Many people took me up on my offer to critique their resumes for free — here’s the thread: Free Resume Critique

When reviewing the resumes, I noticed that the documents shared common problems and issues — regardless of the career field. The free critique offer is now closed, but you can improve your resume by following these tips:

Top 10 Ways to Improve Your Resume

1. Proofread. This should be a no-brainer, but almost all resumes had typos and formatting inconsistencies. Make sure your resume is perfect, and hire a professional if you’re not confident in your proofreading skills.

2. Remove “Fluff.” One of my pet peeves is the use of flowery resume language. If you’re a results-proven, detail-oriented leader with excellent verbal and written communication skills, I’m talking to you. This type of language makes hiring managers’ eyes glaze over and doesn’t do much to “sell” your credentials. Instead of saying that you have these skills, prove it with examples of past successes throughout the resume.

3. Add a Headline. A Headline calls out your objective as well as one or two of your top qualifications, and is a modern twist on a traditional “Objective” section.

4. Add a Summary. If you don’t have a Qualifications Summary, write one — immediately! The summary can present the top reasons why employers should contact you — your value proposition. If you lead your resume with a compelling summary, employers will be more likely to read the rest of your resume.

5. Include Important Skills. You can create a separate “Key Skills” section or incorporate your skills in the Summary section. Either way, an easy-to-skim, bulleted list of your job-related skills will appeal to hiring managers.

6. Add Accomplishments. And while you’re at it, quantify them (if possible) so employers can understand the impact of your work.

7. Avoid Using Personal Pronouns. Employers know that your resume is about you, so write in an “implied” first-person voice.

8. Focus on the Last Ten Years or So. If your work history is extensive, keep in mind that most resume reviewers are concerned about your recent employment. You can keep the early positions, but cut down on the amount of space used and consider summing it up in an “Early Career” section.

9. Add an Online Folio. If you don’t already have one, create an online career folio or blog that can bring your branded message to life. Once you have established an online presence, you will increase your chances of getting found when an employer or recruiter Googles you.

10. Ditch the “References Available” Line. Employers expect you to have references if you’re in a job search, and this line is just wasting space at the end of the resume.

Best wishes,

Kim Isaacs

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If you’ve been thinking about submitting your resume for a free critique on this thread, please note that I am closing the offer on April 1. Resumes submitted after April 1 will not be critiqued. I will re-open this offer when my schedule gets less hectic.

Thanks for the incredible response — I enjoyed critiquing all of the resumes that were posted!

If you missed this offer, here’s an article that provides alternative resources for critiques: Top 8 Resources for a Resume Critique

Best wishes,

Kim Isaacs

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Resumes are my passion — I enjoy writing about resume strategies and educating people about how to create a winning resume. But I’ve found that it’s one thing to read an article or a snippet of advice that may or may not apply to you, and quite another to get customized feedback on how to improve your document. I also think that people are faced with very different challenges, and need advice that is tailored for their special situations.

Are you sending your resume out and then listening to the crickets chirp as you get no response?

Do you feel like you might be missing opportunities because your resume doesn’t “sell” your credentials?

Are you watching other job seekers get interviews and offers, while you sit by the phone and wait for it to ring?

It’s probably not you — it’s probably your resume! Don’t let that little old document stand in the way of your success. It’s worth taking the time to polish that baby up and see how your job search can change. The best advice I can give is that you should hire a certified professional resume writer to create a resume that works for you. If you’re not going to do that (but you should if you can), I’m offering to review your resume for free on on this blog post:

Free Resume Critique from Kim Isaacs, ResumePower.com

I will close this offer in the near future, so if you haven’t already done so, feel free to post your resume for a free review. If you decide to submit your resume, please follow the instructions for posting your information anonymously.

All the best,

Kim Isaacs

P.S.: Is the picture of a cricket gross? I was in the mood to bug you today, ha ha ha.

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Message from Kim Isaacs Regarding a Free Resume Critique

Several people have taken advantage of my offer of a free resume critique — here’s the original post.

Feel free to visit the thread and post your resume for a free review. I will close the offer when my schedule gets too hectic, so submit your resume now while I’m feeling generous!

Best wishes for career success,

Kim Isaacs

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Note: This offer is now closed. If you submitted your resume, thank you for giving me the chance to review your document! If you missed this opportunity, please stay tuned because I will re-open the offer in the future.

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If you are wondering if your resume measures up to the competition, this is your lucky day.

You can now submit your resume to the ResumePower blog for a free resume critique. Just click “Post a Comment” and copy and paste your resume in the message box. Include your current career goal, as it’s difficult to critique a resume if I don’t know the job target. Tell me about any special circumstances or challenges you are facing. I will offer general feedback to give you direction on how you can improve your document.

***Important: Please remove any personal, identifying information before submitting your resume, including: name, address, email address, phone number(s), employer names, schools attended, and anything else that would reveal your identity. I will remove posts that contain personal information. Thanks for your interest, and I look forward to reviewing your resume!

Best wishes,

Kim Isaacs

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Here we go again! The second free resume critique is posted below. Remember, resume writing is subjective and is an art as much as a science, so you might have different recommendations for the job seeker. Feel free to post your feedback in the Comments section — all opinions are welcome!

ResumePower Resume Critique #2

Format and Content Recommendations:

1. Change your resume from a functional style to a combination style. Combination resumes list employment history in reverse chronological order, and lead with a qualifications summary highlighting your strongest skills. Combination resumes work well for the majority of job seekers. Functional resumes (also called “skills resumes”) are the least-preferred format, and are often used by people trying to hide something (such as employment gaps or job-hopping). You could be sending red flags before your resume is even read (if it gets that far).

2. Add a headline. This replaces the objective in your current resume, and goes directly below your name and contact information. Although objectives can be useful for recent graduates or career changers, professionals on an established career path are better served by using a headline, tagline, and qualifications summary. The headline gives you a way to quickly communicate your career goal and qualifications. Try something like, “Experienced Administrative Support Professional.”

3. Add a tagline directly below your title. You can use this to sum up your breadth of experience.

Here’s how your headline and tagline might look:

EXPERIENCED ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT PROFESSIONAL
Offering expertise in MS Office and versatile skills that include executive support, bookkeeping, accounting, purchasing, and customer relations

4. Add a qualifications summary. This section goes below the headline and tagline, and can be written as a few bulleted statements or as a brief paragraph. Summarize the key strengths and value you bring to the table.

5. Add a key skills section. Most commonly written as a bulleted list in a two- or three-column format, this section helps maximize keyword density in your resume. Here are a few examples of keywords that you might want to include in your skills section:

• Front Desk/Office Management
• Bookkeeping & Accounting
• Spreadsheet Creation
• Database Administration
• Executive Calendaring
• Meeting & Event Planning
• Records Management
• Data Entry (75+ WPM)
• Purchasing/Inventory Management
• Reports/Presentations/Proposals

6. Create a professional experience section.

This is the “meat and potatoes” of your resume, and it should include your employer names and locations, your job titles, and employment dates, followed by a brief description of your responsibilities. Create a bulleted list of “Key Accomplishments” for your most recent jobs (going back ten years or so). You can briefly summarize your earlier experience in an “Early Career” section to save space.

Use some of the content from your current “Job Skills” section to describe your daily responsibilities. For your “Key Accomplishments,” incorporate content from your “Special Achievements” section, and then expand this so that you have several “Key Accomplishments” bullets for each job.

Your accomplishments should include examples of results, outcomes, and benefits you have delivered. Try to quantify your accomplishments with numbers, percentages, dollar amounts, or before/after comparisons to add credibility to your claims. You did this in the fist “special achievement” that you list on your current resume.

To avoid the appearance of job-hopping, group your temporary assignments together.

7. Omit references to time periods when you were seeking work. You are drawing unnecessary attention to the employment gaps. Downplay gaps in your work history by listing your years of employment (vs. listing months and years).

8. Keep your “Technical Skills” section, but move it below education.

9. Include the year you earned your AAS degree.

Design Recommendations:

1. Your resume would benefit from a redesign to give it a more polished, professional appearance. Peruse resume samples online or books to get some ideas.

2. Add space between each of the jobs you have held. This makes your document more reader-friendly by avoiding a “cluttered” look.

3. Be consistent with font usage. Your resume is mostly Times New Roman font, but you have a line of Arial in the address section.

Language Mechanics Recommendations:

1. Proofread your resume. You have some capitalization, punctuation (e.g., misplaced commas), and grammatical errors in your document, and your resume should be 100% error-free. For example, job titles should not be capitalized unless they are part of a standalone heading.

2. Correct inconsistencies. For example, sometimes you write out the word “manager,” and other times you abbreviate it (”Mgr”). In your Technical Skills section, you write “MS Word” and “MS Works,” “Microsoft E-mail,” and “Excel.” All of these are Microsoft applications, so you need to be consistent in how you are referencing this (either “MS” or “Microsoft” throughout). Administrative support professionals are valued for their attention to detail, so your efforts will pay off and be noticed by hiring managers.

Best wishes,

Kim Isaacs

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Personal branding expert and networking guru Wendy Terwelp wants job seekers to think about and improve their brand messages. According to Wendy, “Job seekers already have a brand, whether they know it or not. What do people think about them? Are they known for a great sense of humor, or maybe for being a savvy networker?” Wendy says that job seekers can edge out their competition by defining and communicating a consistent brand message throughout the job search.

What are you known for in your industry, and how can you improve your brand message? Wendy offers a Personal Branding Quiz so you can assess your brand message’s status. Click here to take the quiz.

Best wishes,
Kim Isaacs

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This is the first installment in a series of free resume critiques that I announced I would be offering last month. I received an overwhelming number of critique requests, so thank you to everyone who submitted. If I don’t get to you, I hope that you benefit from the feedback given to others as well as by the information on this blog and the ResumePower.com website.

Resume writing is subjective and is an art as much as a science, so you might have different recommendations for the job seeker. Feel free to post your feedback in the Comments section — all opinions are welcome!

Click here or the following thumbnail image to view the resume submitted for a free critique (PDF format), and then read the review:

Resume Critique

Thank you for sharing your resume for a free critique! Your restaurant management background and career progression are very impressive, and I see a number of ways that you can enhance your presentation. Please review the report for specific recommendations. Best wishes for a successful job search!

All the best,

Kim Isaacs
Director, Advanced Career Systems, Inc.
www.resumepower.com

Content Recommendations:

1. Add a title or headline to your resume. This goes directly below your name and contact information, and gives you a way to quickly communicate your restaurant management career goal. In your case, try something like, “Experienced Restaurant, Hospitality, and F&B Manager.”

2. Add a Qualifications Summary . The summary goes below the title, and can be written as a few bulleted statements or as a brief paragraph. This is an opportunity to present your “value proposition” — sum up the key strengths you bring to the table and why they should hire you. Here’s an example:

“Accomplished leader of full-service restaurants, high-volume operations, and top-performing teams, with nearly ten years of restaurant and F&B management experience. Proven success driving historic gains to revenues, margins, food quality, customer satisfaction, and number of daily covers served. Expert in improving food/labor cost controls, customer service, and efficiency of front- and back-of-house operations. Accustomed to high levels of responsibility (have managed $1.8M operations and teams of up to 30 personnel), and backed by ServSafe certification.”

3. Add a “Key Skills” section between your profile and “Experience” sections. Most commonly written as a bulleted list in a two- or three-column format, this section instantly communicates your areas of expertise and helps to maximize keyword density in your resume. Keywords are industry-specific terms, jargon, acronyms, or “buzzwords,” including job functions, specialized skills, and computer applications. Many employers scan and store resumes, and job boards like Monster are searched by employers to find qualified applicants. The more keywords your resume contains, the higher to the top of the pile it will rise. Here are a few examples of keywords that you might want to include in your “Key Skills” section (of course, only use the keywords that match your expertise ):

• Restaurant Management
• Labor/Food Cost Controls
• Safety/Quality Controls
• Multi-Outlet Operations
• F&B Operations
• Guest Relations
• Menu Development
• Vendor/Supplier Negotiations
• Kitchen & Dining Room Layout
• Teambuilding & Supervision
• Budgeting/P&L Management

4. Strengthen your “Experience” section by including accomplishments . Your resume is heavily focused on your responsibilities, but it would be much more effective if you also include examples of how you have gone “above and beyond” in carrying out these responsibilities. Employers want to know not only what you have done, but also how well you have performed. The best way to achieve this is to follow the brief description of your responsibilities with a few bulleted examples of results, outcomes, and benefits you have delivered. For example, if you lowered costs to an all-time low while simultaneously elevating food quality and customer satisfaction, this is definitely something you should communicate in your resume.

Other examples of accomplishments might include ways that you have improved employee retention/morale, increased safety/sanitation scores during inspections, enhanced amenities and value-added guest services, negotiated discounts on inventory/supplies, reduced overtime, implemented improved inventory security, or surpassed sales projections in dining room or banquet operations. Wherever possible, try to quantify your accomplishments with numbers, percentages, dollar amounts, or before/after comparisons to add credibility to your claims. Here are a few examples of quantified accomplishment statements:

Design Recommendations:

1. Be consistent in your headings. For example, you use all capital letters for your “EDUCATION & CERTIFICATIONS” section, but you use both upper and lowercase letters for your “Experience” section.

2. Be consistent in your formatting. For example, a horizontal line appears below your “Experience” heading, but in your “Education & Certifications” section, the horizontal line appears above the heading. Your most recent job is formatted using full justification, and the rest of your positions are left justified.

3. Lengthen your resume . A manager with your level of experience needs a two-page resume to adequately showcase a history of career accomplishments.

4. Add space between each of the jobs you have held. This makes your document more reader-friendly by avoiding a “cluttered” look.

Language Mechanics Recommendations:

1. Proofread your resume . You have errors in spelling, capitalization, and punctuation, and your resume should be 100% error-free. For example, the abbreviation “f&b” should be capitalized (”F&B”), “work sight” should be changed to “work site,” and “end of the day paper work” should be written as “end-of-the-day paperwork.”

2. Eliminate personal pronouns throughout your resume. It is assumed that you are writing about yourself, so you can use an “implied” first-person voice without using personal pronouns like “I,” “my,” or “me.” Replace personal pronouns with short action statements. So, instead of writing, “I did setup for morning coffee service…,” try, “Handled setup for morning coffee service…”

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