Earlier this year, GovLoop and Young Government Leaders (YGL) launched the “Rock Your Resume” Project. It started out as a group on GovLoop in January, but has quickly grown to over 800 members. What began as peer reviews has evolved to leverage the experience of two top-notch expert reviewers – Camille Roberts & Paul Binkley – who are reviewing 10 resumes each month on a first come, first serve basis. To date, almost 100 people have received resume reviews. This is a free service we’re offering exclusively to GovLoop members…a service that would otherwise cost hundreds of dollars. If you’re not already a member of the “Rock Your Resume” Group on GovLoop, come check it out and submit your resume: bit.ly/glrockrezgroup
Normally, we only choose one resume for our “Government Resume Makeover” feature. The problem was that we had three people submit an updated resume in response to their reviews…and I like something about each of them. So guess what? You’re getting a “threebie” this time around (kinda like a freebie, but XXXL).
First, there’s Garry Christman, retired US Army, whose previous resume was a series of jobs and block-based job description. One of the main improvements that Garry made to his resume based on feedback from our reviewer Camille Roberts was to break out his activities and key accomplishments into bullet points:
Note how it becomes easier to see the key information quickly in this version below…
The second submission was from Shawn Flynn, who is striving to get a job as an economist in the Federal government. Check out the the side by side comparison of his resume below. Noteworthy changes include:
- front-loaded it with all his keywords – one of the most important elements for getting through the gate for a Federal job.
- brought his top accomplishments, well, to the top
- broke out the blocks of text to make them bullets
- made his titles more prominent
What else do you notice?
Finally, I wanted to highlight Justin Kugler’s resume since he’s been in the space industry, which has become a pretty uncertain sector these days. Also, his changes are my favorite of the three (but don’t tell the others). I really like how he has organized his resume such that the keywords of the job announcement are the headings of his experience – IN ALL CAPS. There’s no way a reviewer is going to miss the connection between past experience and present opportunity!
So this…
becomes this…
So there you you have it! Three concrete ideas for your resume. If you’d like to land a new government job or just spruce up your resume, submit yours in our Rock Your Resume group.
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Previous Government Resume Makeovers:
– Government Resume Makeover: Bradley Olin Edition
– Government Resume Makeover: Jacob Hoots Edition
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Excellent post, Andy! I do the ALL CAPS in the text version of the resume that gets copied and pasted into the online resume builders, but I use colored text in the .doc version to also capture attention. Certainly nothing wrong with the all caps shown above…great job, Justin! Andy, I love how you summarize so well!
NICE!! I’m totally working on revamping mine!! It really DOES make a difference after all!
It is awkward to see one bullet in its own section. Can that not be broken down into multiple bullets, especially that the one is multiple lines?
I just want to thank y’all at GovLoop for hosting this opportunity and Paul, in particular, for his top-notch advice. I’m really happy with how this turned out. I’ll be applying for the astronaut corps when the call opens up later this month and I believe I will have a stronger submission, as a result of this experience.
@Ari – Assuming you are talking about Justin’s resume. I actually think those one bullets are okay as it pulls the content out from the left…quicker, uninterrupted read, too…if not necessary, don’t add?
@Justin – Please keep us posted on your progress! Maybe you could even post the astronaut corps app in the Rock Your Resume group and we could review it and give you feedback as well! 😉
What a difference! Nice work.
All I see are red x’s. What am I doing wrong?
Carol – what browser are you using?
I have to work in my resume!! Love the work and the presentation here on GovLoop. The differences are so clearly highlighted and the recommendations so practical and straightforward. Thanks Andy for the good work you’re doing for job seekers. But the benefits to those of us in HR and hiring managers are definitely there too.
I also only see red x’s. I am using Windows Internet Explorer.
Sunni – what version of IE?
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