This article (click for link) provides all good points but I’d also add the following:
- Do not go in to too much detail about the overall scope or goal of a particular project you worked on. We want to know what YOU actually did on the project and the effect of your work on the overall project. Do not spend half a page detailing what the software itself does when you were only responsible for a certain segment of the development. Leave that to the interview if they ask you to elaborate
- Please spell-check and proof-read multiple times. Have someone else check it too. This article references grammar but spelling is HUGE. And don’t forget those words that spell check won’t catch (ex: “there” and “their”)
- At PGI, we recruit for mostly very senior-to-executive level positions. I’d say the average length of a resume at this level is 4-5 pages and that is okay with me and most of our hiring managers. Do not feel obligated to crunch everything in to a 2-page resume but don’t let it get much longer than 5 pages either.
- Write your resume for the position which you are applying. This is similar to point 7 in the article but one IT skill set may be relevant to one type of job you are applying for but not as relevant in another. To go along with that, make sure you can back up every single thing in your resume with an example, even if it isn’t specific to the job you are applying. If in doubt, leave it out.
- Do not bold / underline / highlight every other key word throughout your resume. It’s distracting and annoying to most recruiters, and gives your resume an inauthentic feel.