Federal resumes can be tough to write because of the length and detail expected. Civilian resumes should be less than two pages, while the Federal resume is four pages long at times. Although it takes time, it is worth giving time to write and recall imperative career experience.

After editing and writing more than 100 federal resumes since last September, and seeing a number of successful candidates hired and promoted, I understand the essential components of a federal resume.

1. Demonstrate Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities early and often. The failure of most potential candidates in writing an expanded resume is not demonstrating contributions and solutions to the job. Sure, a person can pontificate specifically what each day is like, but the best way to be able to categorize each skill pointing to a career defining result, achievement, or impact. The federal resume must contain longer and detailed descriptions of work so that human resource personnel can reasonably determine the specific level of the job being sought (paraphrased from the 5th Ed. Federal Resume Guidebook, pub. June 2011 by Jist Works, author Kathryn Kraemer Troutman).

2. Watch overused and repetitive words and phrases. This is easy to do when the job seeker does not know how to describe his or her skills without company speak or jargon. Explain and display your abilities in several ways, not just one. Look beyond words like ensures, provides, manages, provides and other words or phrases that are repeatedly regurgitated and deadens otherwise compelling content. A thesaurus and dictionary are the friends begging to be used.

3. Speaking of words…work hard at defining quantitative and qualitative results. As I have gone to some Army bases to coach Federal employees on resume writing, I am surprised how many people who do not keep performance reviews, accommodation letters, or maintain performance metrics. A job seeker can plausibly estimate your job performance into measures.

4. Course work without a degree counts for something. In Federal resume formats, the applicant can list the courses taken as they relate to the posted job. A civilian resume only requires school, year, and the degree if finished. Projects from those classes can be documented, and sometimes positioned like career experience.

5. Professional Summary or Professional Attributes should be at the end instead of the beginning of a federal resume. This statement should contain 4-5 sentences summarizing career contributions and solutions that SELL your skills.

There are several places to upload a federal resume such as USAJOBS.com. You will have to comply with the character requirements, and the stated timeline for each posting. OPM.org is a great place to start before uploading a resume. Most job descriptions on USAJOBS.com with job classifications are posted with alphanumerically (GS-2210).

Have additional questions, or comments? Feel free to use the comment section below.

Mark Anthony Dyson

TheVoiceofJobseekers.com