Tips from the NCRW Certification Commission
Editor’s Note: We will review essential sections from the NCRW Study Guide for the next several months. Members can access this guide for free at this link.
If you have a question that you want answered by the graders, please email [email protected].
We’re starting the New Year with an update to the NCRW Study Guide!
The Certification Commission reviews new information and best practices pertaining to writing resumes all year long, keeping a list which we discuss at our quarterly meetings. There weren’t many items on the list in 2022, but we have made some changes to the updated version of the Study Guide (available here). Here are highlights:
1. Revamped letterhead section (page 20) to incorporate changes and better explain our thoughts.
We addressed two best practices:
- For many years, resume writers have agreed that the client’s street address shouldn’t be included on the resume.
- As a general rule, we omit the http:// part of a web address and do not include guide words (i.e., email, phone number).
When reviewing samples, we see letterheads that aren’t as eye catching as they could be, so we rewrote our guidance on layout and design of this important section of the resume.
2. Advice on verb redundancies in the “Accomplishments and Contributions” section under Professional Experience (page 14).
We added just three words to this section, but if you pay attention to these words, your resumes will be much more powerful: “Avoid verb redundancies.” Very often, on samples and tests, we see words like “develop,” “deliver,” or “manage” used multiple times. Using a variety of verbs will make your resumes more interesting.
3. Best practices on personal pronouns in the ATS section (page 30).
In the ATS section, we added the recommendation not to include preferred personal pronouns (he/his; she/her; they/them) after the client’s name at the top of the resume.
We encourage everyone to spend some time reading the Study Guide. We guarantee you will pick up tips that will improve your resume writing.
