I have been a professional resume writer for several years now. In my experience, men have the most problems articulating ideas on paper.

So, if you need to write your resume, read this article before you try to get your wife or sister to do it for you. It’s not hard, and I have broken it down into simple steps for you to follow.

Define your job target.

This is the most important step. If you just want “any job,” this is not a real goal.

Look through the job postings at monster or careerbuilder to get ideas. When you see a job you would like to apply for, print it out. This will be your point of reference for writing your resume.

Write your headline.

If you printed out an ad for a Line Installer at a cable company, your headline will be “Line Installer.” If you are experienced in this field, your headline could be “Experienced Line Installer.” Pretty simple stuff.

Next, write your skills summary.

You don’t want to dive right into your experience section.

Why?

Because employers want to know in a few seconds what you can do. They could give a crap less if you write a silly objective that says something like, “looking to utilize my experience to further my career – me, me, me, blah, blah, blah”. They want to know how YOU can help THEM. Put your ego aside, it’s not about you this time.

So how do you write a skills summary?

First, we have to identify your applicable skills.

1. Get a piece of paper and write down all of your skills.

2. Now, refer back to that job ad I had you print out. There should be some matches (if there are not, you may be looking into the wrong career).

3. Find the matches and those are your applicable skills.

For this Line Installer job, one of your skills might be “maintaining proper grounding procedures.” Add this to you resume in a bulleted format.

Here is an example of what a skills summary could look like:

• Knowledgeable of proper grounding procedures.

• Reconciliation of customer payments and equipment.

• Ability to safely operate and maintain company issued vehicle.

• Physically able to lift up to 50 pounds and climb up to 100 feet.

• The hardest part is over (you can have a beer now).

Add your experience section.

This is pretty easy. List all of your applicable experience over the last 5-10 years.

You do not need to write every job you have ever had. If you were a retail sales clerk at the Nike Outlets part-time, for only 3 months, you probably want to leave that off.

If you were previously a line installer, you should list this experience because it is relevant.

Remember, this is not a job application, so there is no need to disclose every detail.

HOWEVER, you must not lie, stretch the truth, fluff your job responsibilities, or inflate your job titles. Companies are hiring background screening companies to check on you. Don’t get caught giving a line of crap.

Fill in the education section and close the deal.

If you are over the age of 19, you probably don’t need to talk about when you played High School football, or mention anything about high school for that matter. Focus on education and training received after high school.

If you have not completed a degree, you may have a special driver’s license, or if you may have completed a line installer’s safety course, add this information to this section.

If you are working on a degree, mention how many credit hours you have completed and when you expect to complete the degree.