The objective for anyone making a resume is to land a job. That means you have to make an impact and grab a potential employer’s attention with just one piece of paper.

NewsChannel5 is on your side with some tips for making the perfect resume.

"An employer will spend 10 to 20 seconds looking at your resume," Karen Lieski said.

Lieski is a career counselor at Cleveland State University. She said make sure your name, address, phone number and e-mail should be clearly read at the top. And don't be cute.

"Your e-mail should be something with your name," Lieski added, "not some nickname or something like that."

As for what comes next, that depends on where you are in your career.

Lieski said, "If you are finishing up a degree and you're using that to apply for a job ... or you have recently earned a degree, it's beneficial to put education at the top."

Otherwise put your education information at the bottom. And leave the date off. You don't want to age yourself.

When it comes to your work experience, the most recent should be displayed first. And don't use full sentences. Use action verbs and bullets to describe your experience.

For example, Lieski said, "Use: assisted, directed, trained, led, aided, troubleshot."

And use numbers.

"You might indicate you trained 10 co-workers on such and such," Lieski explained.

If you've been out of work, you may want to make what's called a "functional resume."

Lieski said, "A functional resume is one where you emphasize your skills."

"Running a household of five," "taking care of a sick parent," or "organizing a church retreat" are all valuable skills to an employer.

"Don't forget anything about volunteer experience," Lieski said.

What are some other helpful tips? Make sure there's white space on the resume, don't list your hobbies, never lie, and remember that spell check doesn't always cut it.

Lieski explained, "I had one resume recently where the student talked about their computer skills with Microsoft 'World' instead of 'Word.'"

For those of you with a lot of work experience, only list what's important for the job you're applying to.

Finally, be careful not to look overqualified. Instead of writing "30 years experience," write "more than 10."

Related Link:

• More Resume Resources on Newsnet5