Organize Your Résumé by Major Jobs
Consolidate and hit the high points to land the interview.
by Shane Christopher

The details of your résumé are vitally important, but for a moment, I’ll ask you to increase altitude to 30,000 feet and scan the horizon for the big picture. I believe that unless you tell someone why something is important, they’ll never listen to you. So I’d like to tell you why it’s important to organize your résumé by major jobs held.

Treat your résumé like your “professional life story.” Paint a self-portrait for hiring managers, one that makes them want to interview you. If your professional life is only four-years old, then include greater detail on your résumé than someone with 24 years experience. Keep this rule of thumb in mind: one résumé page for every 10 years of work.

Recruiting managers will spend only a few seconds scanning your résumé for important components and qualifications. If it’s riddled with extraneous information and you make them work to find it, your résumé may very well be discarded. Tell your story in a cogent, organized manner to show how you’ve progressed. How did your responsibility increase with each job? How well did you do relative to your peers in each job?

Can you organize sections of jobs in a readable, concise manner? On that last point, attendance at military training schools is an area where you can consolidate. I recommend that you lump training into one section.

Below is an example of the right and wrong to organizing some of your training.

WRONG
May 2005 – Sep 2005
U.S. Naval Academy
Annapolis, Md.
Plebe Summer First Lieutenant
As stash ensign, ensured that all midshipman rooms were maintained in a professional manner.

Oct 2005 – Dec 2005
Naval Aviation Schools Command
Pensacola, Fla.
Driver
Drove a van to transport midshipmen to the Naval Aviation Schools Command.

Jan 2006 – Mar 2006
Naval Aviation Schools
Command - Pensacola, Fla.
Student
Participated in land and water survival training and basic aerospace engineering and aviation navigation training.

Apr 2006 – Sep 2006
VT-10
Pensacola, Fla.
Student
Graduated first of 24 students in the basic phase of flight school.

Oct 2006 – May 2007
Naval Air Training Unit
Randolph AFB, Texas
Student
Graduated 5th of 30 students in the advanced phase of flight school.

Does the hiring company really need to know all those details and five sections to describe them? Remember, they’re just impressed that you completed the entire body of training. The minute details of your travels while there are unimportant. Here’s a better way to illustrate that same training in one résumé bullet:

RIGHT
May 2005 – May 2007
Naval Aviation Training
Md., Fla. and Texas
As a naval aviation student, successfully completed land and water survival training, prisoner of war training and basic and advanced flight coursework through classroom, simulator and in-flight training.

Graduated first of 24 officers in basic phase and top 20 percent in advanced phase. Earned Navy wings of gold in May 2007.