• Some Horror Stories
• The Magic Bullet
• Common approaches
• Personal Details
• Referees

• The person whose electronic submission broke into a wing dings font halfway through the text (I'm pretty leery of electronic submissions)
  
  
• Any 10 page resume submissions
  
  
• The person who had extensive "knewledge" of Oracle (we figured if knowledge is everything you know then "knewledge" is everything you ____ )
  
  
• The person with the URL leading to the singing dancing web page.
  
  
• Resumes with more than 10 three letter acronyms per line.
  
  
• The application with no contact information.
  
  
• The application with wrong contact information.
  
  
• The application with just the cover letter.
  
  
• Maniacal spontaneous laughter in the middle of interviews never gets you anywhere.
  
  
• You have to say something in interview to get a job (I had one interview recently when I think there was a total of maybe 15 seconds of conversation by the candidate despite my best efforts)
  
  

• There isn't one! So what do you do?
• Choose the approach the company requests
• Choose the approach you're most comfortable with

• A detailed description of what the job entailed
• How the job is relevant to the one you're applying for
• Your achievements in the job

• Draws attention to what you really did, and what you learned from it
• Allows you to highlight the relevant parts of the job
• A problem if the resume gets too large

The bare bones approach

• Bare facts: When, Where, What.
• Sometimes combined with a longer, more detailed cover letter

• Mostly basic entries, but...
• Add detail to most relevant positions
• Highlight what you want them to see

• Basic information
  • name
  • address
  • phone number(s)
  • email address

What you don't need to include

• Marital Status
• Gender
• Age
• Nationality

• Ideally, someone who is or has been your boss or superior
• A colleague
• A friend
• A family friend

What to consider when choosing a referee

• Someone in a position of authority
• Someone who likes and respects you
• Someone who speaks well
• Someone who can be trusted to do their best for you