How To Edit Your Friend's Resume

Dear Liz,

I told my friend Neil I would help him update his resume. What should I be looking for? How can I help Neil make his resume more powerful?

Thanks!

Your fan,

Katie Lynn

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Dear Katie Lynn,

What a good friend you are! Here's how to help Neil upgrade his resume for 2017.

Start with Neil's name at the top of the resume. Believe it or not, the name at the top of a resume is a big deal.

If the reader (a recruiter, HR person or hiring manager) doesn't  understand the job-seeker's name or can't pronounce it, they will move on to another candidate.

They just won't deal with it. They don't want to mispronounce somebody's name and embarrass themselves.

We knew a guy named Jack. That's a pretty common name. Everybody calls him Jack, but the name on his resume and LinkedIn profile was J.M. "Jack" Smith.

Jack didn't have any success with his resume or his LinkedIn profile.

We told him "Get rid of the J.M. 'Jack' thing -- no one understands it!"

Jack changed his resume and LinkedIn profile to say "Jack Smith" and recruiters started to contact him.

No one wants to look or feel foolish.

You can use a nickname on your resume and your LinkedIn profile if your given name is likely to confuse readers.

You can use a simplified version of your surname, too. When you get the job, you'll use your legal name on the payroll records!

Now, look at Neil's contact information, just below his name. These days we don't need to include our street address on a resume. No employer is going to send you a letter through the mail.

Beneath Neil's name will be his city and state, phone number, email address and Neil's customized LinkedIn profile URL.

Make sure that Neil's email address is appropriate for a job search. Neil.k.markham@gmail.com will look great on his resume, but neilizdabomb@gmail.com will not.

Now, move down to Neil's resume Summary. The Summary is the most important part of Neil's resume and everybody else's. Don't leave it out! The Summary frames the rest of the resume for the reader.

The Summary tells anybody who reads Neil's resume which professional path Neil has chosen and shows his personality, too. Here is an example of a Summary from a Human-Voiced Resume:

I'm an IT Project Manager focused on enterprise software implementation. I'm fanatical about keeping everybody on the team well-informed and supported throughout my projects and on meeting or beating project schedules and budgets.

There are gazillions of Project Managers running around, but there is only one Neil. Not every hiring manager will like the way Neil describes himself, and that's fine. Neil only wants to work for somebody who wants to hire someone like him!

Once you and Neil are happy with his resume Summary, move down to Neil's professional experience.

Start with Neil's current or most recent position and work back through his career, stopping at the beginning of Neil's career or whenever you run out of space, whichever comes first. Neil's Human-Voiced Resume can be one or two pages long.

List the company name and its location first. List the location where Neil worked, not the company headquarters located somewhere else.

Drop to the next line or leave a space and list Neil's job title and the dates of his employment. You only need the years, not the months of Neil's tenure at each job.

Now, frame the employer for the benefit of a reader who's never heard of the organization Neil worked for. That will help put Neil's work into context. Let's say that Neil worked for Angry Chocolates.

Angry Chocolates, Fayetteville, Arkansas

IT Project Manager, 2014 - 2016

Angry Chocolates is a $12 million manufacturing firm. I ran software implementation for Angry as the company grew from 150 to 1800 employees.

• I led the vendor evaluation and contracting process for our move to SAP in 2014, and ran the implementation involving 200 employees and hundreds of training hours.

• I oversaw 15 smaller software projects at Angry, each of which came in on time and on or under budget.

Help Neil use a human voice as he composes his resume.

Because Neil is a technical guy, he is likely to have more technical terms in his resume than some people would.

Neil can throw in those technical terms in his descriptions of past jobs, or he can list all of his hardware and software experience in a separate "technology corral" at the end of his Human-Voiced Resume, after the Education section.

Neil can label that "technology corral" either Technical Experience, Tools or just Technology.

Once Neil is done listing his past jobs, move on to his educational history. That part is easy -- you'll simply list each of the colleges Neil attended along with the degree he received and the date he got his degree (May, 2016 for example).

If Neil is still working on a degree he can list his Expected Date of Graduation instead of the actual (past) graduation date.

If Neil has just graduated, then you can list his courses as well. If Neil  wants to mention his GPA that's great, but if he doesn't want to it's no problem.

If Neil has one more than one job post-college under his belt already, than drop the GPA.

If there is room for it on Neil's resume he can list his interests, community activities, clubs and associations he belongs to and publications he's written (even LinkedIn blog posts). A resume is a marketing document, not a legal document.

Make sure Neil's resume is as vibrant and human as Neil himself is!

Coaching other people is one of the world's great learning experiences. I predict that as you are helping Neil with his resume, he will help you learn some valuable lessons too!

All the best to both of you,

Liz