Industry Specific Resumes

What is the best style of resume?

There are a number of different types of resumes. There is the skill based resume, the chronological resume, there is more of an essay type of resume. I say toss all of those out. I don't use them and I don't recommend them. Employers like to see resumes that are very easy for them to read and to use. If you think about someone who gets 100 to 200 resumes on their desk every day, that's a lot of reading. It's a lot of information to have to go through. So if you can make their job easy for them by using a lot of headings, bullet points, making the resume skimmable and easy to read, that's going to make your resume really stand out from the competition. So keep the resume chronological. What's your current position? What did you do there and then go back from there. Then make sure you include your education and your continuing education, things like that, and any other types of experience that you've had. If you've had internships, if you've been involved in different types of committees and maybe you've gotten a lot of leadership experience because you volunteered with the Boys and Girls Club. That's important information to include on your resume as well.

What is an "industry-specific resume"?

An industry-specific resume is one that is highly targeted and focused to a particular niche. Whether that be health care, banking, accounting, whatever that might be. Every resume should be industry-specific. Every resume should be specific, not only to the industry, but to the particular position you're applying for. It needs to be that focused and that targeted in order for your resume to stand out from the competition. Generic resumes are not the way to go, because employers simply don't have time to glean from a generic resume. "How can this person fit into our company?" They want to see those key words that match up with the job description they are trying to fill.