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January 19, 2008

Recreating Resume Writing Samples

It may be very tempting to use the exact language and styles used in resume writing samples posted on popular websites, but keep in mind that these samples and examples are used by a lot of people, and you don’t what your resume to look like all the others. Using the ideas and concepts found on resume writing samples is a good, practical and time saving idea, but simply copying them word for word is often a common mistake.

Think of if you were an employer that had to read 50 resumes for a job posting about a position for a sales agent. You would probably expect to see 10 resumes from people of various levels of training, experience and education, each with a unique and different set of phrases, words and descriptors about their previous employment. How do you think you would react if 5 of the 10 resumes had the exact same phrase "responsible for the management and supervision of sales staff, inventory control, financial planning and budget review"? As the employer you would probably think that something was definitely up.

There are several ways to use this same phrase or others like it obtained from resume writing samples. A few other ways to say the same thing would be:

• Managed and supervised several diverse areas including stockroom inventory, retail clothing sales, accounting and budget review.
• Supervised sales and inventory control in the sporting goods department as well as overseeing budget and financial aspects of daily sales on four registers.
• Responsibilities included complete management of retail and wholesale sales, store inventory and budget development and control for the retail outlet.

Taking the general information and adapting or modifying it from the resume writing samples will ensure that you do not use the same exact phrase as others may. It will also allow you to highlight the specific information that may make you a better candidate than other applicants that just list very general information.

Using the same format or style as resume writing samples is much more acceptable as there are only so many styles that are appropriate for the various types of resumes. It is still possible to modify the resume writing samples format by both downloading and changing or by simple recreating the format using the sample as a visual guide. Slight differences in the overall appearance of the resume can help to set it apart from the others, but be careful to not add too much extra that will distract from the overall appearance and ease of reading.

Posted by David at January 19, 2008 6:18 PM

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