When you’re job-hunting, you know that you have to make yourself stand out from the other applicants, but in today’s tough economy that can be exceptionally difficult. HR departments and hiring managers are inundated with resumes when a job posting comes out. However, your resume is your only chance to stand out and land your dream job. Therefore, you have to make sure that your resume allows you to stand out from the crowd.
For this reason, it’s crucial that your resume is impeccable before submitting it. So how do you create this impeccable resume?
First…
1. You tailor it
Every time you find a job you want to apply for, you should tailor your resume to match that job. Submitting a standard template resume to every position isn’t going to make you stand out. Recruiters are looking for concrete examples of the responsibilities and skills that their job requires, which mean that you will need to modify your resume every time you submit it.
While it may be time consuming, it also benefits you in the sense that you will have to figure out what the position values for their team and what will be expected of you. This will show the hiring recruiter that you are the perfect fit for the job. You can use a resume template from Jobnexus or Novoresume to create a kickass resume.
2. Use keywords
Look, recruiters are busy people and they have a lot of resumes to go through. Unfortunately this means that most of them are not going to read your resume in its entirety. This is even more likely if you’re applying at a large company that uses a resume filtering software. These include those infuriating applications that make you fill out your entire resume in sections and then submit the resume anyway. In these cases, the software will be looking for appropriate keywords to push your resume through as viable. No keywords? The recruiter may never even see your resume.
3. Show don’t tell
Instead of just listing the ways you helped your company, show it. The skills section on your resume is one of the most important, however, hiring recruiters need to see examples of what exactly you did to earn those skills. Instead of simply saying that you helped increase your companies’ social media following by 8,000—explain how you did that. Giving examples is a sure fire way to impress recruiters and instil confidence in your ability to do the job.
4. Use some design skill
While we don’t encourage you to go over the top with this one, using a simple and tasteful header on your resume that includes your name, address, and professional title. Modifying a classic resume template this way is a great way to stand out from the pile. Find examples of resume headers to inspire you and give you a better understanding of what you should design.
5. Proofread!
It should go without saying, but many people still fail to adequately proofread their resume before submitting it. Even if you’re not applying for a writing job, having a grammatical or spelling error in your resume suggests lack of attention to detail and someone who rushes their work—something no employer wants on board.
