9 www.loubar.org March 2025 Résumé Tips and Tricks Renee Fulton When you’ve been a recruiter for decades, you’ve seen it all when it comes to résumés. Your résumé should show your work experience and skills in a manner that makes it easy for the reviewer to quickly understand your level of expertise and know what type of position you seek. You don’t get credit for number of words on this project, so find a way to get to the heart of your experience in as few words as possible. Here are some tips to get started: • Most résumés should be no longer than two pages. If your résumé goes to the third page, you should be at the very top of your game, running an office, managing a large group and having a career of varied tasks. I always say you better “earn” that third page. • Format your résumé chronologically. This means you list each job in order from the most recent to the oldest with your duties and successes under each position. • When you list the firm’s name, identify below it in italics the types of law practiced. Help the reader of your résumé know if Firm XYZ is a personal injury firm or corporate litigation firm, etc. Make sure to note what type of law experience you have. XYZ Firm, Louisville, KY August 2018 - Present (Focus areas: Litigation, Employment Law, Corporate Real Estate and Finance) • Do not use frilly or hard to read fonts. Stick with professional fonts such as Times New Roman or Arial. • Make sure your name, address and phone number are accurate and monitored daily. I can’t tell you how often we try to speak to someone only to find their voice mailbox is full. Email messages sometimes go into the spam folder so monitor that daily, also. Joe Job 123 Main Street, Louisville, KY 40202 502-581-5555 [email protected] • The space below your header information is a great place to show career achievements. This area can be a few sentences long and show the type of position you are seeking along with three to four bullet points of ac- complishments/career achievements that will matter to the employer. • Show all your licenses. Believe it or not, even as hard as it is to get licensed, about two in 10 résumés don’t show their license(s). Example: “Licensed in KY and UBE high enough to transfer into Indiana.” • Use bullet points instead of sentences as they can be reviewed faster. • Anticipate recruiter questions and answer them on the résumé. For example, pretend your job tenure in the last couple of jobs is five years each, but in the middle of those jobs you held a position for one year. The reviewer will immediately want to know why the position lasted only one year. What happened? Did you quit? Were you fired? ABC Firm (firm closure) August 2023 - August 2024 Notice how the short job tenure jumps out at the reviewer, but the reason shown beside the firm name answers the question. The reason is neutral so the review will continue. Only use this technique of answering obvious questions if the answer is favorable or neutral. Things like closures, losing clients, layoffs, etc. are neutral. Do not list anything on your résumé that is negative such as conflicts with bosses or co-workers or terminations. If asked in an interview, you would answer succinctly without a long story. Job tenure in the last decade has continued to decline. People change jobs for many reasons and lots of those reasons are not well received. If you have had three jobs with two years’ tenure in each, I know you will likely only stay two years at the position being hired. If you have some good reasons for such tenure, ensure that information is part of the résumé. Example: ABC Firm merges with DEF Firm. Sometimes the way the company name and positions are listed on the résumé make it appear the job seeker has poor tenure when in reality they remained with the same company for many years. In such a situation, list the name of the surviving company with the full length of service. Alphabet Firm, Louisville, KY August 2018 - Present (Company resulted from the merger between ABC and DEF) • For attorneys, most law firms will ask for a writing sample so have that prepared in advance for quick turn- around. • One résumé does not fit all. You may need to tweak your résumé when applying to different positions to punch up one skill or the other. The above tips and tricks will get you started on the right path. Also, working with a knowl- edgeable recruiter can help point out issues as well as highlight the right skills. We wish you well in your job search! Renee Fulton is a CPA and owner of Talis Group, Inc. Talis Group is a recruiting company helping clients hire professional level attorneys, legal support, accounting, human resources, technical sales, engineering and administrative and clerical candidates. Renee has served as Chairman of KYCPA’s, “CPA’s in Industry” committee as well as on the Editorial Board of KYCPA. n 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM Hybrid | 1735 Alliant Ave. Louisville, KY 40299 More details to come! C O N F E R E N C E EstatePlanning A N N U A L ESTATE & PLANNING AND TAXATION LAW SECTIONS Friday, June 6 co-hosted with: SERVING OUR MEMBERS
