An Executive Resume Should Be Short, Precise And Have An Air Of Confidence.
If you are looking to find a new job or return to the workforce after a period of time away, you will need an executive resume. This type of resume helps reflect your past work experience and skills that may not be displayed in your old online portfolio, if you have one. These types of resumes showcase all the skills that employers are looking for, as well as help highlight any gaps in your recent marketable skillset which can be addressed with additional training or education.
An executive resume should be short, precise and have an air of confidence. It should also highlight personal projects you've been involved in which demonstrate your professional growth and IT certifications. If you have worked in both IT and business, this type of resume should be structured and organized in a way that shows they are linked.
Some executives have been known to include their annual salary on their resume which is an unnecessary hit to their credibility. Also know that there is a fine line between 'truthful' and 'annoying'. You need to be honest with your accomplishments and prove that your hard work will pay off, but in the end employers are not looking for someone who will quit at the first sign of trouble (or even use a corporate excuse such as "I'm just here for the company healthcare plan").
Below I have outlined the basics of writing an executive resume. These tips will help you create a resume that has a professional clean and crisp appearance, shows all the relevant information about your experience and skills, but does not look or feel like an 'enrollment form'.
Use The Right Fonts
Use a font that is neither too fancy nor too plain. Use a font that is easy to read and bold enough to be noticed, without being overwhelming. The more attention grabbing the font is, the more experienced the reader will think you are. Avoid serif fonts as they read more like lettering than text.
The company name should be printed in a font that is easy to read, sans serif and sized at 18–20 points. The work title should be printed in the same non-serif font as the company name. If you're leaving a job, ideally you would list that in your position title as it makes finding previous experience easier.
For fonts and key information, see job titles and company names on this page.
Use White Space Effectively To Create Readability And Visual Clarity
This is important when you put a template resume into Microsoft Word. Many of the templates that are out there today use too much white space and it ends up distracting the reader. Don't be afraid to remove areas of white space if they don't add anything, but be sure to include areas and use them strategically.
Being a four-year IT Services Engineer and Project Manager, I really wanted to list my certifications, but my company told me they were not relevant to that position. So I removed them from the template resume I was using. When it came time to put in my information on the resume template in Microsoft Word 2007, I found that it was easy enough to do by simply removing some of the white space.
Use the right font and a balance of white space to create visual clarity. Not too much, not too little. A good resume will leave at least 10–12 points between lines of text. If you are right-handed, use the left margin to your advantage. Remember that the reader will be skimming over 70-80% of the resume so there has got to be some white space, or it will get boring quickly and they'll stop reading.
Using Microsoft Word 2007 and a template resume I created originally, here is an example of what you should expect from proper spacing:
Headings should be bold, using a font size of 11 points in Courier New (see "Fonts" above for recommendations). The heading should be centered on the page, with the first line of the heading one-half inch from the top.
Body text should be double-spaced and written in a sans serif font. The margins for body text may vary, but at least 10 points should be left between lines of text and there should be a header every 20–25 lines (a header is an indent of 1/2 an inch).
Use a smaller point size font for bulleted items or where you want to emphasize something, or use bold type. Bullets are easier to read than long streams of information. Use bullets sparingly. More than three bullets in any given area could make it look crowded.
Short Credited Titles
Titles should be short and credited to your previous employers. Many recruiters will not even read a resume if the title is too long. This is especially true with executive resumes. The average person can only read 20–30 characters at a time, so many will skip over a resume that has the full title of "Director of IT Services". It would be better to include just the company name ("Information Technology Director of Xxx Company – Denver, CO") or just the position title ("Principal IT Project Manager for Client Xxx"). Once you have cleared that hurdle, you should be OK for most positions.
Employment History
The employment history should be in reverse chronological order, starting with the most recent position held. Include years, months and days (MM/YY). Avoid including months only (MM) in the date, as it is not clear when each position ended. Also if you are in a field which allows program directors to move up fast and don't stay in a position for a long time, it may look like what you have done is not very important. Include the name of your employer and location or just city. Use only one space after periods (.) or hyphens (-). If you ran your own business let employers know as this demonstrates an ability to manage people and time. It also demonstrates that you are willing to take on financial risk.
Also, if possible include the company website, email and telephone numbers. This way they can verify the information and you get extra points for including it on your resume.
If you've held different positions within the same company then it is acceptable to put all of the positions in chronological order. However, if the employers are different then separate them into different sections with a heading for each position. The heading should be in bold so that it stands out from the text (see "Fonts" above for recommendations). Then below each heading list all of your former positions in reverse chronological order with years, months and days (MM/YY). Use one space after periods (.
Conclusion
If you are a new employee and your company does not have an established template resume, then consider using one of these professionally built resources. Be careful about how you use them, as there are many variations of each type of resume. Keep in mind that people will look at your resume for just 5–10 seconds, so make every word and font count.
Remember to play with the fonts, use bold headings to help it stand out from the text and don't be afraid to add some white space so it doesn't look like a book report. Once you've created the perfect template resume, it's time to put it into Microsoft Word 2007 (see this tutorial).