The Purpose of a Resume

Cut out extraneous items from your resume. Image used by permission from http://www.freeimages.co.uk

This is a first part installment from my resume writing booklet. Watch this feature column for a continuation of the series taken from my self-published book, How to Write a Resume, Cover Letter, and More. For an introduction to this series see my April 2011 posting.

All good writers know their purpose, before putting pen to paper on any piece. All writing is persuasive writing, designed to motivate a change in the reader’s attitude, emotion, or behavior.

The purpose of a resume is to obtain an employment interview, not a job. The purpose of the employment interview is to obtain a job. Employers hire people, not paper. A resume is a calling card.

In the days of old, say Victorian times, when a gentleman, such as yourself, came calling, the butler would open the door, and ask your business. You would put your calling card, your introduction, on a silver plate, and the butler would take this calling card to the master, or mistress of the house, in order to announce your presence. It was up to the butler’s employer whether then, they would receive you on that day, or send you on your way.

A resume serves the same purpose. A resume’s singular purpose is to persuade the hiring authority to interview you. Or in another more modern analogy, it’s like making the first cut on a ball team, or talking that special girl’s parents into passing the phone along to her, when you made that certain call to ask her out for the prom. The employment interviewer is actively looking for negative information in order to weed out the enormous number of applicants. In this economy, this number can run up to the hundreds, or even thousands. Your purpose is to give the interviewer, just enough positive information to make the first cut, without volunteering any negative information.

But just like you don’t want to tell that special girl all about yourself down to showing her your baby pictures on that first date, less is more. Don’t oversell yourself, by overloading the reader’s senses with extraneous data. As in that first date, a sense of mystery is the key. Leave the interviewer wanting to know more about you. Keep it down to one or two 8 ½” x 11” pages. To learn more about you, the interviewer will set up an appointment to talk to you. Don’t answer all the questions, on paper, or you’ll have nothing to talk about in person.

As you can see, a sense of balance in a resume is essential. Like an athlete trying out for a team, you want to hit the ball out of the park, but like a good prom date you don’t want to give too much information to soon as to not scare that special prom date’s parents off. Her parents being the Human Resource Representative that makes the first cut of course.