How many words should be on a resume?
You need to be sure you have included all the skills and expertise you have that the employer is seeking. Because of font sizes, white space, layout and formatting, the count is not a critical factor. What is critical is: WHAT terms you use and if the format is reader friendly. Rather than counting your resume words you need to make sure every word counts!
Can my resume be too wordy?
Yes. Wordy is defined as: the excessive use of words. Wordy is not always a measure of the total quantity used but rather the ones chosen. Here is an example:
Managed the total and entire retail store including each and every of the 29 full and part-time new and experienced employees that were in retail sales on the floor for the store.
That is an actual statement from a resume prepared by a certified resume writer! The word count is 33. The following statement says the same thing with 27 less words!
Managed retail store with 29 employees.
Get the idea? Wordy is the use of irrelevant or unneeded terms. Statements should be concise.
Now the statement is succinct. What can be added to this example is an accomplishment. That will have far more impact than creating wordy proclamations.
Managed retail store with 29 employees and created incentive program which reduced hiring turnover by 24%.
See how much more that statement says than the original sentence? And that is still 17 words less than the first example sentence. Word quantities alone mean nothing. So your resume could be lacking in quality descriptions of your experience and accomplishments and therefore not have enough words, or include irrelevant or unneeded terms and then have too many.
What are power resume words?
These expressions impact the reader (employer) and instill a specific confidence or belief. Some are adjectives and can be used to support statements about specific skills. They often need to be accompanied by measurable results to have maximum impact. This is achieved by creating accomplishment statements.
What are resume keywords?
These terms frequently describe your knowledge, skills, and abilities though they can also have other definitions such as geographic locations, job titles, or certain employer names. They are the terms employers enter for digital scanning and use in job postings to describe the knowledge, skills, abilities, and attributes they are seeking in candidates. You need to match your skills with as many relevant keywords as you can. The three main sources for these are:
- the employer job description or posting
- the corporate culture of the employer (Usually found in communications within the company and on their publications, messages, website, social networking sites, and press releases.)
- industry jargon from publications, news, and the web.
These expressions describe skills and sometimes abilities, talents, expertise, and other qualifications. They become resume keywords when the target employer has used them to describe what they want to see in candidates. These expressions are critical for passing document scanning and for being recognized and tagged as a viable candidate.
Can I use pronouns?
Pronouns are generally not resume words. This type of writing presents a challenge as the statements are not grammatically correct in accordance with most English education. One method of making this type of writing easier is to create your statements with pronouns and then remove them when you are done.
Is it a good idea to use big or complicated terms the employer might not know?
No. You will not impress employers by using uncommon or generally unknown language or acronyms. Look for an ordinary synonym as a replacement or eliminate a complex or difficult expression.
Are there words I should NOT USE on my resume?
Yes.
