Resume Evaluation Part 1: Heading

You have written your resume. To your untrained eye, it looks pretty good and you believe you are ready to send it out. Unfortunately, the success of your resume isn’t dependent on depends not on whether you like it, but rather on the opinion of hiring managers. As a result, you have to look at your resume from an employer’s perspective.

Over the next few days, we will be looking at common subheadings and other elements of a resume and explore what employers like to see. Based on the information provided, self-score your existing resume.

Today we will discuss the heading.

· Heading: The heading of your resume should include your name, contact information (address, phone numbers, email address). Follow these tips to ensure that your heading is following proper resume protocol. (1) Avoid providing your work number. Potential interviewers may interpret the inclusion of a work number as a lack of loyalty on your part since you are job-hunting on your current employer’s dime. (2) Don’t include your home phone number if young children and/or non-English-speaking family members tend to pick up the phone. Instead, use your cell phone. If you don’t own a cell phone, then kindly ask residents in your household to let the home phone go directly to voice mail. (3) When you are searching for a job, don’t pick up your cell phone in places where you are not able to talk, such as on a train or in the middle of a lunch meeting. If you don’t know who is calling, let your cell phone go to voice mail.

Critique: Does the heading of your resume include your full name, address, professional-sounding email, and a contact number? ___ Yes ___No

Turn in tomorrow for the discussion on Objective/Profile Statement.