Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Bullets or paragraphs in your resume?

It seems like the bullet points vs. paragraphs debate in resume writing has been going on forever. It's a 50/50 take: Bullet points make you look unserious about the whole job search activity, whilst paragraphs conceal the applicant's relevant/ most important qualifications from the recruiter's view. They both have pros and cons, so to speak.

Your resume content format should clearly be parallels with your chosen industry's standards. Writing jobs may warrant fragment-less resumes, but in the industry of IT, for instance, such is NOT the case. Searching for IT jobs in Singapore is all about technical-terms bragging, of listing down each and every one of those softwares, hardwares, and whatnots that you know how to use. Of course, using bullets when job hunting in this industry is the most logical route to take. Nurse jobs and doctor jobs in Singapore are also better of applied for with a bulleted resume due to their scientific nature.




And so, get a feel of your chosen industry. Searching for accounting jobs? You probably should craft your resume with equal influences from bullets and paragraphs. Marketing jobs? TV jobs in Singapore? Summarise your past job responsibilities, but use bullet points for your resume's executive summary. That's the idea.

We'd like to hear from you! What do you think of this career advice? What's your stand on the bullet points vs. paragraphs debate?