As a professional who has read hundreds of resumes/curricula vitae and spoken with colleagues who have done the same, I offer these bits of advice:
1. It really is a small world after all. Professional circles in SLH are quite limited, so write, speak and act as if your past and all current and future employers and colleagues know each other. Be courteous. Express negative experiences in terms of "opportunties to learn/grow."
2. When writing, keep format, grammar and spacing consistent.
- Use indentation and capitals or underlining consistently to show level of detail.
- Maintain regular margins: extremely wide or narrow margins fool no one as to your ability to write concisely with sufficient detail or how much education/work experience, etc. you have to offer.
- Try not to leave "ophans" or single lines of text at the bottom or top of a page.
- Use parallel grammar when listing items within a section. For example, in describing past work or volunter experience, begin with verbs for each duty in each job. Mixing verbs and nouns is jarring to the reader (List A: measured, filed, performed, maintained vs List B: measured, file clerk, maintained) and in a competitive job market could impact the likelihood of an interview.
3. Proofread for typos, misspellings, grammar/punctuation/capitalization mistakes and unexplained acronyms/abbreviations.
4. AFTER YOU have proofread and edited, ask at least two other people to review your draft CV.
- One reviewer would ideally be experienced in your discipline so that s/he can comment on its appeal for professionals in that field.
- The other reviewer should be outside of your discipline. That person will represent clerical staff or administrators on the hiring committee who tend to focus on format, spelling and grammar problems because they lack expertise in the content. More importantly, your non-discipline draft reviewer can identify insufficiently-explained acronyms/abbreviations/terms so you can avoid irritating and frustrating the non-discipline members of the hirinig committee.
- If it's a job you REALLY want, also have others read your cover letter and personal statement.
