I had to do a scary thing yesterday….I had to update my resume. Updating your resume is kind of like getting a haircut or cleaning out your closet. It’s something you do once and a while to freshen things up, get rid of old stuff _(like split ends or an ugly sweater)_. Anyway, I was reading an article the other day about really bad resumes. They list the top ten things to avoid when writing, or re-writing your resume. Among them are using unique, large or distracting fonts, givng out personal information such as height, weight, hobbies, etc., and exceeding more than three pages.

I used to have a two page resume and I’m working on it. In college, I was always told that your resume should NEVER be more than one page long. That confused me because my father’s resume is pretty long. I asked him. He said that it’s okay to have more than one page of stuff…as long as it’s good stuff. He says the general rule in his line of work is one additional page for every ten years of experience. Here are my top three ways to improve your resume.

*1. Keep it Current*: Exclude any achievements from high school…unless you are a freshmen or a sophomore in college. Then, you can include them, as long as they are worthwhile and positive.

*2. Be Professional*: Create a new email account if your email is anything like toohot4U@hotmail.com. This is bad. Create another account using your first and last name.

*3. Don’t Forget the Details*: A lot of times, you cut the resume fat in places such as your job description or responsibilites. This is not the place to trim lines. Go into detail about what you accomplished and how you helped the company…show an employee exactly what you did there!