A prospective employer spends at most 7 seconds looking at each resume during the recruitment process. So, for you to be noticed, you must present a powerful resume. But how many of us can comfortably say we are adept at creating that eye-catching resume easily?
Resume writing is an art that requires patience and persistence to perfect. You might not get it right the first time, but that shouldn’t be an excuse to quit. Instead, focus on tactics that could help improve your resume.
Knowing what to include on a resume will easily make you stand out from the rest. Check out these tips that’ll help you perfect your resume writing capability.
Improve Your Resume by Focusing on the Future
Your resume is more of a marketing document than a historical record of your activities. Most people fail to appreciate this simple fact. That’s why they present resumes full of information that recruiters consider irrelevant.
The trick here is to emphasize the credentials, accomplishments, and experiences that align with your objectives. This can be as simple as summarizing past job experiences without including the dates. In essence, the parts of your story that you’d wish to highlight in the resume must constantly relate to your career goals.
Make the Resume Short and Sweet
Many people think that presenting a lengthy resume to a recruiter is a sure way of impressing them. This could be true in some cases, particularly for jobs that require vast experience from the applicants.
Understand that that such jobs attract few applicants. The numerous qualifications one has to fulfill/possess before applying for these jobs lockout majority of the people. Recruiters, therefore, won’t mind spending extra time sorting out these applications.
This isn’t the case with regular jobs that attract hundreds or thousands of applicants. Recruiters don’t want to spend more than a minute going through your resume. Strive to make your resume lean and mean to retain their attention.
Every detail you include in your resume must be of significance. All your sentences must be tight and short, and they should highlight your achievements. Make sure you quantify these achievements to boost the recruiter’s grasp of these accomplishments.
Include the Correct Keywords
You might be writing the perfect resume, but still, you don’t seem to attract the recruiter’s attention. Well, in this case, the recruiter could be an electronic applicant tracking system. Most companies use them nowadays to cut on their time perusing resumes for potential employees.
Time is ripe for identifying and including the right keywords in your resume. That’s the only way the tracking system will identify you as a candidate who meets the qualifications.
If you are fond of using old-school jargon in your profession, drop it. Replace it with the current language in your industry. This is the language that tracking systems use to identify ideal candidates from the numerous applications they analyze.
Improve on the Header
Think of your resume’s header as a business card. It won’t be much of use to the recruiter if it is outdated and unclear. If you want to enhance your resume, make the header outstanding.
You can do this by including your contact information in the header. Ensure the information you provide is up to date and label it clearly. You could take this a step further by adding your other social media information in the header, for example, your LinkedIn profile.
Be careful when you include your social media information in your resume. Some recruiters use it to check your social media footprint to understand you better. Don’t let an awful footprint lock you out of a potential employment opportunity.
Bring Out Your Wow Factor
Wow factors are those qualities employers are looking for to see if you are worthy of the position. For you, this should be the information highlighting your accomplishments. You need to display the information prominently throughout your resume.
Spread the wow factors throughout the resume for maximum effect. For example, you should try as much as possible to boldly state who you are at the beginning of the resume. Use powerful statements in the middle to describe your past experiences and achievements.
Some of the questions that’ll guide you on the wow factors include:
- Have I been the best in any position?
- Any public recognition for your role?
- Any impressive accomplishments?
Replace the Objective Section with a Summary
The objective section distorts your communication with the recruiter. Recruiters this section as what you’d expect from them. Let’s face it, your expectations are their least of concerns.
On the other hand, the summary section is a synopsis of your professional journey. You can use it to highlight your experience, job history, and achievements attributable to you.
Skimmability
It’s prudent to make your resume short and precise, especially when you anticipate the job opportunity will attract many applicants. That’s your first line of defense in piquing the recruiter’s interest. What if all applicants adhere to this rule while sending their applications?
Improving the skimmability of your resume will set your apart in such situations. More often, recruiters will skim through the resumes than read them. So write short but concise paragraphs that’ll make their job easier.
Utilize headings and subheadings to segment the resume. Remember to add white spaces between the paragraphs to give breathing room to the recruiter as they skim through your resume. Sign up with resume writing services to polish this skill.
A Little Effort Will Help You Stand Out
The resume is a powerful document that markets your skills and capabilities to recruiters. Your chances of securing an employment opportunity depend largely on how you present your resume.
Most people know the basics of writing a resume. But that isn’t enough to get recruiters to notice you in the current competitive job market. You need to improve your resume writing skills if you’d wish to stand out from the pack.
Start by applying the above tactics, and slowly you’ll be creating masterpieces that’ll help you secure your dream job. Discover more articles like this by browsing through the website.
