Now that you have had a chance to implement the first 5 fantastic fixes from my last post, here are the remaining four:

6. If you are putting your resume online, make sure you use relevant keywords and incorporate them effectively. Placement of your keywords can be just as important as which keywords you use. This will make it easier for employers and recruiters to find you on job search websites.

7. Use the bold, italic, and underline functions to make important items stand out and allow employers and recruiters to easily scan your document. Often times a manager only has about 30 seconds to devote to each resume, so it is important that it is very easy to skim, without missing critical information.

8. Highlight your most important accomplishments in a special section at the top of your resume. Because of the very short amount of time that managers have to dedicate to each resume, it is important to summarize your most relevant experience and accomplishments right from the get-go.

9. Adjust font and spacing to fill the pages of your resume. Having blank space on your resume, even if it isn’t the first page, says to the employer “I can’t think of anything else to say about myself”. Full pages say “I have a lot more to say, but ran out of room”.

One of the most important things to remember is that length is not the be-all-end-all of resume preparation. Even if you don’t have much experience to highlight, being too wordy, repetitious, or including irrelevant information just to fill space can backfire on you. It is best to keep your resume short, concise, and to the point, even if that means you have to make major changes to your font and spacing in order to fill a page. Remember: summary style over story style.