Résumé makeover: How to emphasize your career highlights

Career expert and certified professional résumé writer Laura Smith-Proulx unearths job highlights from under a mountain of detail

Ryan Jones (not his real name) had invested a great deal of time developing two separate resumes -- one to cover his experience supporting broadcast systems and another for his time in IT operations. But while both résumés included an incredible amount of detail, neither one adequately focused on the next step in his career, says Laura Smith-Proulx, a certified professional résumé writer and career management coach at An Expert Resume.

"From my first glance, I could tell that Ryan had worked hard to incorporate a lot of detail in his résumé. It was obvious that he'd worked in some fast-paced environments requiring him to support both IT operations and broadcast systems, while delivering major projects," she says.

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However, the lack of an overall focus, and the use of mostly single-line bullets made Jones' résumé difficult to read and even harder to decipher which efforts were the most important in his career, Smith-Proulx says.

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This story, "Résumé makeover: How to emphasize your career highlights" was originally published by CIO.

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