Consider Your Objective

• The most important element of a perfect resume is to ensure that everything on that paper is geared toward your objective. Your objective may be to get the job or internship of your dreams or perhaps get accepted to your first-choice school. Either way, you should tailor as much as possible in your resume to that objective. Emphasize your experience, education, activities and awards that either relate to your objective or can be spun to relate to your objective. If you want a public interest job, focus on the summer you spent volunteering for a soup kitchen and how that has prepared you for a career focused on helping those in need. If you are after a political job, emphasize your role in a college organization in which you raised money for a specific cause. You want the person reading the resume to make a connection between the skills you have acquired and how those will translate to success in their company, organization or school.
  
  

Focus on Results

• Many people make the mistake of just listing what tasks they performed at a previous job. Every listed task or responsibility should be results-oriented. If you spent a summer managing a local restaurant, did food sales increase under you tenure? If so, put in some figures. If you have previous experience managing a budget, was the budget balanced at the end of your tenure? Did you put cost-saving or revenue-generating plans in place that increased the overall financial health of the organization? Employers and other decision-makers want to know not only what your tasks and responsibilities were but also what you accomplished in executing your duties. Here, it's helpful to have an experienced colleague or mentor who has hired employees take a look at your resume and provide substantive feedback.
  
  

Meticulously Proofread

• The worst mistake you can make in attempting to draft your perfect resume is failing to correct formatting or grammatical errors. The perfect resume not only has targeted, results-oriented substance, but its presentation must also be flawless. Focus on formatting consistency. If you put the name of one school in boldface, make every school name bold, and every previous employer. If you italicize the second line of one section, italicize the second line of every section. Use a consistent font style and font size. Read and re-read your resume many times over to ensure there are no mistakes. This step is critical because, when done correctly, it demonstrates to the person reading your resume that you pay attention to detail, which is a quality everyone is looking for. Finally, have someone with fresh eyes proofread your resume at least once to catch anything you might have missed.