FOCUS – “Successful people maintain a positive focus in life no matter what is going on around them. They stay focused on their past successes rather than their past failures, and on the next action steps they need to take to get them closer to the fulfillment of their goals rather than all the other distractions that life presents to them.”
― Jack Canfield
Here is something we have heard many times from misinformed federal jobseekers and even federal resume writers:
“I still employ the ‘include the kitchen sink’ approach as I assume that the USAJOBS resumes are still first being read by computers.”
No, no, no, no, and no!
Federal resumes are read by actual people, not computers. Writing your federal resume for a computer and not a human will in most cases put you out of the running for the job.
Keeping in mind that a human is sorting through hundreds of applications per vacancy announcement, and you must make sure that your resume clearly states your qualifications for the jobs as effectively as possible. Don’t let the reader guess. Make it clear!
The absolute best federal resume format to accomplishment this goal is the Outline Format with keyword headers. I have already talked about why and how this format works in this blog post: Help Me Hire a Minion. Please read it before you proceed, because the rest of this article will build on that foundation. You can also check out a full sample of the Outline Format federal resume here.
