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Writing a fabulous resume is akin to holding the keys to the kingdom. But what, you ask, does that mean? How does one write, let alone possess, a fabulous resume? Impossible! Au contraire, my fine fellows.  Perfection is possible.

Content is king when writing a resume, but if the nuts and bolts holding that content together are faulty, your professional credibility will be doubted. In fact, if your resume is fraught with mechanical errors, I simply will not believe that you are detail oriented, no matter how much you protest.

1.  Quit Capitalizing

Resist the urge to bequeath unnecessary honor to job titles or positions. 

• Don’t capitalize job roles and career titles if they are not part of a person’s title. This even holds when mentioning a president, manager, or supervisor. See? I didn’t capitalize those titles.  Unless you are listing your job title before your name (President, Patty Predictable), do not capitalize the title. 
  
• If you’re not sure, give the person’s name, and then follow with the title in lowercase: Patty Predictable, president, was my first supervisor.  
• If the job title appears in the text, it should be lowercase: I was an administrative assistant in my last position.  
• Of course, to every rule there are exceptions. If you’re listing a job title that stands alone (as a heading or subheading), capitalize.  

If in doubt, find it out! Grammar Girl is known for her quick and dirty grammar tips. Her website is bookmarked on my browser as a quick resource and should be on yours, too.

2.  Remove the Superfluous

In other words, edit like an angry, well—editor.  Slash and burn, I say! 

• It is okay to assume the reader will know that you performed your work, “efficiently,” and, “in a timely manner.”  Take that stuff out.
• Ditch unnecessary adjectives and phrases. Let each entry be to the point.
• Watch for common and tricky misspellings such as writing manger instead of manager, or using the singular form of possess when you should use the plural form possesses.

3.  Proofread, Proofread, Proofread

This is the “make-it or break-it” part of resume writing. You’ll be tempted to believe in your powers of producing perfect work, but don’t do it!  Follow each step:  

• Read your resume. This sounds simple enough, but an initial reading will reveal unnecessary capitalizations, extra commas (I LOVE using commas), misspellings, and extra words.
• Read your resume again, but this time read it out loud. Saying each word will make your brain clue in to errors.  
• Have two people read your resume. This might seem like overkill, but trust me. Don’t miss this step! I skipped this step once and was embarrassed to find I had included double words in the title. Only one other person read my work and we both missed that glaring error. A third set of eyes would have caught that junior mistake. Oye!

Just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, your resume will not be perfected with the first draft. Be calm and follow smart practices. Write for content, yes, but mastering the mechanics will produce perfect results–a job!