by Robert Hadley

Created on: November 06, 2009

You just graduated from school, or you just received a pink slip from your employer, but either way, you're in the job market. The first thing you need, your ticket to getting hired, is a resume.

Why do you need a resume? Think of it as your face-to-face introduction on paper with the next person who's going to sign your paycheck every week. In precisely the same way that you want to look spiffy for an in-person interview hair combed, clothes pressed, no broccoli stuck between your front teeth you want your resume to make a great first impression. In short, you want it to look good.

So how do you look good on paper? Most experts advise you to emphasize your strengths, while de-emphasizing your weaknesses. There's a lot of truth in that. This your chance to make your case to the employer about why they should hire you. And you do that by listing your past successes, job by job, in chronological order.

Yes, I'm advocating the plain-and-simple chronological resume, as opposed to the functional. In most cases, chronological is the best way to sell your qualifications. If you list skill headings followed by vague, empty phrases (or even specific ones backed up with numbers), you miss the chance to connect your skills and achievements to your past employers. That's something you don't want to do. Your past employers are the best evidence someone who's never met you before has about your reliability and work ethic.

If you want to emphasize skills, start your resume with a summary of qualifications or a profile. Use five or six bulleted items (usually one-liners) to draw attention to these skills. Then immediately follow it with your chronological work history.

You may be thinking, What about my student jobs, volunteer work, internships, yada, yada? List them. In fact, list them as you would any job. Give the dates, your title or role, and the company, school or organization where you worked. Then use a short paragraph or bullet points to describe your success.

List these special jobs under a separate heading. Students can use a heading such as related experience or internships. Established professionals can list their extra-curricular activities under headings like service to the community or professional memberships. Then list your other work under a generic heading, such as employment.

This resume tactic lets you have the best of both worlds: the chronological work history to show stability, plus the bulleted summary of qualifications to focus attention on specific skills. And it allows you to use creative but truthful headings to showcase your key selling points to an employer. That brings you one step closer to the true purpose of a resume: landing the interview that gets you the job.

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