resume formatting – Merit Personnel & Consulting

The secret to landing a job interview or indeed job offer

There are all these articles out there on the Internet, or even worse as actual books you have to BUY, telling you about “secret” things that apparently resume-reviewers want to see on resumes and cover letters. There are “secret” things you must remember to say, or then again, not say in interviews. Let’s not forget the “secret” things you have to mention in thank you letters. I haven’t quite figured out why consultants write like that. Is it to turn common-sense advice on how to find a job into a whole mystique, so that you feel you HAVE to read

June 12, 2013 8:57AM

To proof or not to proof…

You’d think it was a given, wouldn’t you, that you should carefully proof your resume? But a depressing number of resumes that end up in front of me have mistakes in them. Some minor, some pretty horrendous. Two of my favorite examples: a) Two proofreaders who managed to misspell the word proofreading on their resumes. I mean, what were the odds? And b) a candidate who wrote at the top of the resume, in bold, upper case “DETAIL ORIENTED SLEF MOTIVATED.” Second phrase rather disproved the first one, didn’t it? It didn’t gain the owner any Brownie points but it

August 27, 2012 9:17AM

Lay-out of a resume

One page? Two pages? European-style 6-pager with a photo? One or two pages is fine. The days of the one v two page arguments are long gone. US resumes are never more than 2 pages. Well, occasional exceptions. Academic resumes are a special case, too). European-type c.v.s are just not the norm here, and tend to freak out HR Departments. And freaking out HR Depts is not the point of sending resumes. Do not add a photograph. Not relevant, and possibly illegal for potential employers to use the information. Don’t do it. Do not write age, marital status, number of

July 9, 2012 11:28AM