This post is part of our series on free resume help. Learn why the format of your resume (and cover letter) is important.

If you’re a consultant, graphic designer, advertising or marketing guru, or other service provider, your roster of happy clients is likely one of your biggest accomplishments. But what happens when your client list grows to unwieldy proportions? On your resume, you want to convey the breadth and depth of your experience; but you don’t want to overwhelm readers with information that doesn’t pack a powerful punch.

Keep these tips in mind when choosing what clients to list and how to handle them on your resume:

• Providing a long list of clients won’t necessary add value. If you want to list some of your happiest clients, choose ~5 and select those that are most relevant to your target job.
• Use phrases like “including” and “and others” to indicate that you’re providing only a sampling of your client list.
• Numbers are powerful. Employ sentences like “Devised strategic marketing plans for 20+ multi-industry clients.”
• Offer a complete list to interested readers: “Complete client list available upon request.” Be sure to format the list to match your resume.
• Provide not just client names but also brief descriptions of successful projects as bullets in an accomplishments section.

And remember: A CleanTechies resume writer is skilled at teasing out a manageable number of clients and background information to aptly demonstrate the scope of your expertise — without taking up valuable “real estate” on the page with facts that don’t add to your career narrative and personal branding.

Let an expert write you a job-winning green resume and cover letter.

photo: marchorowitz

Related posts:

• Free Resume Writing Help: 3 Tips How to Format Resume
• How to Write Resume: Free Resume Help — Improving Readability
• Career Planning & Resume: How to Write a Resume to Change Career
• CleanTechies Launches Professional Resume Writing Services
• Free Resume Help: How To Write Older Experience & Early Position

The rule of thumb for resumes today is to spend valuable resume space on no more than 10 years of your career history, whether that involves 1 position or 5 or more. Professionals with longer careers can indicate their older roles and companies briefly at the end of the resume in an “Additional Roles” section, and offer details on request. But what should you do if one of those older roles is relevant to your current job search? Perhaps that role was in an industry you’re currently targeting, or involved tasks you’d like to pick up again in a new position. Here are 3 strategies for how to highlight that role on your resume — without bogging down your most current information.

1. Add an “Early Career” section.

The “Professional Experience” section that makes up the bulk of your resume likely includes the company name, the dates during which you were employed, a brief company description, your job title, a detailed job summary, and major accomplishments. Trying to include 2 or 3 additional entries here to ensure inclusion of an important role further back in your career will result in a bloated resume with too much outdated information.

To sneak in additional roles without bloating your resume, add an “Early Career” section. Here, each job entry can include simply the company name, your job title, a very brief summary of your duties, and an accomplishment or two.

2. Add a “Selected Early Career” section.

Let’s say the relevant older role is from the 1980s — significantly far back in your career — and you don’t want to include the many roles that came after it. Instead of summarizing your entire early career, simply use this section to highlight the role that’s relevant to your current search. Once again, the entry can be as brief as you’d like, including some or all of the information found within the “Professional Experience” section. This is a good way to ensure that a relevant role has enough resume “real estate” without filling your resume with irrelevant information. Any additional roles can be summarized in an “Additional Roles” section at the end of your resume.

3. Maximize the “Additional Roles” section.

If a few key details from your early career are relevant but you don’t feel the need to devote too much space to them, you can maximize the “Additional Roles” section while conserving valuable resume space.

Here’s a typical “Additional Roles” example:

ADDITIONAL ROLES: Project Lead, XLM Services; Project Manager, Ubersoft; PMO Director, ALT Corp. Details available on request.

If you have enough space, you can add a relevant detail to each listing:

ADDITIONAL ROLES: Project Lead, XLM Services (Built 5-person project team for $200K initiative); Project Manager, Ubersoft (Delivered $500K project on-time/on-budget); PMO Director, ALT Corp. (Played key role in growing revenue $650K in 2 years).  Details available on request.

CleanTechies offers professional resume writing services specifically targeting green positions.

[photo credit: Flickr]

Related posts:

• How to Write Resume: Free Resume Help — Improving Readability
• Free Resume Writing Help: 3 Tips How to Format Resume
• Career Planning & Resume: How to Write a Resume to Change Career
• Looking for a Clean Tech job? Get a resume that works.
• Free Resume Writing Help: Long Client Lists

In previous posts, we’ve demonstrated the effect a professionally written accomplishment can have on your resume. Clearly highlighted and dynamically written accomplishments facilitate resume skimming and ensure that your achievements get readers’ attention. But what if your achievements aren’t quantifiable? What if you haven’t been managing million-dollar projects, generating triple-digit sales growth, or increasing the size of a critical team? This doesn’t mean your accomplishments are any less impressive or important. Here are 3 before-and-after examples to show you how to make your own unique achievements stand out.

Example #1

BEFORE:
Did a variety of tasks on several software development projects, which helped provide experience in this new area.

AFTER:
Gained thorough knowledge of complete SDLC by serving as team member on 5 key development initiatives.

If you’re starting out in a new field, you can highlight what you’ve learned — and how — as an accomplishment. In the Before example, “did a variety of tasks” is weak and ineffective; you don’t necessarily have to detail every task you undertook, but you can write it in a way that more strongly shows the level of your participation. In the After example, “did a variety of tasks” has been transformed into “serving as team member.” The After example also follows the golden rule of accomplishment-writing: effect first, then cause. Your new expertise in the full SDLC is what you want to call out here.

A note on acronyms: If an acronym is common in your field and, most importantly, in the field in which you’re applying for a job, you don’t have to spell it out. If, however, you suspect your readers will be unfamiliar with the acronym, spell it out the first time you use it and put the acronym in parentheses: software development life cycle (SDLC).

Example #2

BEFORE:
I earned a reputation for making good impressions with potential new customers. Many told us they chose our business because of the relationships they had with me.

AFTER:
Contributed to growing customer base by forging strong relationships with potential new clients.

The first-person pronouns (“I earned,” “with me”) strike a note that’s too casual and informal here. But the biggest problem is that the actual accomplishment isn’t clear. You made good impressions — so what? What was the effect? Clarifying the cause and effect solidifies what you contributed and emphasizes how your relationship-building skills benefited the business.

Example #3

BEFORE:
The time for responding to customer inquiries was reduced with a new system I developed for managing queries from phone and email.

AFTER:
Accelerated customer inquiry response time by developing and implementing process improvements to facilitate phone- and email-based query management.

Once again, the After example provides the effect up front — “Accelerated customer inquiry response time” — which shows immediately what you contributed. The how of it — process improvements — then follows. The other tip-off that the Before example needs a makeover is the use of the passive voice — “was reduced.” Passive voice obfuscates the actor, leaving readers with the question “by whom or what?” Always steer clear of passive voice when crafting your accomplishments. Active voice is much more effective.

CleanTechies offers professional resume writing services specifically targeting green positions. Certified expert resume writers with years of experience and almost thousand of resumes written help job seekers at any career stage craft professional resumes. CleanTechies writes resumes targeting roles in renewable energy, resource efficiency, green building, and sustainable transportation as well as other environmental and sustainable positions. CleanTechies is dedicated to helping green job seekers pursue their dream careers.

[photo credit: Flickr ]

Related posts:

• Free Resume Writing Help: Long Client Lists
• Free Resume Writing Help: 3 Tips How to Format Resume
• Your resume s****! Here’s how to improve it.
• Top 3 Resume Examples on How to Highlight Key Accomplishments
• How To Improve Your Resume With 5 Quick & Easy Changes

Employing a professional resume writer is your best bet for developing a dynamic, attention-getting document that will get your foot in the door. In the meantime, however, there are a few things you can do to tweak your existing resume and put yourself on the path to resume success. These 5 tips will help strengthen and clarify your accomplishments and tighten your resume’s focus.

1. Separate your tasks from your achievements.

One of the best quick improvements you can make to your resume is to clearly separate your day-to-day tasks from your achievements for each of your job positions. If you’ve used bullet points for every item within a job description, put your day-to-day tasks in paragraph form, and save the bullets for the accomplishments. If your resume is bullet-free, tease out your achievements and make them stand out with bullets. If a reader has just a few seconds to skim your resume, make it easy for him or her to find your accomplishments fast—don’t bury them in a sea or words or a forest of bullets.

2. Use action words.

This is, perhaps, the first rule of resume writing, and it can go a long way toward helping your resume stand out from the pack. As a rule of thumb, every sentence or sentence fragment in your resume should start with a strong action verb, such as increased, strengthened, generated, propelled, utilized, collaborated, or saved. If you find yourself being repetitious (improved…improved…), break out your thesaurus.

3. Remove first-person point of view.

Does your resume start something like this: “I am an accomplished engineer…”? If so, you’ve fallen victim to a common resume mistake: using the first person. First-person point of view involves first-person pronouns (I, me, my), and it has no place in your resume for two reasons: first, it’s too wordy—there’s limited “real estate” on your resume, and you don’t want to waste any; and second, it takes the attention away from what you actually did. Look at these two sentences:

A.    I helped my company earn over $4M in revenue during the program’s first year.
B.    Played key role in generating $4M+ revenue in 1st year of program.

The second version gets right to the point, and it grabs a reader’s attention. Your resume is yours—but leave your personal pronouns out of it.

4. Keep it short.

In only the rarest cases should your resume extend beyond 2 pages, and entry-level job seekers will be fine with 1 page. If you have a resume that’s too long, you may feel it’s impossible to cut it down, especially if you have many years of relevant experience—but it’s a necessary evil. Get out a red pen or poise your finger on the delete key, and get ready to cut. Prepare yourself by keeping these things in mind:

•    A quick, to-the-point resume will get more attention from busy professionals.
•    No one needs to hear about every single aspect of each position. Focus on what is most relevant.
•    Keep a list of accomplishments to 5 bullet points or fewer to make important aspects stick out.
•    Focus on the last 10 years of your career, unless old positions are vital to your objective.

5. Consider your format.

You shouldn’t judge a resume by its font—but many readers will. Avoid “fancy” fonts and alarming font sizes; these will only make you look unprofessional. Use a simple font like Times New Roman or Arial. Avoid using colors, icons, pictures, or graphics of any kind. A page border is fine, even desirable, but again, keep it simple. Strive, above all, for clarity. Can a reader quickly pick out your job titles on the page? Is it easy for him or her to quickly pinpoint your employment dates?

These may sound like obvious points, but many job-seekers get carried away in trying to make their resumes “unique,” sacrificing clarity—and distracting readers from their achievements—in the process.

CleanTechies offers professional resume writing services specifically targeting green positions. Certified expert resume writers with years of experience and almost thousand of resumes written help job seekers at any career stage craft professional resumes. CleanTechies writes resumes targeting roles in renewable energy, resource efficiency, green building, and sustainable transportation as well as other environmental and sustainable positions. CleanTechies is dedicated to helping green job seekers pursue their dream careers.

[photo credit: Flickr]

Related posts:

• Free Resume Writing Help: 3 Tips How to Format Resume
• Your resume s****! Here’s how to improve it.
• How to Write Resume: Free Resume Help — Improving Readability
• Looking for a Clean Tech job? Get a resume that works.
• Career Planning & Resume: How to Write a Resume to Change Career