There’s a good reason why people decide to invest in a professionally written resume: it stands out from the pack. A professionally written resume doesn’t carry a headline — “WRITTEN BY A PROFESSIONAL!” — but it clearly conveys a unique tone and approach that makes it effective and, most importantly, gets it noticed. So what can you expect a professionally written resume to include? In other words, what makes it so great? Here are 5 characteristics of a professionally written resume:

1. It begins with an at-a-glance objective and client profile.

The first thing a reader of your resume will see is your objective — the position you’re targeting — as well as a series of quick, strong key words that immediately communicate who you are, what your core strengths entail, or what you’ve achieved. For example, this portion of the resume might look like this:

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You’ve spent hours on your resume. You’ve written and rewritten. You’ve showed it to friends, family, and colleagues, and you’ve made change after change. But is your painstakingly created resume really serving you well? Here are 5 of the most common resume mistakes, and how you can fix them:

1. Not enough white space

Reading a resume isn’t much like reading a book, but there is one similarity: big blocks of text are a turn-off, and may actually turn readers away. It’s imperative to design your resume with plenty of white space to facilitate skimming and ensure that the main facts stand out. Use headings, line breaks, and bullets to break up the page and draw your readers’ eyes forward. And remember: a professional resume isn’t a comprehensive life history. If one position’s entry is going much longer than about 6-10 lines of text, it’s time to do some cutting.

2. Failing to separate tasks from achievements

One way to ensure that your resume is skimmable and that your main achievements stand out is to clearly separate your day-to-day job tasks from your key accomplishments. Putting your accomplishments into a bulleted list is the best way to do this. Bulleted lists make skimming a breeze for busy readers. A word of warning, though: don’t get carried away. Five bullets per position are almost always sufficient, and fewer than that is fine.
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