Want to get a great job? Then...

...look like everybody else

...blend in

...fly under the radar

If you think that's a good strategy, I have a bridge to sell you.

There are good lessons to learn from sample resumes. The same rules apply to resume templates.

Remember, your resume's primary purpose is to make you stand out as clearly the best candidate. Your resume has to stand out in the way it looks, and in what it says.

So, you want to stand out. But you're using a resume template. See the problem? A template makes you look like everybody else.

Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. The odds of coming up with a completely novel resume format are pretty low. In many respects, it really has all been done before.

But you're not competing against the entire universe of resumes that have ever been written. You'll be up against a much smaller subset - the group of applicants for a particular job.

The story goes that a bear was chasing two men. One guy stops to change to his good running shoes. The other guy says, "What are you doing?! You're wasting time! You gotta outrun that bear!" The first fellow replies, "Nope. I only have to outrun you."

You're trying to outrun your competition, and slapping together a quickie resume in a cookie-cutter resume template puts you at a disadvantage.

Look at templates, and learn from them. Then create your own custom format. Better yet, get some help doing that, so you can focus on the content of the resume.

Copyright (c) by Roy Miller