Here are some tips for building a powerful and effective resume.

1. Keep the resume short - to a maximum of three pages: Decision-makers, including human resource managers will give your resume perhaps 15 to 20 seconds of their time before deciding- with finality- whether you are worth a second look at a later time. Resumes therefore, must make their point quickly.

2. Type flawlessly: Resumes have no rooms for misspellings, erasures, or grammar or punctuation errors. Your mistakes may be almost invisible to you. Ask a friend to proofread your work before distributing it to the employers.

3. Practise "at-a-glance": Resumes like business letters, strive for a "look" in the first few seconds of perception by the reader. A balanced, well-designed resume invites the reader's attention and approval. Here are some techniques used to create resumes with at-a-glance appeal:

-make headings parallel in meaning also parallel on the page

-surround important headings with white space

-allow the eye to read by instalments( separate sections of print), not in large dense blocks

-use capitals with discretion for special emphasis

-use lines and conservative graphic symbols(bullets, asterisks, dashes) to unify and organise the resume

4. Don't seem bizzare: Weigh carefully the relative merits of extreme creativity- the sort that produces a highly unusual resume that stands apart from traditional forms. By a substantial majority Human Resource Managers favor a crisp, well-designed traditional resume over a flamboyant, albeit creative resume.

5. Emphasize four crucial elements- name and address, career objective, education, and employment experience:Other elements may be included, but these four stand out bold and clear within the first few seconds of reading

6. Choose the form of the resume that fits you best: Your choices come down to two- the chronological resume and the functional resume. The chronological resume organizes your experience according to years. If you have quite a bit of education but not a great deal of work experience, the chronological resume allows you to highlight your academic work.

The functional resume suits those who have proven their abilities through years of professional activity. It groups work experiences under two to four(seldom more) major abilities you have demonstrated over the years

7. Create your resume like an artist, not a photographer: Your resume should select those qualities that represent you at your highest potential- what you plan to be- instead of trying to state all the details of what you have been. An oil painting may be said to be true to life even though it does not record all the imperfections recorded in a Polaroid picture. So your resume should create a true version of you, but need not catalog every twist and turn of your life.

-A brief job that has little to do with your application

-Personal facts that don't concern your employer

-Insignificant responsibilities listed under particular jobs

-College affiliations, memberships, societies, and sports teams that go beyond making the point that you are a social, likable, and active person.