Why you shouldn't overdo the bullets in your resume

Avoid over doing the bullets in your resume.

One of the most common problems I see in resumes is the misuse of bullets.

I've seen entire resumes that are nothing but a series of bullets. How inviting! It’s inviting all right – inviting the recruiter to toss it in the reject pile. When I see a resume that looks like this, I see a person without personality. I see a person who doesn't know how to tell his or her story. And for the most part, I see a person who isn't getting job interviews.

Another misuse of bullets is using them for all content after the job title, whether it’s a job duty or an accomplishment. This just confuses the reader. What’s more, it allows a negative thought to enter the mind of the reader.

How to use bullets properly in resumes

Challenge your resume to the half page test

Fold your resume in half horizontally. Is it easy to
tell what job you seek in the top half of page 1?
If not, improve it!

Let’s face it: Looking for a job sucks. There’s all that time you spend writing your resume and cover letter, submitting them online, networking into the company and then, if you’re lucky, interviewing numerous times with the same company over a three-month period. Perhaps at that point you’re a finalist. Or perhaps the company recruiter has stopped responding to your e-mails and phone calls.

As the headline screamed on an opinion piece by Thomas Friedman published in the July 17, 2011, edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Nostalgia aside, today is not your parents’ job market.”

Ya’ think? It’s not even the job market WE knew!

So, with all the hurdles you have to jump over just to get an interview, don’t stumble by producing a resume that is too difficult to read and that gives recruiters or hiring managers a reason to toss yours aside for the next applicant’s.

What the heck is a plain text resume and when should I use it?

Consider creating a plain text resume to simplify
applying for jobs online.

Have you ever had the frustrating experience of trying to paste your resume text into an online application form only to have the system mess up your text by removing all of your carefully executed bolding, centering, italics, etc.? Fortunately there is a way to avoid this problem. Here's how:

8 ways to land a job without a degree (or the right degree)

Even with the wrong or no degree, 
you can land a great position.

Several job seekers I know face the same challenge: They don’t have a college degree and believe it is hurting their job prospects.

Other job seekers are worried that they have the wrong degree or too low of a degree to get a job at companies that target people with specific or higher degrees. Here are tips to overcome these obstacles.