6 Steps to Make Your Resumes Ready for Prime Time

Some years ago, a manager told me that he could delegate authority but not responsibility for work assignments. This is true for your resume, too. You can delegate  resume writing to a professional writer, an AI, a career management coach, or even a friend. But ultimately you are responsible for the final product. Employers will hold you– not the person or tool that helped you– accountable for the product’s quality. That means you should review and proofread the document carefully to make sure it meets your specifications.

Before you begin applying for jobs, take time to review your resume once again. Small errors or inconsistencies can distract employers and make an otherwise strong resume look less polished.

Here are five areas we suggest reviewing carefully before releasing the document to prospective employers and industry contacts:

1. Contact information,
2. Content,
3. Formatting,
4. Grammar and accuracy,
5. ATTS compatibility, and
6. Final touches.

Ironically, it is far too easy to miss errors on resumes and accompanying letters during a rapid and highly automated process. An example that comes to mind is the hapless accountant who once  listed “trail balances” instead of “trial balances” among her skills.

Contact Information

Errors can creep into documents when you copy-and-paste from one document to another so double-check even the most basic contact information. This is especially important when someone else formats and designs the resume for you.

Occasionally, I have run into even more unexpected problems. For example, a client in a welfare-to-work program commonly spelled her name slightly differently than she spelled it on her government-issued ID. This caused her to be denied entry into at least one job interview.

Employers and industry contacts may initially contact you online. Make sure your email and LinkedIn URL links work properly. Use a simple “vanity” LinkedIn URL and only use a “professional” email address such as firstname.lastname@gmail.com.

Content

Next, start reviewing the substantive portion of your resume. It is crucial for job titles, company names, and employment dates to be correct because inadvertent errors and inconsistencies will eliminate you from being considered. For example, one or more of your employers may have changed names. An agency I worked for,  the US General Accounting Office, is now the US Government Accountability Office.

HR offices will confirm dates of employment during reference checks, so be sure these dates are correct. Unintentional errors on employment dates will jump out at you in most cases, though, but look anyway.

Formatting

Content is king in my view. Nonetheless, much time and energy are devoted to resume formatting. While there is nothing wrong with an elegantly formatted resume, the most important thing is to get the basics right. Check the following to make sure the resume looks professional:

• Font style and size are consistent,
• Headings are formatted consistently,
• Bullet styles are consistent throughout,
• Margins and spacing are even,
• Alignment is consistent,
• Page breaks occur in logical places, and
• The resume is easy to scan quickly.

Most jobseekers can use a resume with consistent and simple formatting that can be read regardless of the software an employer uses. Of course, you may want to create a more elegant document when targeting an artistic or creative field where elegance is part of your personal brand.

Grammar and Accuracy

Always use your software’s spelling and grammar checkers—then double-check the results! My grammar checker wants to substitute “you’re” for “your” even when this is clearly the wrong word choice, for example.

Your automated grammar and spelling checks may also miss verb tense inconsistencies, as well as errors in product or company names.

ATS Review

Nearly every jobseeker has prioritized applicant tracking system (ATS) compatibility for at least the last decade. Artificial intelligence (AI) is, according to experts, changing the game, though, because it makes ATS systems “smarter.”

New AI-driven systems should, it is thought, have an easier time reading more resume formats, including graphics. But you have no way of knowing whether the companies you apply to have the latest and greatest AI-enabled software that can interpret any format.

The best approach, in our view, is to continue using a simple format that any software can read. That means minimizing use of tables, text boxes, and graphics.

There are services online that say they can verify whether ATS will read your resume. You do not need them. Just try reading your document using Notepad or a similar text editor. Your resume should be readable in virtually all of hundreds of ATS brands when a text editor can read it.

Play it safe for the time being. Make sure any software can read your MS-word format document for best results.

Final Steps for  “Going Live”

We suggest just a few more steps before you start sending out your new resume. Save your document in the two most common formats. Give it a professional file name and then review it one last time.

There are two widely accepted formats for sending resumes. They include Portable Document Format (PDF) and MS-word (DOCX). Save your document in both formats if possible because most employers can accept one or both.

Then,  review the document one last time. Read it aloud or have  MS-Word “Read Aloud” do it for you. An old grammatical rule of thumb is “if it does not sound right, it isn’t right.”

Last, but not least, change the file name and document properties. The file name should include your last name, first name, and the job announcement you are applying for. Document properties should include your name, rather than the name of your resume writer or the AI that generated a first draft for you.

Final Thoughts

Typically, I feel like I spend more time proofing and finalizing documents than writing them. It’s a lot of work even in the age of AI and automation. A high-quality document will increase the chance that you will be selected for interviews.