In this era of multi-tasking workers, smart phones, texting, and personal networking – is it any wonder that what was ‘normal’ for a résumé yesterday is ‘old school’ today?

With about 15% of the population either unemployed or running out of benefits or financial resources, the need to fight for attention today is the greatest it has ever been.  In life, style trumps substance.  With a résumé you’ve got to look great as well as sound great.  But that does not mean violating EEOA rules by including a photograph of yourself on your résumé or wasting time and a good deal of money on verbal résumés – frankly, the audience is still those who read documents.

Respect their time by making your résumé not only short and factual, but be certain that your résumé is not some cookie-cutter from a template.

Content must always be short and tight – much like Joe Friday and his great line “Just the facts, please.”

Engineer that write like engineers or IT professionals that can’t write without a long list of acronyms or other such gibberish are shooting themselves in the foot every time they send out a poorly constructed résumé for the résumé of today is not the old work history or biography of yesterday – they must be a marketing tool.

Look at the ads in the newspaper that grab your attention.  Its not the words that work, it is the white space.