The resume: there are so many conflicting recommendations out there. Should you keep it to one page? Do you put a summary up top? Do you include personal interests and volunteer gigs? This may be your best chance to make a good first impression, so you’ve got to get it right.

What the Experts Say

“There’s nothing quick or easy about crafting an effective resume,” says Jane Heifetz, a resume expert and founder of Right Resumes. Don’t think you’re going to sit down and hammer it out in an hour. “You have to think carefully about what to say and how to say it so the hiring manager thinks, ‘This person can do what I need done,’” she says. After all, it’s more than a resume; “it’s a marketing document,” says John Lees, a UK-based career strategist and author of Knockout CV. Heifetz agrees: “The hiring manager is the buyer, you’re the product, and you need to give him a reason to buy.” Here’s how to write a resume that will be sure to win attention

Open strong

The first 15-20 words of your resume are critically important “because that’s how long you usually have a hiring manager’s attention,” says Lees. Start with a brief summary of your expertise. You’ll have the opportunity to expand on your experience further down in your resume and in your cover letter. For now, keep it short. “It’s a very rich, very brief elevator pitch,” says Heifetz. “You need to make it exquisitely clear in the summary that you have what it takes to get the job done.” It should consist of a descriptor or job title like, “Information security specialist who…” “It doesn’t matter if this is a job title you have or ever did,” says Lees. It should match what they’re looking for Here are two examples:

Healthcare executive with over 25 years of experience leading providers of superior patient care.

Strategy and business development executive with substantial experience designing, leading, and implementing a broad range of corporate growth and realignment initiatives.

And be sure to avoid clichés. Using platitudes in your summary or anywhere else in the document is “basically like saying, ‘I’m not more valuable than anyone else,’” explains Lees. They are meaningless, obvious, and boring to read.

Get the order right

If you’re switching industries, don’t launch into job experience that the hiring manager may not think is relevant. Heifetz suggests adding an accomplishments section right after your opener that makes the bridge between your experience and the job requirements. “These are main points you want to get across, the powerful stories you want to tell,” she says. “It makes the reader sit up straight and say ‘Holy cow, I want to talk to her. Not because of who she is but because of what’s she’s done.’” Here’s a sample mid-career resume that does this well (source: John Lees, Knockout CV).

After the accomplishments section (if you add it), list your employment history and related experience. See below for exactly what to include. Then add any relevant education. Some people want to put their education up top. That might be appropriate in academia but for a business resume, you should highlight your work experience first and save your degrees and certifications for the end.

And that ever-popular “skills” section? Heifetz recommends skipping it all together. “If you haven’t convinced me that you have those skills by the end of the resume, I’m not going to believe it now,” she explains. If you have expertise with a specific type of software, for example, include it in the experience section. And if it’s a drop-dead requirement for the job, also include it in the summary at the very top.

About the Author: Amy Gallo is a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review and the author of the HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict at Work. She writes and speaks about workplace dynamics.

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https://hbr.org/2014/12/how-to-write-a-resume-that-stands-out