Simone Green's Resume Critique

This resume needs a lot of work!! The first thing I would recommend is that it should flow chronologically. It's jumping all over the page and that's unnecessary. His legal experience should be deleted entirely and replace it with a "Skills" headline which will include his technical and soft skills. He should also delete his course work. Since he has a paralegal certificate, it's understood that he has basic/entry-level legal knowledge. He should also include each employer, what his responsibilities were are each company and the appropriate dates/title that he worked for each employer to make it "functional". If the position at Law Firm 2 was an internship/externship, that should be notated as well. His education should come first, his experience and then finally his skills. Lastly, his name is in italics and it's unnecessary. I give this resume two gavels.

Curtis Linder's Resume Critique

Everything seems to be unorganized on this resume. I can't tell if this is a functional resume or a chorological resume. For example - he has a section titled "Business Experience (1993 - 1998)," then he lists three outline-style bullet points explaining what he did in the position, and at the end, he names the employer (Company 1, Inc. - City, ST). He should pick a format style (again functional or a chorological) and stay within those guidelines. Even more confusingly, he cordons off his Experience section in three distinct Experience sections. Legal Experience, Librarian/Education Experience, and lastly - Business Experience. Experience (sometimes the section is titled Employment History; which is also OK) should be just one section. Trust the reader - we can figure out what "experience" you are trying to convey. Similarly, I also see people unnecessarily dividing up their Education section into two sub-sections. Legal Education and Undergraduate Education. Again - you are hoping the reader of your resume hires you - give that person a little more credit! I am not sure we need to see his full transcript of his paralegal coursework - itemized by semester. You could place "transcript available upon request" in your cover letter. His name is set in italics for no apparent reason. This is a two (out of five gavels) gavel resume.

Tamara Klein's Resume Critique

This resume needs to be gutted. It is such a mess that it is unclear what this person even does. It is difficult to read and cluttered. I give it one gavel.

Initially, this person needs to decide whether he wants to be a paralegal or a librarian. If he is applying for jobs in both arenas, he can have two separate resumes - one that focuses on his librarian work and one the focuses on his paralegal work. But he can't have one resume for both; the result is a cluttered mess.

I am going to assume for the sake of critiquing the resume that he wants to be a paralegal. I would start by either centering or using all capitals for the section headings - e.g., "Education." You need to give the reader a visual cue that sections are starting or ending. I would take out the "course work" section; I think it's superfluous. I would also indent the degrees or use capitals or small capitals for the names of the schools - by using the same font and bold for the name of the school, the degree, and the date of graduation the reader has to work very hard to determine where and when he went to school.

I would then title the next section "Experience." This section needs to be chronologically formatted. The experience section should be broken down by employers, not by types of job. Thus, the first sub-section under "Experience" should be (I believe) "Law Firm 1." He should then identify what his job title was at Law Firm 1, when he worked there, and what he did there. He also needs to be much more specific than he is currently being regarding his job duties - e.g., he needs to specify what types of legal documents he has drafted. There is a significant difference between drafting a real estate contract and a marital settlement agreement.

The next sub-section should be whichever job he held just prior to Law Firm 1. Even though it's a librarian job, he can focus on whatever he did as a librarian that will translate to his paralegal skills - i.e., research and organization. The last sub-section should be Law Firm 2. Again, he should elaborate on what type of work he did for Law Firm 2.

Although he can include a sub-section for "Company 1, Inc.," I personally would take it out if he cannot come up with a way to show that his experience there will translate to paralegal work. I wouldn't keep it on, however, because it is irrelevant to the jobs for which he'll be applying.