Why Everyone Needs A Professionally Designed Résumé

Creating A Personalized and Distinctive Résumé

Every wordprocessing program today has at least one template for creating a professional-looking résumé and there are many books and Web sites that give detailed instructions about how to create a good résumé. Furthermore there are also generally accepted "rules" and standards for creating résumés that in the interests of efficiency and standardization make sense. However, an homogenized approach to résumé creating can be a disadvantage for the individual job-seeker.

In my experience, standardized tools for résumé creation often result in most résumés looking more or less the same. And when an employer receives multiple résumés for a job posting (often, unfortunately they are faxed) it is the résumé that is distinctive both in content and design that will be set aside from the others for further consideration. I am often amazed at how ineffective and bland résumés of some adult professionals can be. They often look as if they were created by a robot, say very little about the whole person, and look like menus or shopping lists.

When I work with a client to create a personal, distinctive, and descriptive résumé, we create a document that communicates the credentials, strengths, attributes of the individual, and a sense of the entire person.

Employers hire people, not résumés.

The Résumé: Your Professional Statement

I believe that everyone should have a well-designed résumé in place by the end of high school for the following reasons:

1. Creating such a document helps focus the individual.

2. Creating a personal, professional résumé is also a formal process of self-definition in terms of personal attributes, values, and employment strengths.

3. Once created, such a résumé can and should be updated periodically.

4. Creating a résumé is an opportunity for some important mentoring (professional coaching) and also for stressing the importance of writing skills, critical thinking skills, promotional/self-marketing skills, and conceptualization skills.

5. The old saying, "If only we could see ourselves as others do" is especially true in this regard. In my experience, most clients often underestimate their skills and their experience because they are too close to themselves. Creating a professional résumé broadens and enhances an individual's frame of reference for himself or herself.

6. For young people especially, this may be the first opportunity to engage in "professional activity." The process can set a professional "tone" for the individual that will carry over as a transferrable skill to other activities and endeavours.