I spend a good chunk of my day looking through your resumes. Most of the time, I’m looking for something pretty specific. I have a job order that requires a specific skill set and I’m going through resumes to find the right match.

There are several things you can do to be sure yours is the one that jumps out at me. Let’s take a look at what really matters.

1. Give me two numbers where I can reach you. It would be nice if one of them is your cell number since you probably aren’t at home all day.

2. Indicate the dates of jobs you’ve had. Leaving them off only makes me have to ask which then launches us into a 3-4 email exchange. Leaving them off just looks suspicious. If you were only at that job for three months, I need to know and I need to know why.

3. Organize jobs by agency and then by title. I’d like to know if you had a promotion while you were there or if you started there with that title.

4. List the accounts you worked on and the categories. This is essential since most recruiters and most HR folks will search for keywords in resumes. You may have had 5 years working on a CPG account, but if you never list that, how would I know? The best way to do this is to list general categories or types of media in a blurb at the top, then break it down in your job descriptions. Have a “client list” at the end of each job function letting me see what you’ve worked on.

5. I don’t care if it’s one page or more. Don’t go crazy. I mean, if you are an Account Supervisor, I can pretty much guess that you have had a lot of experience working with clients. I don’t need three paragraphs on that. I would like to know if you’ve done new business development or been involved in pitches. It’s important to know if you’ve managed a team and how many. But you don’t need to go on and on about how you understand Microsoft Word and you’re pretty organized. Yawn. After a certain number of years experience, no one expects that you can cram it all onto one page.

6. Don’t limit your options unnecessarily. You may prefer to stay in your city, but don’t say you won’t relocate if you might. I may have a great gig on the other side of the country that you’d love to hear about but since you indicated that you won’t relocate, I may never call you about it.

7. Have some personality but don’t go overboard. Resumes that are too cute and clever reek of desperation. Remember, successful advertising is not cramming it down the reader’s throat. It’s about subtlety. Allow yourself to shine though via your accomplishments, your profile, and the style of your resume. You’d be surprised at the amount of TMI I’ve seen on resumes.

8. And lastly, as I’ve referenced in a past post, please please please, proofread it and then proofread it again. Have your smart friends read it and give you feedback. Don’t send it out there rife with grammatical errors and embarrassing typos.

Following Shannon’s Recipe for Resume Success means you are more apt to stand out among the others who don’t have such wise recruiters. It also means you’re much more likely to get the call from Moi that you’ve been waiting for. Brring Brring!

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