Creating a powerful resume can be challenging when you start thinking about all the information you need to share with your prospective employer. However, a few strategies can help you to create an outstanding resume that will help you to land the interview in today’s competitive market. Learning what to include and highlight in a resume can help you build a strong and visually appealing document that could impress the recruiters. The best strategy for constructing a job-winning resume is looking at resume building as a step-by-step process. In this way, creating your document will be easier to do and much less suffocating. In this article, we will describe 9 applicable steps for building a resume that can show your future employer that you are the best candidate for their position.
Follow these 9 practical steps to build your resume:
Your first and last name, your primary phone number (usually your mobile) and an email address should be listed on top of your resume. It is also recommended to include your LinkedIn profile, or an online portfolio link. You will also need to include your address. Instead of adding your full mailing address, consider to add only city/state information. If you are willing to relocate or open to remote work, you can briefly state this with 2-3 words.
This is an important section of modern resumes. Since recruiters may only spend seconds reviewing your resume, you may want to display your positive qualities and specify what you can achieve briefly.
When you write your summary statement, think about your “elevator pitch.” For example, if you stepped into an elevator and saw the recruiter who holds the keys to your ideal job, how would you tell about yourself during that 30-40 second elevator ride? Your summary statement should include a brief overview of your professional experience. Try to focus on experiences that relates to the role which you are applying. Also shortly explain your achievements, top skills and what qualifies you for the position.
This section is the heart of your resume and it should be more than a simple list of your work experiences. It should also effectively reflect your professional achievments to enhance your candidacy. For each work experience, add your job title, company name and dates employed. If you’ve been promoted or held multiple positions in the same company, you don’t necessarily have to write separate entries for each position. If your duties for these two roles were alike, you can seperate your job titles but add only one set of bullet points. Don’t use long text blocks to describe your work experiences. Since recruiters will have only seconds to scan your resume, describe your top achievements and main responsibilities preferably with max 6-7 bullet points (if you are a senior) or up to 3 or 4 bullet points (if you are a junior - the length is depending how long you held the position). Be accurate and brief. Highlight the relevant information that relates to the position you're applying for. Start with the most important ones and work down. In this section, you should explain your previous responsibilities, notable achievements and keywords that will make you appear right for the job.
Instead of this:
Responsible for technology transformation projects
Try this:
Steered the technology transformation process with utilizing effective strategy, resulting in a 75% increase in profits with minimal employee turnover.
Unless you are creating a longer-form resume, such as a resume / CV, the education section will generally be a fairly short summary of your academic credentials and achievements. In general, what an employer is mostly looking for is simply that an education section exists on a resume.
Education sections can be longer in some cases where the applicants may have strong academic backgrounds but limited work experience.
The key to making a powerful education section is to include only the most relevant information. List the schools attended and the academic degrees you obtained. Define and detail your educational background by adding information about your majors and extracurricular activities. Do not list courses. If you are in high school or just graduated, you can include this information. On the other hand, if you have completed a university degree, however, it is not necessary to include high school information. In addition to listing degrees in diploma, include information about Dean’s lists, academic awards or honors. If you tailored your coursework to a certain specialty, it may even be appropriate to include some of the coursework relevant to this prospective position. We recommend you to add your GPA if an employer specifically requests it, or it’s higher than 3.50.
The best placement of this section depends on what your prospective employer would value more: experience or education. There’s no set rule for where to put it, but here are a few guidelines.
Place experience after education if:
Listing your skills is a great way for the recruiter to quickly evaluate your skill set. In this section, you should list skills that are relevant to your next position and show your prospective employer what you can do. Add your soft skills and hard skills that relate to the role you’re applying for. Soft skills may be abilities such as leadership or communication, while hard skills could be programming languages or technical knowledge you know in the industry. The placement of this section should be near the end of your resume, you should include a section for any skills that may be relevant to the position and that can enhance your appeal as a candidate.
The goal of your resume is to tell the story of your experiences and achievements as they relate to a specific job description. The format is important as it quickly tells your future employer that you can follow directions and communicate effectively.
The goal of formatting your resume is to create an easy to read and professional document. Since recruiters have only seconds to look through your resume, your formatting decisions should make information clear and easy to find.
When deciding what font to use for your resume, don’t forget to choose an easy-to-read font. Many employers use an ATS, which doesn’t always understand and interpret intricate fonts well. Avoid “light” or “thin” fonts which can sometimes be difficult for ATS and recruiters to read on a screen or paper.
Here are several examples of the best resume fonts:
Another important point to make your resume readable is setting an appropriate font size. Usually, you should stay between 10 and 12 points.
Bullet points instead of long texts in experience section allows employers to easily read the most relevant information from your background.
You don’t need to list each function of every job you’ve held. Instead, pick the key impacts you made in those positions.
Adjust the spacing between sections.
Use“bold” fonts on the headers. You can also increase the size of your section header fonts to 12 or 14 points.
Set margins to no less than 0.5 inch all around.
Use past tense in describing past positions and use present tense for your current role.
Be consistent in your use of punctuation throughout your resume. For example, either use periods at the end of all your bullets or not.
If you’re a recent graduate, try to keep your resume to one page. If you’re an experienced professional with more then 4 or 5 years, a two page document will also be acceptable.
To shorten your resume, consider removing filler words such as “like,” “with,” “a,” “and” and “that.”
If you are applying for a job in the US or the UK, do not add photos. However, for jobs in Europe, Middle East or Asia, it is generally a good idea to include a photograph.
Resume power words are words or phrases that help your resume shine and stand out from the rest. They are usually action words that are striking and help describe tasks and responsibilities that were handled in work experiences.
Power words highlight your suitability for the job, as well as your strengths. Since a resume's first goal of selling oneself to a prospective employer, resume power words can help convince recruiters to grant an interview to an applicant, or even put them over the top in landing the job.
Resume power words used to describe an achievement:
Accomplish
Meet
Succeed
Reach
Win
Surpass
Grow
Resume power words used to describe a sales role:
Accelerate
Sustain
Advocate
Convince
Advise
Initiate
Enhance
Negotiate
Perform
Sell
Close
Resume power words used to describe leadership roles include:
Assert
Direct
Inform
Guide
Foster
Inspire
Delegate
Mentor
Enforce
Update
Use words in your resume that directly relate to the role in which you’re applying. To do so, review the job description for keywords and incorporate them in your resume. For example, if the posting states the need for leadership skills, you can list your leadership abilities in the skills section and work experience sections. Using keywords from the job posting will also help you to beat ATS and help you to appeal to the hiring manager. Don’t forget - the more relevant keywords you use, the more chance you’re getting past the ATS.
Keywords to use on a resume for HR:
Staffing
Sourcing
Training
Diversity
Gender share
Contract negotiation
Wage administration
Salary administration
Compensation
Keywords to use in a resume for Finance:
Credit
Profit & loss
Loan management
Return on investment
Financial management
Portfolio
Loan recovery
Turnaround
List of resume keywords related to Management:
Operations
Processes
Procedure
Policy
Benchmarking
Regulations
Reporting
While you can certainly create your own resume using a word processor, you can also simplify the resume-building process by using our recruiter-approved & ATS compatible resume templates.
This article has been written by the Succefy career team and all rights belong to Succefy. It may not be published on other pages, even with attribution, without permission.