I used to teach resume writing at a couple of colleges, and many of my friends ask me to look over their resumes as they start yet another job search. Here are the top comments I make on other people’s resumes.

Note: Keep in mind that I’m a woman who quit her job before having another job and then was so daunted by the idea of searching for another job that she formed her own company instead of sending out resumes.

So perhaps it’s a bad idea to listen to my advice. But several of the people who ended up hiring me told me later on that my resume format and color (I use burgundy) caught their eye.

1. Yell a lot more. The people I hang out with have really amazing talents, accomplishments, backgrounds. But when they put them down on a resume, they end up grayed out in a field of text. Highlight the big stuff — don’t be afraid to brag.
2. Be more specific. How many people did you supervise on a team? What was the percentage increase in productivity when you implemented a new process? People like numbers, not generalities.
3. Be brave and stand out. Use a little color, or make a bold formatting move. If you send in a hard copy of your resume, you’re in a pile of at least a dozen other hard copies of resumes. They’re all neatly printed on high-quality, cotton stock paper. Don’t overdo it, but do a little something that catches their eyes.
4. Proofread and be consistent. If you use periods after the fragments on your bulleted lists, do it every time.
5. Use strong verbs. You’ll find a ton of resume samples and action verb lists on the Internet. Here’s just one sample.
6. Figure out what’s more important — where you worked, what your title was, how long you were there, etc. If you are trying to get out of the technology industry and into mortgage work, highlight your titles, like Operation Manager, and de-emphasize the names of the companies. If you stayed at a company a long time, make that prominent. Conversely, if you changed jobs every year after college, find a way to make that smaller.
7. Show your passion. When you really, really, really want a job, say so. Not in a desperate way — just make sure they know that you want this position because it’ll make your life complete. I usually put most of my passion into the query letter. I applied for a job at a chapter for a national nonprofit once, even though I didn’t meet the minimum requirements. A few days later, I heard a speech by the president of that nonprofit, and I couldn’t help myself. I wrote yet another cover letter to the chapter, telling them how much I wanted to work for that nonprofit and how important I thought their mission was.The next day, I got a call from the chapter, asking me to send my resume again. I didn’t get the job, of course, because I wasn’t qualified. But I did get noticed.
8. Plagiarize. Don’t steal the content, but gather the resumes of your friends and copy their ideas for formatting, presentation, organization, etc. With a pile of resumes in front of you, you’ll start to see what you like and don’t like.
9. Follow up. This goes along with numbers 3 and 6. When you send in a resume, you’re lost in a pile, and you’re an electronic file or a piece of paper. Become human with a phone call or another email. If you break their rule about “no phone calls, please,” what are they going to do, say no louder?
10. Ask other people to critique your resume. You can’t do it alone. Get feedback from friends and colleagues, and you’ll discover typos, reorganization ideas, etc. And getting the opinion of a professional resume writer is not a bad idea. Before I decided not to apply for any jobs, I contacted a resume writer for a quote on revising my own resume. $150. Not a bad investment to help me stand out.