Resume Tips

Your resume has fewer than ten seconds to sell your skills and pique interest. Would yours make the cut? If not, welcome to the Resume Helper. We've outlined the basics you need to create a successful resume that'll earn you an interview.

Your resume is your most important calling card in your job search. It should include the following information:

Contact Information. Include phone, mail and email contact information. In addition, make sure your voicemail message is professional. A message that is too casual can create a negative impression.

Career Objective. You may choose to list or not list your career objective. If your objective doesn't match the recruiter's needs, you may miss out on a golden opportunity. However, a clearly stated career objective can help your recruiter find your ideal career match.

Summary Statement. Your summary should be brief.

• Include your title and years of experience.
• List pertinent skills.
• Discuss your character traits or work style.

Example:

"Controller with over 15 years' experience with two national healthcare companies. Technical skills include P&L, budgeting, forecasting and variance reporting. Bilingual in Spanish and English. Self-starter who approaches every project in a detailed, analytical manner."

Professional Experience. List each position held in reverse chronological order, dating back at least ten years. If you held multiple positions within the same company, list them all to show advancement and growth. The body of each position description should describe your responsibilities and accomplishments.

Other Components. Include education, professional training, affiliations/appointments, licenses, technical skills and languages.

Personal Information. Do not include personal information such as marital status.

Don't Forget!

• Include your highest level of education completed, the year you graduated, and any honors you received
• List all professional training, licenses, languages, or other outside skills that an employer might appreciate
• Proofread and spell check your resume as many times as you can. Who wants to miss out on a career opportunity because of a typo or sloppy grammar?

Extra Tips

Feature-Accomplishment-Benefit: Here's a format to help organize your skills and present your accomplishments.

• Feature: your actual responsibilities
• Accomplishment: what you did to perform your job
• Benefit: how your performance affected your employer

Example: Controller

• Feature: 400 bed hospital Controller
• Accomplishment: Oversaw all financial aspects of three-year double-digit growth in hospital’s capacity
• Benefit: My financial models are now used by all six hospitals in my employer’s system

Combine these sentences, and you've created career-selling features in a FAB Statement:

As a seasoned controller in the healthcare industry I bring substantial experience in developing and enforcing financial controls and accountability in both large and smaller hospitals, with particular skills in growth markets.

Situation-Solution-Outcome: Here's a great way to highlight your problem-solving abilities.

• Situation: What situation was your company facing?
• Solution: What did you do to solve the problem?
• Outcome: What was the outcome?

Example: Chief Nursing Officer

• Situation: Acute care facility wanted to triple its capacity in 24 months
• Solution: Created and implemented a program to respond to a severe shortage of qualified nursing professionals in our market.
• Outcome: Reduced our contract and per diem nursing staff from 54% to 27% while adding a Director of Nurse Education to maintain quality and educational opportunities for our nursing staff.

Put these strategies together, and you have your SSO Statement:

My hospital wanted to respond to a growing need for acute care facilities. As the CNO I responded to a severe nurse shortage by converting contract and per diem employees to permanent employees and enhancing both their skills and job satisfaction with continuing professional education programs.