you don't have a resume, it can't suck.

That being said, the general rule for crafting a good resume is to have it stand out.

That means you need to cut through all the crap of the standard resume, leaving only the most important parts.

I only recently gave up using a resume in favor of simply stating my philosophy of copywriting, but throughout the years of using one, I made probably 100 edits until I got one that yielded a high response rate.

Here are the methods I found to be especially effective:

Forgo the Objective

While the standard resume has an objective telling your employer/client your goal, when you think about it, an objective is bullshit.

First, your employer likely will not care about your personal goal. She wants to know one thing: Can you handle the task? Your objective does not address this issue in any way.

Second, an objective cannot not be self-indulgent or fake. Most people's objectives are verbose versions of "I want a job." If yours is not, then you are likely trying to write what you think your employer wants to see. If this is true, then put yourself in your employer's shoes: Your employer does not care much about what you want from the position. After all, the position is open; that's why you're applying. The employer is not going to change the position to fit your objective; likewise, if your objective does not fit the position, all the more reason to reject you as a potential partner.

In short, skip the objective or replace it with something more interesting, such as a quote or a personal work philosophy.

Don't Make Your Work Experience Section Boring

Most "work experience" sections of a resume are lists of places, dates, company names, and job titles. BORING. YOU WON'T STAND OUT.

Your work experience section is important, but when interviewers are going over resumes, they are likely just comparing your previous places of employment and positions to those of others.

Work around this by adding the pertinent information that other resume writers leave out 99% of the time. While what this information is depends on your goal job, the following is a good list of "should-adds":

1. What you accomplished. Tell the resume reader what exactly you got done in your position. Writing "I was a copywriter" says little. Writing "I increased conversions from 2% to 5%" says a lot.
2. State your budget. Tell the prospective employer how much you were paid or what kind of financial control you had over the operation. This is especially good if you were paid high wages or were in control of a large budget. It means the previous company trusted you or valued you, and this is a good thing.
3. State the specifics of your job. "Marketer" as a job title does not emphasize you what you can do as a marketer. Marketers are a dime a thousand. "Social media marketer" is a little better. "Social media marketer responsible for leading prospects down the sales funnel via relationship building prior to product launch" may be verbose, but it is certainly a lot more specific and lets your new employer know exactly where your expertise lie.