Resumes Have Their Own Language

When you read a resume, you may wonder why there are few pronouns. My clients wonder the same thing -- and it's sometimes a question that comes up when they review their first draft.

Résumés use a unique style of writing to emphasize brevity in order to maximize the reader’s time. Many individuals find this style of writing a bit confusing, but there are a few guidelines that will make it more understandable.

• Résumés use a version of first-person style, but omit the subject (“I” / “me” / “my”).

• We use present tense for activities you currently perform, and past tense for past activities and achievements (particularly for older positions on your résumé, but also to describe responsibilities you once performed in your current job, but no longer do).

• To emphasize brevity, we remove most articles (“a” / “an” / “the” / “my”), except when doing so would hurt the readability of the sentence.

• We write in a strong, active style, emphasizing action verbs (“direct” / “manage” / “conduct” / “develop”) instead of passive descriptions of activity.

• Most often, numbers one through nine are spelled out; numbers 10 and above are expressed as numbers.

Your resume should conform to these generally-accepted rules as well.