The Ultimate Guide to Writing the Perfect Resume: 50 Tools, Tips, and Tricks

Writing a resume is a headache. Resumes have different formats, and hiring managers have their own personal resume pet peeves. How can you navigate the complex world of resumes and CVs if you have little or no experience writing them? The answer isn't as easy as downloading a free Word template and filling in the details. Resumes are specialized documents intended to display your talents and to communicate that you're a professional able to communicate details of your past effectively.

These 50 resources for writing a resume are more than enough to help you put together the best possible resume or CV. The tips and tricks here are collected from all over the Internet. If you're struggling with a resume, planning to write one soon, or just want to polish your existing resume, these 50 resources are the perfect place to start.

General Resume Help

Your resume is often your best chance to make a good first impression on employers. Before you start writing your resume, get help from people who have been there before. For an overview on resumes, what they are, and what they should contain, check out one of these ten pages.

1. Career Consulting Corner's Resume Resource Page - From the website Career Consulting Corner, these ten simple steps to creating an effective resume is the perfect place to start when researching resume writing.
2. CollegeGrad.com's Resume Page - CollegeGrad.com covers every aspect of life as a college student, including preparing resumes. After all, once you finish college, writing your resume is one of the most important projects in your life.
3. MSN's Resume Help Archive - More than three dozen articles on every resume topic you could imagine are archived here. From basic tips on how to put together a resume to more targeted topics like how to hide weaknesses on your resume, if you have a question on creating the perfect work resume or educational CV, it's probably covered here.
4. CertifiedResumeWriters.com - Let's take this opportunity to show just how many professional resume writing services there are online. This page is one of thousands of pages like it, promising to connect you to professional resume writers.
5. Resume-Help.org - Resume examples, writing tips, and tricks of the trade are presented here in an easy-to-read and easy-to-navigate page.
6. Resume Software Reviews - Before you shell out a ton of money for a resume or CV writing program, check out reviews of that software online. This site collects many reviews of the most popular resume writing programs.
7. Resume Templates - Some people work better from a template or an example. This site catalogs many different resume templates and provides them to you free. If you're stuck on your resume, sometimes reading examples of other people's resumes can jump start the process.
8. About.com's Resume Resources - This link goes directly to a well-written article promising to show you where to look for help writing your resume, but the other articles on resume writing at this About.com page are helpful in their own right.
9. Purdue Online Writing Lab's Resume Workshop - Spend time in college-level writing classes and you'll become familiar with Purdue's OWL page. This online workshop helps you write a resume that follows worldwide standards in terms of layout, design, and content.
10. University of Minnesota's Resume Helper - A simple but effective resume help guide from the University of Minnesota.

Resume Editing Help

Your resume can contain all your information, be completely accurate, show off your extensive skills and experience, but if the grammar is messy or things are spelled incorrectly, you probably won't get an interview. These links will help you improve the style and grammar of your resume:

11. WordStorm - This unique site is like a thesaurus and a word map all at once. WordStorm is a great way to relax before any writing project, and its ability to help you think of new words and concepts will help you get creative with your resume, CV, and cover letter.
12. Thesaurus.com - Finding the right word is tough. Professional writers, poets, and other word types depend on a thesaurus to brainstorm the ideal word to communicate their message. That means there's no shame in a little thesaurus help to make sure your resume says what you want it to say.
13. Online Word Count - Some employers are looking for brief resumes that outline the details without fluff. Use this simple online word count program to make sure you're not going overboard.
14. Grammar Book - Grammar rules, help with spelling, and all sorts of other help related to grammar are kept here under one roof. Have a question about punctuation or formatting? Grammar Book probably covers it.
15. The Writing Block Online - Stuffed full of general writing tips, this site will offer you plenty to learn, whether you're writing a dissertation or a simple cover letter.
16. Parapal - Parapal stands for Paragraph Pal. It's a good source for writing exercises, tips on resumes and CVs, and all other topics related to writing, whether creative or for business purposes.
17. OWL's Grammar Resources - The Online Writing Lab can help you with just about any editing or writing question.
18. Online Grammar Check - This no-nonsense web page uses a simple Java program to check your grammar and spelling. You'll want to give it a once-over on your own after the check is complete, but for the most part this program catches any errors in your grammar and spelling.
19. Penelope Trunk's Guide to Editing Your Resume - Penelope Trunk is a businesswoman with an excellent blog related to all things business. This three-step guide to editing your resume is easy to read and should give you a big head start on turning your resume into something outstanding.
20. 5 Tips for Editing Your Cover Letter - These simple tips will turn your everyday cover letter into a functional piece of your resume.

Resume Tips and Tricks

If your resume is finished or near finished and you want a little help to push it over the edge from "Good" to "Outstanding," one of these ten pages could give you the tip that gets you there. From jokes and samples of bad resumes to basic resume formatting help, these ten resources are ideal for people who are nearly finished with their resume but want to add a little spark of something extra.

21. Rockport Institute's Guide to Resumes - A lengthy and pitch-perfect guide to sitting down and creating your resume. There are tips sprinkled throughout, and the six-part resume writing guide is just the tip of the iceberg.
22. Resume Tips from DailyWritingTips.com - These 44 tips could be all you need to build the perfect resume.
23. NewGradLife's 10 Things Your Resume Shouldn't Have - Follow these rules and you're very unlikely to make the most common resume mistakes. The ten things covered here are the most common reasons why resumes are ignored.
24. Stanford University's Resume Resources - Help with writing resumes brought to you by Stanford University.
25. 6 Tips for a Recession-Proof Resume - CareerBuilder.com offers some insightful tips to help you build the ideal resume for the current economic situation.
26. Resume Tips from InterviewMastermind.com - Promising "badass interview tips and psychology tricks", InterviewMastermind.com offers people on the job hunt a few tricks to give them a boost towards employment.
27. Resume Tips - 20 resume tips from the University of Massachusetts.
28. 7 Tricks for Landing an Interview - From how-to-write-a-resume.org, these 7 tips can help you improve and target your resume and CV to the positions you're applying for.
29. Resume Jokes - While I wouldn't use most of these jokes on an actual resume, some employers are looking for the unique aspects of your resume. The jokes here are examples of how to punch up your resume with a little humor.
30. Bad Resume Examples - It's easy to learn from other people's mistakes. Most of these resumes are so bad it's laughable, but they can be used as a guide for what not to put on your resume.

Cover Letter Help

If the resume is your best first impression, the cover letter is the gateway to that impression. An effective cover letter is both extremely important and difficult to create. This one small detail is the face you show your potential future employer. Use these resources to write a good one.

31. CareerOneStop.org's Cover Letter Template - A simple cover letter example to teach you the basic format of a successful cover letter.
32. Forbes' Guide to Cover Letters - Trust Forbes to provide accurate and easy to read instructions for creating a good cover letter.
33. 10 Cover Letter Don'ts - Monster.com shows off their list of 10 cover letter mistakes to avoid.
34. WikiHow's "Write a Cover Letter" - Leave it to WikiHow to turn a simple cover letter into a 40 step process. If you want to do a thorough job of creating your cover letter, follow this massive amount of cover letter writing advice.
35. Virginia Tech University's Cover Letter Resources - Useful templates and examples of effective cover letters and some tips to help you create your own.
36. The Riley Guide for Cover Letters - The Riley Guide is one of the oldest sources of free career advice on everything from how to dress for an interview to how to create a good cover letter.
37. Gradkin's Cover Letter Guide - Gradkin is a resource for college students, offering career and job search advice on a range of topics. All Gradkin needs to show you how to write a good cover letter is one simple trick.
38. HRworld's Cover Letter Train Wrecks - These 18 examples of awful cover letters can help you avoid making the same mistakes as their authors.
39. CareerZone's Simple Cover Letter Writer - For an easy start to writing your cover letter, try this basic cover letter creator. You'll need to edit and embellish it a little, but it will give you a nice template to work with.
40. Cover Letter Examples - This site hosts dozens of cover letter examples along with a ton of tips for writing your own.

Sample Resumes

Sometimes all you need to create the best possible resume is a real world example. These sample resumes, from career-building sites, university resource lists, and other sources, are the inspiration for creating your own perfect resume or CV.

41. Sample Resumes from About.com - This collection of sample resumes ranges from the simple to the complex, covering resumes for young people searching for their first job to older professionals changing career paths.
42. About.com's Sample Writer / Copy Editor Resume - A specific resume sample aimed at people in the writing profession, this sample resume is a great guide for resumes in any field.
43. AROJ.com's Sample Resumes - More than two dozen resume example tailored for different careers.
44. ResumesPlanet Sample Resumes - You can buy the resume samples and templates featured here or just click the preview button to view samples of resumes for different professions.
45. Microsoft Office Resume Templates - Here are hundreds of resume templates available for Microsoft Office.
46. Quintessential Careers Resume Samples - Not only does this page host sample resumes, they also have tons of information to help you create your own unique resume, CV, or cover letter.
47. University of Virginia's Sample Resume Site - Another big collection of sample resumes for people in many different fields.
48. NelsonJobs.com's Bad Resume Vs. Good Resume - Two examples, one bad and one good, show what works and doesn't work in a resume with a basic text sample.
49. Bad Resume Samples - JobMob teaches proper resume format and creation by displaying hundreds of examples of bad resume writing.
50. Real Resume Examples - Too often resume samples are fabrications designed to teach a lesson. VisualCV's resume samples are drawn from real world resumes.