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Tandem Powered offers a full suite of Professional Resume Writing, Career Development, and HR / Business Consulting services.

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The Change Laboratory’s blog is dedicated to empowering people by highlighting best practices in the arena of personal / career development and organizational effectiveness.

Implied Articles on a Resume

Kent R.

Q: Is it still standard to refrain from using words such as "a" and "the" on a resume?

A: You are referring to a resume convention - implied articles - that is still a respected standard, although it is not the hard-and-fast rule that it used to be.

For instance, you'd want to write: "Earned Best in Class award for increasing sales 16% over previous quarter."  instead of "Earned the Best in Class award for increasing sales 16% over the previous quarter."

As we move (slowly) towards a recruiting and job search environment that relies more and more on candidates' Ideas and the real value they bring to the table, resume content is shifting. With that, there's a bit more flexibility, but you still want to avoid overusing articles.

You'll find that great resumes will have more articles than they used to. That's not a big deal. Sometimes articles make something "read" more effectively or they anchor an especially complex bullet.

This is also a good time to speak to another convention - implied first person - that is also the norm.  Never use "I" or "my" on a resume but always write from the first person. These pronouns are always implied. No exceptions. Some people make the mistake of taking a third person voice on their resumes. This is a big no-no and sends the wrong message.

These can be especially tricky concepts to understand, so be sure to send off an e-mail if you need clarification.