How to Overcome Your Fear of Writing Your Resume

It may sound funny to be afraid of writing a resume, but the feeling is real. Lots of people delay their job search, sandbag their efforts, and otherwise procrastinate moving on to better opportunities because they're simply intimidated by the process of putting their career on paper.

Indeed, it can seem like a formidable task when you first look at it. You are, after all, trying to document years or even decades of your work. On top of that, your resume not only has to be thorough, it has to be compelling and persuasive as well. And the quality of your resume can dictate how long or short your job search is and how good of a job you end up with -- either of which means thousands of dollars at stake.

But before you faint over the task, remember these important points that can get you over your resume intimidation:

Take it In Bite Size Chunks
Resume writing can be intimidating largely because there's so much work to do before you're finished. But don't get freaked out by the sheer scale of the project. Even professional resume writers usually don't just sit down and jam out fully finished resumes in one shot. Many of them work on different projects at once and gradually refine them in several short sessions. So take a cue from the pros and do it in stages -- best of all over several days or even a week.

Organize First
Writing of any type is harder when you don't have a plan or structure for your writing. So before you start to work on a first draft, get your facts together -- dates, job titles, accomplishments, and other key details. This is where you may need to do some brainstorming. Then decide on what format you're going to use for your resume -- functional, chronological, or combination. At this point, you have the facts of what you're going to build your resume out of, and you know the framework. Not so difficult, huh?