Telecommuting Resumes: Tips and Tricks To Create a Professional Home Office Image
by Sylvie CharrierIf you have spent any time at all in applying for telecommuting positions, you already know how frustrating the process can be. First, you have to filter through all the garbage to find those rare gems. Then, you need to send off your resume to an employer who may never meet you and expect that employer to hire you based on your existing resume.
Did you know that your resume for telecommuting has to be different from your resume for regular onsite positions? Your resume for a telecommuting job has to be your main sales pitch. It says everything the employer needs to know to hire you, so having a professional image is very important. You may never have the chance to sell yourself in person with an interview, so you need to make your first impression a good one!
The standard resume has a goal of landing you an interview, while the telecommuter's resume has the goal of landing you the job. You need to include more information in a compact format that sums up your most important assets and employment history.
Objective
This section provides a one paragraph overview of what you want in a job and what you can offer the employer. This is the first thing an employer will read, so make it snappy and exciting!
Overview or Summary
This section should be a bulleted section which briefly outlines your skills. Start each line with an action word, like this:
- Designed an exciting website for a production company
- Organized a team of sales professionals
- Created a new advertising concept for a start up company which required an expert consultant
- Sold over One Million Dollars in computers for an online business
As you can see, these types of action words get the attention of the reader.
Keywords
One of the most essential parts of a successful telecommuter's resume is the keywords section. Many large employers have a resume scanning program which scans in your resume without anyone ever actually reading it. Create a section called Technical Experience or Skills and make a list of every software program you have ever worked with, including those freeware programs you downloaded and played with. Separate the words with commas, like this: Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, etc. if your specialty is data processing, make sure you include your fastest typing speed here and accuracy level.
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