Know What To Leave Off Your Resume
Millions of workers lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic, and many are still trying to find gainful employment today.
The silver lining, Leavy-Detrick says, is that employers have had to relax some outdated hiring practices as a result. Most noteworthy? Job seekers with a large employment gap on their resumeonce seen as a major red flagare getting a pass.
If your job was a casualty of COVID layoffs, its worth showing how youve stayed active and kept your skills fresh in the interim by getting a professional certification, attending virtual webinars, or otherwise.
Be discerning with the rest of the content: Dont add salary requirements, infographics or photographs. You can also leave off your home address, especially if youre applying for a remote role, or are hoping to convince a hiring manager to consider a remote candidate.
Lastly, avoid the temptation to tick off every job youve ever had.
The resume is a high-level snapshot of your skills, experience, and accomplishments, Leavy-Detrick says. If a hiring manager has to scan through a really bulky one, theyre more likely to miss key responsibilities.
Anything beyond that is best left for the cover letter.
Digital Sales Representative Resume
Why this resume works
- Thereâs a lot you can include on your digital sales representative resume. The nature of this job means you shouldn’t be short on finding quantitative metrics to demonstrate your value in your job description bullet points.
- If youâre stumped on what numbers to include, consult this list: response time, number of active accounts, size of the average account, churn dollars, team size, ROI, social media post engagement, the number of products you possess knowledge of, awards, conferences attended, etc.
How To List Education On Your Resume
The next section were going to cover is your Education. Lets start with the basics – how to format the education section & what to mention there. Then, well move on to tips & tricks thatll help you stand out
- Program Name. E.g.: B.A. in Business Administration
- University Name. E.g.: New York State University
- Years Attended. E.g.: 08/2008 – 06/2012
- GPA. E.g.: 3.9 GPA
- Honors. E.g.: Cum Laude, Magna Cum Laude, Summa Cum Laude.
- Academic achievements. Any interesting papers youve written, courses youve excelled in, etc.
- Minor. Minor in Psychology
Here’s an example:
Tips on perfecting your education section:
- If you dont have any work experience, mention your education section first.
- Mention your latest educational entry on top.
- If you have a university degree, dont mention your high school at all.
- ONLY mention GPA if you had a very impressive academic career .
Also Check: Listing Cum Laude On Resume
Write A Standout Resume Headline
A resume headline is a concise, one-line description of who you are as a candidate. A well-written headline can grab a recruiters attention and encourage them to take a more detailed look at your qualifications.
Your headline is a short but powerful addition to your resume, often the first thing a recruiter reads. Take advantage of the opportunity to make a strong first impression. Its also another opportunity to include a specific job title or keyword that might be used to sort your resume in the ATS.
Top 5 Resume Formatting Tips
1.Keep your format simple: Remember, you have 10-20 seconds to snag a hiring managers attention. Presenting them with a resume thats overly crowded, hard to read, confusing or just plain messy isnt going to get you the jobits going to get you thrown out. Watch your spacing, font size and margins. Keep it legible!
2.Keep it professional: Avoid cute fonts, gimmicks, scented paper, glitter, odd shapes, or anything that could potentially make an employer look at your resume and question your sanity. Dont print on cheap paper. Show an employer youre serious about the job.
3.Focus on what you did for past employers, not just the job you held. Anyone can push a button. Why were you the best button pusher there was? What set you apart from every other button pusher who came before you and will come after you? Dont just outline the job description. What were your accomplishments while doing that job?
4.Make sure youre selecting the resume format that best reflects who you are, your work history, and the job youre applying for. Keep in mind employment gaps, career trajectory, where you are in your industry, and where you plan on going. Make sure youre selecting the right format resume .
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Choose The Right Formatting
There are three major formats to write a resume: chronological, functional and combination. Although most resumes follow a chronological format, the correct format may depend on the industry, your job title and personal preferences.
Restrict the length of your resume to a page or two. Depending on your work history, it may benefit you to focus on the most recent position you held and the most important educational qualifications you hold. Keep the descriptions about older jobs and less relevant qualifications as short as possible.
Related: Resume Format Guide
What Your Resume Should Look Like In 2021
Since the recruiting process has taken a turn for technological, our resumes need to adapt. For starters, download our 2021 resume template and then customize it for your own job search.
Over the past 30 years, resumes and the hiring process, in general, havent changed that much. That is up until the last few years where weve seen an emerging relationship between tech, AI, and human resources. It may seem counter-intuitive to manage a human-centered process with tech and AI, but when done with a human-forward approach, it can make finding a job faster and easier for candidates, and more efficient and economical for companies.
And since the recruiting process has taken a turn for technological, our resumes need to adapt. For starters, download our favorite resume template and then customize it for your own job search.
Since we spend a lot of our time reviewing resumes in order to match candidates to great jobs, weve come up with a list of some of the most important aspects to think about when writing your 2021 resume. We often get on the phone with candidates and ask them to tweak some of these resume mistakes and see them go on to land amazing jobs.
Are you making any of the mistakes listed below? Read on to find out!
Read Also: Where To List Languages On Resume
Finding The Best Resume Format Examples
Of course, reading about it is one thing, but seeing how these resumes look is another. If youre interested in seeing examples of how these resumes look in person, head on over to our How to Make a Resume 101 article. Just make sure, no matter which format you choose, that youre targeting it for the job youre applying to.
We also have to give some credit where credit is due. Our pals over at NovoResume have put together some really great content about resume format over on their site, along with a few great examples. This will be a great companion to the information we have already taught you here!
Other Important Resume Sections
The sections weve covered so far are must-haves for any resume. Theyre the bread-and-butter for any job application, and if you get them right, youll land any job you apply to.
The following sections, though, can really give you a boost here and there.
Languages
Are you bi-lingual? Or better, multi-lingual? You should ALWAYS mention that on your resume!
Even if the position doesnt require you to know the specific language, it can still come in handy at some point. At the end of the day, its always better to know more languages than less.
To list languages in your resume, simply write them down and assign them the appropriate level:
- Native
- Proficient
- Intermediate
- Basic
As a given, you should never lie about your language skills. You never know, your interviewer might turn out to be fluent in the language, or even be a native speaker!
Hobbies & Interests
Want to add some spice to your resume? The hobbies and interests section, while not a game-changer, can help show who YOU are as an individual. Who knows, maybe you and your interviewee have some hobbies in common?
If you end up with some extra space in your resume, dont hesitate to show off your personality with a hobbies/interests section.
Volunteering Experience
If youre the type of person to use your free time helping others, while expecting nothing in return, chances are that youre the type of employee whos in it for more than just the money. It leaves the impression that youre a devoted, loyal employee.
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Incorporate Keywords Based On The Job Description And Industry
The way an ATS determines if your resume is a good match for the job is by scanning the text for relevant keywords. Keywords usually refer to a specific skill , educational background , or previous position . You can get a good sense of what the keywords for the job are by looking at the job description. Note what the employer is asking for in the Qualifications section and see whats on the list of job responsibilities. From there, you can adapt your resume to incorporate the words and phrases that appear frequently.
However, dont stuff your resume with keywords. Using them once or twice, if its an essential part of the job will suffice. In addition, if you use industry-related acronyms in your resume, the ATS might only be calibrated to pick up on the full spelling of the word or phrase. Its best practice to include both .
Let’s Be Honest: Writing A Resume Is The Worst
Writing a great resume is one of the most frustrating parts of the job search. We sift through dozens of articles and compare conflicting advice to make our own decisions on what to follow:
One article says one page MAX while another says use two or three and include all of your experience.
And yet another tells you to write a quick summary highlighting your personality and experience while a different article claims that summaries are a waste of space.
You scrape together your best effort and hit Submit, sending your resume into the ether. When you don’t hear back, you wonder what went wrong:
Was it the single page or the lack of a summary? Honestly, who gives a s**t at this point. I’m sick of sending out 10 resumes every day and hearing nothing but crickets.
Writing a resume sucks, but it’s not your fault!
The real reason it’s so tough to write a resume is because most of the advice out there hasn’t been proven against the actual end goal of getting a job. If you don’t know what consistently works, you can’t lay out a system to get there.
It’s easy to say one page works best when you’ve seen it happen a few times. But how does it hold up when we look at 100 resumes across different industries, experience levels, and job titles?
That’s what this article aims to answer.
This article is going to walk through everything I’ve learned about the best ways to write a resume over the past 5 years, including:
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Add And Tweak Critical Keywords
Dont make the mistake of answering each job application with the same generic resume. Instead, take a few extra minutes to mirror it to the keywords and phrases within the ad. Youll be much more likely to make it to the next round of hiring, especially if an applicant tracking system has anything to do with it.
Avoid cramming in as many keywords as you can, or repeating the same words over and over youll end up sounding like a bot yourself. But do get as close as you can to the language of the job description, Leavy-Detrick says. On our example resume, weve peppered in keywords from job postingsmarketing deliverables,compliance,corporate communicationsin a way that sounds natural.
Heres another tip: If you plan to cast a wide net by uploading a general resume to your LinkedIn or Indeed profile, make sure its tailored to the primary job you want then update your keywords when applying to positions that deviate from the norm.
Keep The Format Simple
You might think that using graphics or a colorful design for your resume would put you ahead of the pack. And thats possible if a hiring manager is reviewing the resume, but your plan could backfire if it has to go through an ATS first. Research from TopResume found that 21% of resumes include graphics or charts that an ATS cannot read. Instead, keep your resume to one or two simple sheets of white paper and choose a basic font like Times New Roman or Helveticano frills needed. If youre not sure how to format it properly, you can try Scouteds recommended resume template.
Also Check: When Sending Resume By Email What To Say In Email
How Should A Resume Look
Your Resume Should Include:
- Additional key skills
- Reference List
How to Begin: Law and Order
The Resume Look And Feel Use Headings in a ResumeTo make your resume easier to look through, use headings for every section
- Personal Information
The 4 Most Common Resume Mistakes :
Mistake #1: Sloppiness . Close to 60% of resumes have some sort of typo or grammatical issue.
Solution: Have your resume reviewed by three separate sources spell checking software, a friend, and a professional. Spell check should be covered if you’re using Microsoft Word or Google Docs to create your resume.
A friend or family member can cover the second base, but make sure you trust them with reviewing the whole thing. You can always include an obvious mistake to see if they catch it.
Finally, you can hire a professional editor on Upwork. It shouldn’t take them more than 15-20 minutes to review so it’s worth paying a bit more for someone with high ratings and lots of hours logged.
Mistake #2: Summaries are too long and formal. Many resumes include summaries that consist of paragraphs explaining why they are a driven, results oriented team player. When hiring managers see a block of text at the top of the resume, you can bet they aren’t going to read the whole thing. If they do give it a shot and read something similar to the sentence above, they’re going to give up on the spot.
Solution: Summaries are highly effective, but they should be in bullet form and showcase your most relevant experience for the role. Think of them as a highlight reel the Sports Center Top 10 of your resume instead of a paragraph of who you are and what you’re looking for.
Solution: Instead of using buzzwords, write naturally, use bullets, and include quantitative results whenever possible.
Also Check: How To Put Education In Progress On Resume
Whats A Resume Summary & When To Use It
A resume summary is a 2-3 sentence summary of your career. You should use a resume summary in basically any situation, unless youre a recent university graduate or switching careers .
In your resume summary, you need to mention:
Do You Really Need An Objective Or Summary
Contrary to confusing sources floating around the internet, there is a difference between a resume objective and a summary. Both are short paragraphs that are specifically written for every application you submit, but there are a few key differences between them.
Briefly, an objective is a place for you to identify why youâd like to work for their company under the specific job title youâre applying for. A resume summary highlights the skills you possess, and how these skills have been assets for past employers.
Your sales resume doesnât require a resume objective or summary statement, but there are a few instances where adding one would help hiring managers by giving them a better impression of you. Consider including an objective if youâre seeking an entry-level role or are transitioning careers. Resume summaries, on the other hand, are best suited if youâve got years of sales experience.
Youâll get a better idea of each with a few examples, and weâll identify what works in each:
Poor resume objective: Talented employee looking for jobs in sales to continue building up my career.
- Gross. Generic and uninformative. It doesnât provide any useful information to hiring managers, and it just takes up valuable space on a resume.
- How fast can we hire this person?! This objective is specific to the job and includes a customized job title, quantified metrics, specific skill sets, and the company name. It adds real value to the resume.
Also Check: How To List Your Own Business On A Resume