Here is an effective method for formatting your waitress resume.
Margins - thin margins with long sentences require extensive eye movement to capture the words in the sentence, which negatively affects comprehension. When the reader can easily understand your story, they can easily evaluate your fit to the job they must fill.
Fonts - unfettered, clean, good sized fonts (such as 12 point Arial or Times Roman) make the document easy to read, shortening the time it takes for word, phrase and sentence cognition. Remember, the hiring manager is probably closer to your parent's age than yours, so make that resume easy to read.
Lines, boxes and shading - over use of graphical structures confuse the eye and distract from the focus of your story. The best use of these structures in a resume is to delineate major sections of the document, such as Education and Experience, and not specific details of a single job or training experience.
Shading, and extensive use of color, can end up making your resume look like ransom note crabbed together from various magazine article titles, which will limit your resume review to the few moments it takes to give everyone a good laugh, and leave you without the opportunity to receive serious consideration.
There are trade-offs with any resumé format; bullet point formats work, as long as your points match up well to those the employers are seeking. Text oriented story line formats also work, if you can be concise so as to not bore the reader.
The following recommendation on format is based on your background.
Bullet Point Format - If you have 10-20+ years of experience in several positions at one, two or three companies, bullet points may be the best way to display your background in it's entirety, without assigning the arduous task of reading the entire job history to the reader.
The most useful aspect of the bullet point format is the ability to easily customize your resumé to a specific job for which you are applying. However, it is not advisable to radically change your resumé for every position for which you apply. The difficulty is that once you get an interview, you'll have to support the claims made in the resumé. If you radically customize a resumé for each job, aiming it specifically at the position for which you are applying, you run the risk of not knowing exactly what resumé version you are trying to support.
However, there are times when you may want to emphasize one area of expertise over another (i.e., project work over project management experience or vise versa) to indicate your unique qualifications for the job at hand. With bullet points, you can simply delete those items that don't apply to the position, and/or add some of the more esoteric aspects of your job experience that apply well to the position you are seeking.
Story-line Format - If you have 10-20+ years of experience at five or more companies, a story-line format may be best. With a Bullet Point format, where there are many jobs, there may be fewer bullet points on each, leaving your experience at each position looking too sparse.
Without regard to format, consider that it may benefit you to present your work history in two basic versions of your resumé. A short one, with your recent work history for your initial contact, and a longer one, with EVERYTHING going back to your first job to take to the interview.
There are several reasons for this:
- a shorter resumé does not obviously give away your age - in a perfect world, age discrimination does not exist, and recruiters respect experience. In the real world, age discrimination is rampant, and youth over experience is the rule. Try to fool the one who makes the first cut decision into the impression of youth, providing you the opportunity to get your background recognized, and perhaps secure an interview.
- a shorter resumé serves to introduce you in the fewest words. It's a quick glimpse of "what have you done for me lately" that recruiters want for their first cut decision, without the minutiae.
- the longer waitress resumé (listing everything) shows your growth as an employee and indicates you have nothing to hide.
- the longer waitress resumé becomes useful when the interview process is over, when recruiters and hiring managers will take the time to read the whole document, using the information to break ties between equal candidates.
