Making an impression with a top-quality resume is essential for getting the desired job. The goal is to quickly and clearly communicate why you are uniquely qualified for the position based on your experiences and skills. Hiring managers often get hundreds of applicants for each job opening. An unprofessional resume can cost you an interview as it makes you look unprofessional in recruiters’ eyes.
To create a resume that will get noticed by employers, you need to follow a few simple steps. Here are the top recommendations for creating a resume that can help you increase your chances of landing an interview.
Set Up Your Resume Formatting and Style
Before you start filling your resume with information, you must decide what you want the overall resume to look like. There are three types of resume formats:
Reverse chronological - The most common type of resume in which each section lists the presented items chronologically. This format is ideal for those with a solid and gap-free work history relevant to the position you are interested in.
Functional - The resume type that highlights skills and their application relating to the job description rather than work experiences. You can use a functional resume if you are a recent graduate with little work experience or looking to make a career change.
Combination - Just as the name suggests, this type is a combination of both reverse chronological and functional resume formats. This type is a great choice for people with a very diverse skill set and significant work experience.
Start With Your Basic Information
You’ve decided on the format of your resume. Now it is time to discuss what really makes your resume stand out: the written content. Your resume should begin with your full name and contact information, including your phone number and personal email address. Your name should be highly visible with a bolder or larger font than the rest of the document.
You may also include other information such as your personal website and LinkedIn URL, social media profiles if relevant to the job, or your address. Ensure you double-check this information and make sure it’s correct and up-to-date. You will miss an opportunity if HR managers can’t get in touch with you because you misspelled your email.
Describe Your Work Experience
Work experience is the most important section of your resume. Even if you are changing careers, employers still want to know where you’ve worked and what value you’ve brought to your previous employers. The best way to format your work experience section is to choose three or four former experiences that best highlight the skills and list them in reverse chronological order. If you don’t have a work history that relates to the position for which you are applying, get creative with how you present your other experiences. Focus on the skills you used and the benefits of your contributions to the organizations.
The format for your work experience should look as follows:
Job Title
Your position should be on top of each work experience entry so that HR managers can know at a glance that you have relevant experience.
Company Name and Location
Make sure you include the name of the company, as well as the location of the office you’ve worked in.
Period Employed
List how long you worked in your previous role. The standard format for dates employed is mm/yyyy.
Responsibilities and Achievements
This is the core of each work experience entry. When possible, you should always list accomplishments over responsibilities. In most cases, the HR manager already knows what the responsibilities are. Accomplishments show you made positive contributions to the company’s goals rather than simply meeting expectations. Try to limit this part to 6 bullet points at most for each position.
Your work experience section may be one entire category, or you can break it up into “Relevant Experience” and “Additional Experience” to make it easier for HR managers to focus on more important jobs.
List Your Skills
Another important section in your resume is the “Skills” section. You should list your key skills in your resume to give employers an at-a-glance view of the soft and hard skills that are relevant to the job you’re applying for. Mention your proficiency level for each hard skill, like coding knowledge or language. The indication of your level of expertise can be either written or presented as a visual graphic, like a skill bar.
Add an Education Section
Your education should normally come after the work experience section, but you can place it first if you’ve recently graduated. If your education is particularly relevant to the position, this section may set you apart from other applicants. HR managers are looking for brief information about your education, including the name of institution, location, the degree, the field of study, and graduation year.
Your resume is your key to landing your dream job. So while you won’t go through all these steps every time you apply for a job, you should keep them in mind as you update your resume for your next career step.