You have completed your resume and you are ready to send it out to future employers. Before you send it out, however, it is important that you proofread your resume to make sure everything is grammatically correct and it looks professional. Here are seven proofreading skills to use while editing your resume.
1. Time away
Do not proofread your resume right after writing it. Take some time away from it. Get a good night’s sleep and start proofreading first thing the next morning. You are more likely to catch mistakes after a good night’s sleep. The more relaxed you are and the more awake you are the better the proofreading will go. Read through your resume twice and then put it down. Go and do something else for a few hours and then come back and look at it again. That time away will put your resume out of your mind and you will look at it with fresh eyes again a few hours later.
2. Hard copy
Print out a hard copy of your resume to proofread. You can often overlook mistakes on your computer screen. Computer screens also tire your eyes out and you are apt to miss your mistakes when your eyes are sore or tired. When you print out your resume you will also know if everything is aligned well. You will get a better sense of what your resume looks like and how it flows while proofing a hard copy.
3. Out loud
Read your resume out loud. You are more likely to catch mistakes and will go more slowly if you are reading it out loud. You might tend to skim something when you are proofreading it. If you are skimming your resume you will miss some mistakes you have made. Reading your resume aloud will slow you down and make you aware of mistakes.
4. Common mistakes
You will probably omit words like “of” or “it” or “in” while writing your resume. Be sure to look and make sure your sentences are complete and you have your connecting words where they belong. Also words like there and their can get mixed up. Make sure your words fit your phrasing. If you are not sure that you are using a word correctly, look up the word in a dictionary. This will guarantee correct word usage in your resume. If your grammar is not correct your resume will most likely be overlooked.
5. Online help
Check online for tips about writing and creating a resume. If you start out with a good outline you are less likely to make mistakes. Resume builders can be found online easily and will help you construct a good sounding and good looking resume with fewer mistakes. Fewer mistakes will make your proofreading job easier.
6. Friends
After you have proofread your resume, be sure to ask a couple of friends to look it over. They may have some constructive criticism that will help you build a better resume or they may find some mistakes you have missed. Both of these options will give you a better resume to send to your future employers.
7. Contact information
This is a place where you want to double or triple check your information. Do not send out a resume with any incorrect contact information or you will not hear if you have gotten the job. After proofreading once or twice, put your paper down and take a break. Come back to it later and check everything again. You know what your correct contact information is and your brain will tell you it is right if you just skim over the information, even if a number is wrong or reversed. Triple check this and make sure your friends triple check this area.