Tips for Professional Mothers Returning to Work - Tip 9

Tip #9 - Reinventing Your Resume

So you have decided to return to the workforce or you want to move into a new role.  Your successful networking has paid off and someone has asked you to send him or her your resume.  Sure, no problem, but it's been years since you've completed one or what you have is drastically out of date.  Where do you start?

Resume is defined as a brief written account of personal, educational, and professional qualifications and experience, as that prepared by an applicant for a job.  Also called a CV short for "curriculum vitae", which means "the course of a life" in Latin. (Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006)

You can find samples and guidelines on several sites including educational institution websites as well as career and job sites such as Monster and Workopolis.  As a professional recruiter, I would like to give you an insider's view of resume review. 

What you Need to Know

The main purpose of your resume is to get yourself into the interview.  This is the employers' first sample of the quality of your work. Ensure it is flawless.  We see grammatical mistakes and spelling mistakes even from high-level professionals.  Have someone else review it for you before sending it out.  High quality also means formatting your document so it looks professional.  Fonts should be readable, margins printable, and photos and pictures omitted. 

Employers use it as a guide. Give clear and adequate information that answers basic questions about your career and educational path. Unknowns will put you in the "no" pile.  What I mean by unknowns is large gaps between employment or omissions in your education history.  My firm belief is that everyone is unique and you are doing yourself a disservice if you decide to omit educational degrees or course work you have completed.   Gaps in employment can be entered as a one line sentence such as "Remained at home for personal reasons."  I recommend that you are as open and honest as possible, which all employers will appreciate.  Employers cannot eliminate you as a candidate solely because you are a mother.  If you have the relevant experience and personality fit, you are a viable candidate. 

Make sure that what is on paper is articulating who you are, what you have done and where you want to go.  In the work experience section be sure that you not only put down your responsibilities (the job description) but also your significant accomplishments (what you did to add value to the company).  Align your resume with the role to ensure maximum interest of the employer.  If you are applying to a specific role, go through each line item in the job description and if you've done it, make sure it is on your resume. 

Elimination Factors

• Candidates who are difficult to reach. Be reachable! Have a phone that has voicemail that you check regularly. Be able to check e-mail frequently as well. Employers are busy. If they can reach another candidate more easily, you are out.

• Unprofessional e-mail addresses or e-mail omitted. Leave the "hotmama" e-mail address for your personal use.

• Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Note that some versions of word processing applications do not check spelling of capitalized words. I've seen PROFESSOINAL and MANGER many times.

• Work experience being a duty list only. Put context around your responsibilities such as size of department, number of transactions, or geographical area.

• Put emphasis on accomplishments. Be tangible. Did you save the company money, time, or resources? How long did the project take? How much revenue did you bring in? Did you win any employee recognition awards? What were they for?

• Employment dates not included or vague (ie. year only). Always put month and year in this section. Having just 2000 to 2001 can mean 2 months or 24 months. Don't make it look like you are hiding anything.

Once you have a solid resume, you should be confident going into an interview.  The time that you took to prepare a complete resume (not just a laundry list of your life) is actually preparation for the interview.  More on that in the next tip.