Resumes For Dummies, 8th Edition

Chapter 22

Your Ten-Point Resume Checklist

IN THIS CHAPTER

Confirming your resume is a match for job requirements

Smacking down tacky resume errors

Standing back for a fresh look at the impression you’re making

Before going public with your resume, read through it a final time with the following checklist in mind. Give yourself 10 points for each item only when your resume meets that OnTarget standard. If you don’t get a score of 100, go back and try again.

Qualifications

You’ve customized your resume by matching your qualifications (skills, education, accomplishments, and so on) with the specific requirements of a job, or by matching your qualifications with the expected qualifications in a career field. (Chapter 9 discusses the customizing requirement and why it’s so important.)

Image and Focus

You don’t say the equivalent of, “I thought you might have an opening I could fill,” but state what you want to do for an employer and why you’re the most qualified to do it. You consider your resume’s overall impression — its look and feel. Your resume has a unifying theme: You present yourself as focused, not merely desperate to accept any job. (Refresh your recall of focus in