The Resume Makeover [Paperback]

I work at an employment agency, and one day to sharpen my resume writing skills I looked at our bookshelf and found 2 copies of the 1995 (first) edition of this book. At first daunted by its thickness and maybe put off a bit by its age, a quick browse revealed that most of these pages are samples of good AND bad resumes AND cover letters. However, unlike most of the other resume books on our shelf, I was drawn to this one because it isn't all just about displaying good and/or good vs. bad samples; it also explains WHY they are good or bad. I was also impressed by the credentials of the author.

What I believe sets this book apart is how the first half of the book is a good mix of examples AND great commentary. There are excellent do's and dont's related to writing resumes and cover letters. It's rich with other great tips and hugely practical advice. You can also photocopy and fill out forms that help you gather information for the different sections of your resume.

There are also very practical checklists to help a person decide on a particular resume format. I personally benefited the most from realizing that I should use the "functional resume" approach instead of the "chronological resume" I had always been using. I managed to whittle my hugely overblown resume (over 3 pages) down to just over 1 page! In doing so, I also learned some great ideas to help my clients create much better resumes than before.

So why do I suggest that you not count this book out? Simply because some people might turn their noses up at the age of this book (although the 2nd edition came out in 2002). Even though there are probably many others written since that have a similar approach, I probably wouldn't be going out on a limb to infer that at least a few of those got ideas from this one. Also, I managed to get through the first half of the book in about 6 hours (longer I guess for someone who has never had their own resume), so it's definitely not a long read. And what you do read is so to-the-point and practical that your attention isn't lost very easily.