Resumes: English

"Resume English" is a funny dialect, in which pronouns (especially "I"), articles, and auxiliary verbs, are generally dropped. Where this leaves a sentence without a subject, you are (i.e., "I" is) assumed to be the subject. For examples, see the assorted other subpages.

Other general tips for writing text in resumes:

• Be concise. Your resume has about thirty seconds to grab the reader by both lapels, get in his/her face, and shout "HIRE THIS PERSON!!!". Anything that doesn't contribute towards that goal just gets in the way.

• On the other claw, explain things. Not everybody who reads your resume will be familiar with your industry, or whatever industry you were in before. If you use an acronym or bit of jargon that isn't reasonably common knowledge, put the explanation after it, in parentheses.

• Be consistant. It looks much more professional if you refer to something the same way each time, rather than a hodgepodge of different ways. Some people may tell you that it helps to refer to it in every way possible (for instance, DOS, MS-DOS, MSDOS, PC-DOS, PCDOS, etc.), so as to make the maximum number of "hits" when a computer scans your res, but I think it will do more harm when a human reads it than it does good when a computer reads it.

• Be perfect. Well, okay, I realize you're only human. Point is, spellcheck it, grammarcheck it, stylecheck it, whatever you can. A resume must be as close to perfect as humanly possible. It's supposed to represent you, and if it's a sloppy mess, what does that say about you???