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Top Ten Résumé Writing Tips for Executive Positions
- Read the job announcement carefully and use directly relevant key words in your resume that reflect your experience and knowledge.
- Limit your resume to no more than 5 pages (including an optional cover memo).
- Present your experience in reverse chronological order (most recent experience first).
- Describe your experience and accomplishments in a clear and organized manner:
- Do not overuse bolding and underlining, do not mix fonts, and do not use fonts that are too small to read.
- Spell out acronyms the first time you use them in your resume, but do not overuse acronyms.
- Ensure that your experience and accomplishments reflect the five Executive Core and any Technical Qualification requirements for the position that are listed in the job announcement.
- Use action oriented leadership words to describe your experience and accomplishments:
- Led the development and implementation of...
- Redesigned a process that led to a 50 percent increase in savings...
- Quantify your experience wherever possible to demonstrate your accomplishments (use numbers, percentages, and dates):
- Number of employees supervised
- Size of budget managed
- Amount of money saved
- Percentage of backlog eliminated
- Length of processing time reduced
- Time period for a significant project
- Do not provide irrelevant information (irrelevant awards, training, or hobbies).
- List three references in your chain of command.
- Proofread your resume at least 3 times. Ask a friend or family member to review your resume to catch all spelling errors, grammatical errors, typos, or unclear statements.
Last modified:
August 17, 2017
