*This is third in a series of posts regarding interview preparation and job seeking tips for recent graduate. Be sure to check out our first post, Dressing and Preparing for an Interview and our second post, Best Sites to Locate Jobs.

How great does that diploma feel in your hand? Pretty terrific, right? Don’t start feeling too pleased with yourself just yet because your hard work at either a traditional school or online degree will mean nothing if you choke on the resume or the cover letter. I was a hiring General Manager and Operations Manager for years and I can tell you that my first glance through the huge pile of resumes would be maybe 30-40 seconds per. Don’t freak out, there are several tricks that you can use to make employers give yours a second glance. Make your resume speak for you, and make it speak well. Be clear, concise, and be honest. Desperate, begging, false, or a resume filled with errors says that you need the job, not want the career.

Spell check. This is most important. Use it, PLEASE. There is nothing more frustrating than reading a resume with poor spelling. Have someone that you trust look it over. They don’t have to be a pro, just have them read it out loud. The best time to find sentences that run on endlessly or repeat themselves is by listening to someone else read it to you. Trust me, this works.

Be specific- If you’ve just graduated with a construction management degree and are looking for such a position don’t send them a generic resume that highlights your time spent working in fast food. Yes, you need to list your past employment, but you need to do so geared specifically to the position that you are looking for. Did you flip burgers? No. You worked in the fast paced food service industry and were very instrumental in team motivation and team work.

Do your homework- Design your cover letter to suit its purpose. Are you applying for a position in a law office? Sending in an overly formal cover letter and attached resume spotlighting your knowledge of Latin to an office of people wearing jeans and building diet coke pyramids on their desks is not going to work for you. Know your market. Know the vibe of the building/the office/the site that you’re applying to and Tailor it to suit.

Resume and cover letter size- Your resume should be one full page, two at the very most. Make it well spaced with separate color font for headings, but do not use “funky” but illegible ones. Bullet points are always appreciated. When the bullet points are not enough, feel free to end each section with “For more complete details on my experience (or goals, or objectives) please go to www.YOURNAME.com” This gives you a venue to be more detailed (while still remaining on point and specific to the position that you are seeking) and will give your perspective employers a sense that you are serious about the position. Web sites can be very cheap and easy to put together and are well worth it. Lastly, future career professional of the world, don’t pad the resume. Be artistic and imaginative about the wording of your past jobs but don’t lie. Checking a resume is standard practice.

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