Over the years I have served in variety managerial roles for over ten different departments at Dallas Baptist University. I believe that hiring is one of the most important things that I do for my institution. I have supervised and hired part-time student workers, adjunct professors, and also seasoned full-time staff. During this time, I have participated in hundreds of interviews and reviewed countless resumes for would be job seekers within higher education.

Hiring can be pretty scary business at times. In the end, the leader’s hire decisions will either make or break your team — when you hire great, you get great results. Just the same, when you don’t hire great, the work environment can be a pretty gloomy place.

As a leader, the ability for me to locate, attract, place, and develop exceptional employees is and will always be a critical part of my responsibility. I endeavor to grow and in my ability to hire exceptional people and I have a strong commitment to my team to only hire the best.

Based on my time as a hiring manager, I would like to impart a few practical pieces of advice on resume building. The resume is an important tool that you will need to communicate who you are, what you have done, and what value or impact you can potentially make for an employer or organization.

These concepts are not meant to be the end all, be all, of resume tips, just an overview for what I consider when developing a resume:

Start with the End in Mind

First and foremost, get a very clear idea in mind of your objective, the job you are applying for, or your career goals. This is sometimes a very challenging part of resume building — but picture for you what the end looks like.

If it’s a job, then start by researching that particular job. Research and identify the skills, knowledge, experience, and values that are needed for that particular job. If it’s a college or other career goal, then the same goes for that too, what does the end look like and what is valued once you are there. Think about the job skills that are needed for that particular job.

As a reminder on job skills, check out the blog titled: The Top Job Skills Needed for Future Graduates

Put yourself in the hiring manager’s shoes for a while and think about what they will be looking for in an ideal candidate. This will also help you later when you focus your resume on the target audience — IE: the people you convince that you are the ideal candidate for the job.

Build a Resume with Purpose

After you have a clear idea of the goal, and what is needed, then it’s time to work backwards from there.

First, before sitting down to write-out a resume, it is wise to get out a note pad and start jotting down your skills, knowledge, and experience. I think you can best do this by taking the time to reflect on who you are, where you will be going, and what you will be doing in your job or career. I call this taking the time to build a resume with purpose.

The bible tells us in Psalm 139:13-16 that God “created my inmost being; He knit us together in our mother’s womb … we are fearfully and wonderfully made; His works are wonderful … All the days ordained for us were written in His book before one of them came to be.” Also, Ephesians 2:10 says “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

I have mentioned before, they we each have been made with purpose and have a reason for living; the fact that we are breathing and living on this planet is because the Lord has prepared us in advance to do good works.

That being said, you have a purpose, and you are special. The resume is simply another medium that you can use to communicate who God made you to be, how you can serve others, and impact His kingdom!

Second, after you get yourself in this mindset, start listing out (1) your skills and talents, (2) your work experience or internships, (3) your education, training, or professional development (4) extracurricular activities, volunteering, and awards or special recognition received. This will be the core content, and it really helps to have a list of these items when you actually start to create sentences and build your resume.

Communicate Value

Now that you have your clear objective in mind, and a good list of skills in hand, it’s time to connect these dots together. This is probably one of the most important parts of resume building. It’s about developing the content and action statements that will communicate to the employer the value you will bring to their organization.

As discussed in the first section, you have a your objective in mind and have a good understanding for what is valued in the type of job you are applying, start crafting sentences based on your experience and skills that nicely fit in line with your target job or career path. These are to be action statements — simple, tight, clear, and powerful action sentences that emphasize the results benefited to your employer or organization.

VERY IMPORTANT – Don’t just tell me what you did, tell me how you contributed and brought value to your previous employer. What did you do, and how was it helpful? 

Here are examples of a bad and a good action statement:

BAD – Oversaw operations for study abroad office.

GOOD – Supervised and trained a staff of four work-study students to courteously and efficiently respond to inquiries regarding the university’s study aboard program.

By developing clear, powerful action statements you communicate that you added value to your job and understand the results of your work. Additionally, you demonstrate the contribution you made to your previous organization, and also outline the potential value that you can add to your potential new employer.

Make it Special

You have a clear objective, a purpose in mind with listed out content, excellent action statements, now is about catching the eye of the hiring manager. Let’s make your resume special. This means having a resume that is (1) relevant, (2) unique, and (3) the best thing you have ever written in your life?

First, your resume is not a “one-resume-fits-all” document and needs to be made relevant and targeted to the unique audience, target job or college you are applying. As we discussed earlier, you need to start with the end in mind and communicate value with your resume. With each job you apply for, and at each company, the target audience and values change a bit.

I’m not saying that you should create a resume for each job that you apply, but I am saying there are tweaks that you will need to make for each resume you complete. It needs to most relevant for your target audience.

Second, make sure your resume is “eye catching” for the employer. The average hiring manager spends two minutes or less reading your resume. In fact, there will be many times that the manager will simply glance over your content or skim read. So, what makes them want to put your resume in the “to call pile” and not the “throw away pile”?

This is where I think formatting and resume design plays a big part. Choose a resume format that is professional and clean, but also do not make it boring like everyone else’s. I suggest using bullet points, artfully bolded text, underlining, or italics to highlight specific areas or action words. Also, consider using other formatting techniques like blocking off specific sections with a text box, or even using a gold paperclip instead of a silver one to catch attention.

Remember, you have less than two minutes to catch the eye of the manager. What is unique or special about your resume?

Lastly, if your resume is not the best thing you’ve ever written, then do not turn it in. It needs to be crafted, with absolutely no grammar or spelling errors in it. You need to be proud, confident, and excited about turning in your resume.

For the employee, the resume is one of the most important communication tools you use to assure the hiring manager that you are the right hire. The resume helps take the uncertainty out of the hire decision. This is why having an exceptional resume is absolutely necessary!