OPTED Magazine

The art of a decluttered life includes ALL spaces, including your resume.  For you job seekers out there and for anyone anticipating a change in employment in the future, take some time to remove the clutter and improve your resume.

Why you should remove resume clutter

Head hunters and human resources departments are overloaded with a deluge of job applications and resumes, especially given current unemployment rates.  Print out a copy of your most recent resume and scan it for 10 seconds — is your resume constructed to catch an employers eye and easily convey your experience?  If your resume reads like a novel, or your formatting requires more than 10 seconds to digest the content, you have an explanation why you haven’t been called in for an interview.  Consider time limitations of potential employers as a motivating factor for streamlining your resume.

How to declutter your resume

It goes without saying that if you’re applying for jobs in various fields, you should have a tailored resume for each type of position or field that can be tweaked for each job you apply for.  But a few basic decluttering tips apply:

• Formatting — resist the urge to reduce margins, scale down font size and cram paragraphs and content on top of each other.  Embrace empty spaces like you would when you declutter your home!  Empty white space on your resume makes scanning easier and content more visible
• Don’t be outdated — your resume loses focus and and appears random if you’ve retained employment or membership information from college or your early years out of school.  If you’ve been in the job market for 10 years or more, consolidate the data from the early part of your career into a few short sentences that clearly convey your experience
• Rely on a cover letter — many positions require cover letters where you can mention your own career objectives and add minimal narrative detail about broad themes in your career.  Use that opportunity to reduce or eliminate sections like a qualifications summary
• Embrace new media — consider creating a LinkedIn profile and networking with other coworkers in your field.  LinkedIn is the equivalent of an online resume where you can list detailed employment experience and even get recommended by your contacts.  Listing a link to this type of new media source on your resume will spark interest in you and allow you to elaborate on sections of your resume that you’ve summarized

The debate about a one page resume

Employers appreciate a one page resume — it demonstrates you can succinctly express yourself and for many careers such as public relations, there is value in saying more with less.  And in addition to the time constraints of sifting through a flood of resumes, employers will appreciate your thoughtfulness in not overwhelming them with irrelevant, hard to digest information.

If you’ve been working for less than 10 years, there is no reason your resume should be longer than a page.  Remember that a resume is to sell you, NOT describe you.  It’s a personal advertisement like one you’d see in a short ad in a newspaper.

Your resume should be considered a teaser, providing just enough information to get an employer interested to call you.  Leave some mystery for the interview!  Forcing yourself to scale down the word count on your resume will convey an organized, articulate and succinct potential employee that has confidence in their experience.

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