Every professional has to write a resume at one point or the other. It may be because you’re looking for new employment, or you’re changing your career path, or you may be updating your resume with further important details. Whatever the reason is, you must come up with a strong resume. However, since you don’t get to write a resume every day, you may not know how to create a resume that beats candidate screening tools, and you surely wouldn’t be aware of some of the new trends in writing solid resumes. This is why you should consider working with professional resume writers.
The truth is, your resume is more important than you most likely think it is. It is the first impression an employer has of you and can determine your employability for a role before they meet you in person. Therefore, you must ensure that your resume not only stands out but it gives the right impression of you and entices a potential employer into reaching out to you for an interview. Professional writers can help you write a resume that gives you an edge with employers.
This article discusses five of the best tips to write a strong resume.
1. Highlight the Most Relevant Experiences First
The first thing you should know about resume writing is that you need to target your resume towards the job you’re applying for. So when you have to list the job responsibilities of the previous roles you had, you must start with the roles and experiences most relevant to the job you’re applying for. This means that you have to think about the different parts of your current role that are transferable to the new position you’re aiming for, even if it is in a new career, and prioritize these roles on your resume. Make sure to highlight your biggest and most relevant accomplishments in the first few lines of a paragraph or the first two bullet points.
2. Learn to Beat the Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)
The primary role of the ATS is scanning a large volume of resumes to seek out candidates whose skills match the keywords that the hiring manager inputs in the system. So, you need to learn the appropriate keywords for the employment you’re seeking and use them so you can beat the ATS. However, it doesn’t stop there, unfortunately. You must also ensure that you’re not using a complicated formatting system that makes it hard for the ATS program to read your skills.
With over 200 programs available, it’s hard to pick out points that are consistently effective, but a few tricks are:
- Avoid fancy bullets and fonts.
- Don’t use pictures, graphics, headers or footers, tables, or text boxes.
- When applying for jobs online, make sure your resume is ATS-friendly.
3. Use Statistics When it’s Appropriate.
Your resume should include the results you achieved in past roles, and you should back this up with statistics. Statistics help your resume stand out from the rest and put you in the recruiter’s good grace. Those numbers will ensure they slow down and read your resume more keenly rather than glance through like the others, which can make the difference. Of course, there’s no new or catchy information in saying that you increased sales. Still, if you say you were able to boost your company’s sales by 40% within six months by training staff to communicate with customers and prospects better, then you are highlighting your ability, and this will interest them.
4. Spice Up Your Resume With a Variety of Experiences
You can add many other experiences to your resume to attract employers apart from paid employment. For example, different past experiences such as leadership positions outside paid work, philanthropy, freelancing, volunteering, and other projects can be added to your resume to spice it up and add more to your personality and skills.
5. Proofread
Proofreading is more important in resume writing than you can imagine. You want to ensure no inconsistencies in your resume, especially when you’re telling the employer that you’re “detail-oriented.” Take the time to go through your resume again and ensure it is perfect. It may help if you ask a friend to help you read through it with their fresh pair of eyes to pick up common errors and inconsistencies that may dampen your chances of getting employed.
Common errors to look out for are:
- Inconsistent date format
- Inconsistency with a full stop after bullet points
- Verb tense inconsistency
- Spelling errors
- Fonts, numbers, and text alignment
Check for these errors and have someone else do the same to be safe.
Conclusion
The more relevant details you can add to your resume, the stronger the resume is. You must ensure you get your resume right. Otherwise, your chances of getting a job are dim.