Professional Resume Advice and Sample ... - Career Services

#5: USE BULLET POINTS WISELYBullet points are generally a great addition to the resume. Their specificpurpose is to draw attention to your most important accomplishments,projects, numbers, percentages, or other valuable information. Inaddition, they’re a great visual complement to a document that has agood bit of text and a number of paragraphs.The Professional Experience section of a resume often includes anintroductory paragraph followed by bullet points. The paragraph outlinesthe overall responsibilities and scope of a particular position. Then theunique achievements related to that position are highlighted using bulletpoints.We wholeheartedly recommend this format because it accomplishestwo key objectives. First, it tells your reader precisely what you wereresponsible for in a particular position. Then, using individual bulletpoints, it tells the reader how well you did it. It’s clean, concise, andeasy to understand, and isn’t that at the very core of every successfulresume?If bullet points are so easy to understand, why not present all of yourinformation in bullet points? Remember, the purpose of bullets is todraw visual attention to discrete and specific information on your resume– namely, your achievements, honors and awards, project highlights,and other contributions. If you use bullet points for everything,nothing stands out and the final product becomes a laundry list ofinformation rather than a high-impact document showcasing your finestachievements.CHAPTER 5 : Designing the Professional’s Resume122