When you don’t save enough during the year, any short-term emergency can have you scrambling to find a cash advance. Yet, saving money does for an emergency fund or even goals like retirement can be as easy as adjusting paycheck withholdings to automatically do the saving for you. You can set up withholdings to different accounts to fund different purposes.

401K
Your employer will set up the automatic withdrawal of funds to a 401K plan. You should try to maximize savings in this area, particularly if your company does a matching contribution. Every year check to see if you can increase your deductions to bankroll your retirement faster. Remember to not touch the account if you can help it. Early withdrawals from a 401K come with hefty penalties and can set your retirement savings back by years. If you have to borrow from a 401K be sure to pay it back before it is deemed an early withdrawal. Also, keep in mind that should you borrow and then lose the job, the entire loan can come due at the time. If not repaid it is deemed an early withdrawal and cause you to pay taxes and penalty fees on the withdrawal that can amount to 30 percent of the total.

Savings and Checking
When you choose direct deposit you can have a portion that you designate go straight to a checking account to pay bills with the remainder going into your savings account for emergency purposes. This way every paycheck cycle you have an automatic mechanism to increase your savings. This tends to work very well because you actually don’t see or touch the money going into savings. If you don’t ever have an emergency or a major purchase to fund, it just continues to grow somewhat hidden from view. By the time you do decide to raid your savings, there could be hundreds if not thousands of dollars sitting in it.

Example #1: Spent time reviewing applicants and deciding whether or not they would fit in with the company’s mission statement

In this example, someone is seeking a job in human resources and is describing one of her regular tasks at her previous company. However, remember that your potential employer does not read your resume to read a description of your previous job. Instead, they want to know about how effective you were at your previous job.

Resolution #1: Hired 14 staff members over a 5 year period including 3 executive level positions; managed an average of 4 employee complaints per month; designed and successfully implemented an annual department review program

The resolution tells a little bit more about what you actually did while in that position.

Example #2: Managed a loan portfolio and analyzed potential new borrowers for the company’s various loan products

Blech! All this tells the reviewer is that you went to work each day and did your job. How exciting?! Talk about what you managed at work and describe your analyzing.

Resolution #2: Manage a $60 million loan portfolio including $30 million in residential mortgages, $20 million in federal grants, and $10 million in commercial real estate; analyzed new business opportunities through cash flow statement and audited financial reviews and background credit checks on applicants

This resolution gives specifics and tells the reviewer much more about your daily work load.

Quick, pertinent details are what you’re looking for in your resume. Keep it simple, but make it count!

This post is also scheduled to appear on GradSpot.com – Your destination for life after college with all the content, tools, and services you need to ease your transition from college to the real world.