Checklist for the Ideal Technical Communications Resume

Form

1. Never underline anything.
2. Avoid all-caps. Use the alternatives — bold, italic, small-caps, larger type.
3. Use tabs judiciously and correctly. Use your word processor's ruler to set tabs only where you need them.
4. Confirm the spelling and capitalization of the names of all software and hardware you mention. Most often misspelled words include: online, FrameMaker, RoboHELP, CorelDRAW, and QuarkXPress. See our Resume Typos article for others. Look at the Help/About windows or the splash screens of the applications themselves, or in the manuals for the hardware, software, and operating systems you mention.
5. Keep your resume's content relevant to the work you want to do next (or again). Do not include descriptions of work you no longer wish to do for pay. Focus ruthlessly on the skills and accomplishments that qualify you for the position you want.
6. Don't reduce your resume's type size below 10pt or your left, right, top, and bottom margin widths below 3/4" each.
7. Keep your resume tidy and inviting to the eye. If you know someone with a background in document layout or design, ask them for feedback and employ the advice that makes sense to you.
8. Avoid creating a functional resume — one where work experience is categorized by function (eg, Training, Managing).
9. Do create a chronological resume — one listing each job's employer or client, location, starting and ending dates (in mm/yyyy format), specific accomplishment, and the tools you used to accomplish those results.
10. If you're straight out of school or a Certificate program, have never worked as a Technical Communicator before, or have a technical degree (in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or similar), put your Education section between your Objective statement and Professional Experience sections.
11. If you have any professional experience as a technical communicator, list it before your Education and following the Objective statement. In other words, put your Education section after Professional Experience.
12. Check carefully for misspellings, grammatical errors, and lack of parallelism (especially in bulleted lists).
13. Be sure all paragraphs are left-justified.
14. Use tables only for your Technical Experience section, not for the entire resume. Tables complicate pagination and waste space.
15. Ensure consistent paragraph spacing, indentation, column widths, line lengths, bullet shapes, use of bold/italics/mixed caps and so on, as well as alignment (especially of right tabs).

Content

1. Your contact information should include your name, home phone, cell phone (only if it is safe to receive employment-related calls at work), and your email address.
2. If you have a web site of your work samples, list its URL. Introduce each sample with information about 1) its intended audience, 2) the circumstances of its creation (eg, fast turnaround, SME indecision/unavailability, rewrite, patch-up job, something-from-nothing, no time for edit/review, etc) to act as disclaimers, and 3) what you'd do differently if you'd had more resources (time, tools, willing reviewers, etc). Also, if the information you're about to put on the web is not in the public domain — perhaps the product hasn't been released or the company would feel competitively compromised if you published information about it — change the product, company, and other relevant names with a simple search-and-replace. If you want to make sure the company approves of your actions, show them what you intend to 'publish' and ask their permission. For more suggestions about sharing proprietary content, see our Candidate FAQ and portfolio presentation advice.
3. Include these categories in this order unless you have a very compelling reason not to: Objective, Summary, Technical Skills, Professional Experience, Education, Affiliations (and Awards). The Summary statement is optional; don't include one if it won't improve your marketability for the specific position you seek. Do not include your references' names and contact information in your resume.
4. If your resume is over two pages long, add a running footer to all but the first page. Include in this foorter your full name and the current page number. Your resume's length is irrelevant if all the experience you list is directly related to the job for which you are applying.
5. Present detailed information about the titles you authored (eg, WinWidget 2000), the kind of audience you addressed (eg, application developers), the tools you used (eg, FrameMaker), the skills you used (eg, reading C++ code), the results you achieved (eg, 'delivered online help, doc, and coursenotes three weeks ahead of deadline').
6. Never simply outline responsibilities — specify achievements and focus on your role's impact.
7. List as many tools as you can, and categorize them. See our Skills Inventory for suggestions about the kinds of categories to use, and refer to our sample resumes (in Acrobat or Word format) to see the results.
8. Include applicable coursework or continuing education after your formal degree in the Education section of your resume. Some examples of coursework worth noting: computer programming, systems administration, Information Mapping, DITA/structured authoring, publications management, and tools such as RoboHELP, FrameMaker, and Dreamweaver.
9. Omit graduation dates.
10. Include an Affiliations section at the end of your resume if you're a member (and especially if you're an officer or board member) of a relevant professional organization, such as the Society for Technical Communication (STC), Bay Area Publications Managers Forum (BAPMF), International Interactive Computer Society (IICS), Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Bay Area Editors Forum (BAEF), American Medical Writers Association (AMWA).

To send your resume to Synergistech, please follow these guidelines.

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