Dec. 30, 2019 by Kathryn Troutman
President, #RESUMEPLACE, Resume Place, Inc. and
Ten Steps Certification Director
Happy New Year !
TOP 20 TIPS FOR 2020
FEDERAL RESUME WRITING
THE FEDS ARE HIRING: It’s another great year for #FEDERALRESUME writing and Federal job search and promotions! The NDAA 2020 states that many agencies are HIRING with a lot of additional funding for HIRING !! To be competitive and get BEST QUALIFIED AND REFERRED to a manager, you have to follow the 20 top tips for your Federal resume for 2020.
RESOLVE TO TAKE ACTION FOR 2020… WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOUR PROMOTION OR NEW FEDERAL CAREER ? If you think your #FEDERALRESUME isn’t working, get help. Don’t waste a year guessing. If you don’t have any of these tips covered in your Federal resume, you will need to change your resume, get our Federal Resume Guidebook, 7th for new ideas, or hire us to rewrite and format your Federal resume – if you really want a Federal career or promotion.
20 Hot Tips for 2020 Federal Resume Writing from
RP Certified Federal Resume Writers
- Use the Outline Format that RP created in 2000 with ALL CAP KEYWORDS and small paragraphs.
- Use the Outline Format Narrative paragraph style, instead of bullets or big block paragraph formats. Easier to read and each paragraph can feature the Headlines based on the specialized skills targeting the position.
- Add numbers to your resume to be more specific, visual and colorful in your resume work descriptions. For your current position, do you describe in numbers anything? customers served, dollars spent, budget managed, contracts managed, contractors oversight, employees that you supervise, volume of supplies handled, logistics statistics of any kind, percentage of improvement for new work processes, size of an office or facility, backlog of claims you resolved in a specific amount of time?
- Add more accomplishments that will serve as KSAs for your federal resume. Instead of focusing on duties.
- If the announcement has KSAs listed, use those words for the OUTLINE FORMAT HEADLINES.
- If the announcement lists Core Competencies desired or required, integrate these throughout your work history or education.
- Add keywords to your resume from the announcement – TYPE THEM IN ALL CAPS.
- Feature your most recent and relevant position for the target position. For instance if Job 2 is more important than Job 1, for targeting a position, your Job 2 block should be more substantial then Job Block 1.
- If you are applying for a job that requires technical skills, add them to the top of the resume, before WORK HISTORY.
- Add the words KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS after at least 3 of your WORK HISTORY Job Blocks, so that the HR reviewer and manager can find them easily.
- Emphasize the last ten yeas of your work history; before ten years, keep the positions and descriptions shorter.
- Take out jobs and dates before 20 years.
- Use the builder to build the resume, but copy it out of the builder and put it into a WORD format; fix the format for readability and organization of the sections; and submit with the UPLOAD system in USAJOBS.
- Write in Active Voice; do not use long sentences.
- Take out jobs that are short or not relevant. The HR specialists do not require every single job in the Federal resume
- If EDUCATION is required, add it to the top of the resume, before WORK HISTORY
- If you have relevant Certifications and Licenses put those in CERTIFICATIONS/LICENSES section on the first page of your resume.
- If EDUCATION is required, add a description of your capstone project, thesis or dissertation
- Keep the resume to 5 pages if possible; 11 point type; one inch margins; no headers; add page numbers.
- If your career is longer than 20 years, consider adding a PREVIOUS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS to provide brief summaries only of earlier jobs that you want to highlight – to keep the resume 5 pages.
Order the new 7th edition
Federal Resume Guidebook (17 sample Federal resumes)
PDF available to ship now.
Print book available after Jan 10th, 2020
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Order a $190 Consultation about the state of your Federal resume;
also receive a quote for professional writing of your Federal resume.
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