How To Build The Perfect Resume

Be Honest About Your Work

Youd be surprised how many resumes stretch the truth or even lie about specific skills and experiences. Fluffing your resume with fancy words and qualifications will not get you very far, as the truth will eventually come out. Your resume is a professional document of how youd like to be perceived in the business world.

Resume Formats: Defining Structure

Now that were done with the visuals, lets move on to the magic of text. The most fundamental division of text in resumes is based on content format:

• Reverse Chronological
• Functional
• Combined .

The Reverse Chronological format is not only the most common one, but also the most widely accepted among various employers and industries. The biggest benefit of a reverse chronological resume is its straightforward, easy to understand and linear structure.

It displays your professional experience and past work experience from most recent to oldest. This is great when you have a continuous history of work, and you can showcase some important recent positions. But what should you do if youre a fresh graduate or have a sizable gap in your employment history? This is where the Functional and Combination formats come in.

A Reverse Chronological order also takes advantage of short attention spans and busy schedules of recruiters by demonstrating your most recent and impressive positions first. Take advantage of those 6-7 seconds of eye time!

The Functional resume format leans on soft and hard skills as its main focus-point. If you lack experience as an entry level job seeker due to recently graduating college, or are in the process of moving to a new industry, the Functional format is one you should consider. You can also make the resume more robust by mentioning past projects, social initiatives, experience in other fields and so on.

A Summary Of Your Skills And Objective

Make a list of all of your skills. This includes computer skills you have and other skills that are relative to your industry . Your skills list should include both your hard skills and your soft skills .

List as many skills as you can think of, the list can be adjusted as/if needed when you build your resume. Where you put your skills section on your resume depends much on the format.

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Perfect Resume: How To Make A Great Resume In 6 Steps

A perfect resume is one that will land you an interview by convincing the recruiter youre perfect for the role. Dont know how to write one? We do, and were about to show you.

Resume studies say recruiters only spend 7 seconds looking at your resume.

A couple of seconds of someones time may decide about your entire professional life.

Thats why your resume must be perfect.

How to make one? And is it possible at all?

In this guide, youll learn:

• Why the perfect resume doesnt really exist.
• How to format your resume to make the most of it.
• What sections a great resume should have, and how to write each.

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Theres no such thing as the perfect resume suitable for each and every occasion.

And the reason why is pretty obvious:

Each job and employer has a different set of requirements and expectations. You may be a perfect fit for a particular type of position but not for every employer, and vice versa.

Each time you reply to a job offer.

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 .

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The Professional Summary: Your Highlight Your Story

The vital necessity of keeping your resume concise often leads some resumes feeling bland or emotionless. The Professional Summary is your biggest chance to add some color, life and personality to your resume. It demonstrates your determination, positive outlook and brings some emotion to dry facts.

• Write a Summary that has some character, energetic phrasing, action verbs and soft/hard skills integrated into your description as a professional.
• Leave out lengthy grammar constructions so that the Summary is concise but your qualities and achievements “jump out” at the viewer.

• Compose a Summary that is too dry or too rambling .
• Forget to mention important qualities and achievements right at the beginning.

The Summary should be energetically written to capture attention. Use action verbs and strong descriptive terms. Avoid lengthy, grammatically complicated sentences. This lets the achievements and facts stand out.

There are some resume action verbs you may want to use in your resume:

Some guides favor the Resume Objective, yet we believe that the Summary is a more robust and universal tool. The Objective can have its role in certain circumstances . For a look at the specifics, check out our dedicated article on Personal Statements in the resume .

The Unorthodox Route: A Functional Or Skills

Rather than listing out your experience in reverse chronological order, a functional or skills-based resume has bullet points that reflect how each of your skills is demonstrated by the work youve done over the course of your career. At the bottom, youll include everything else, such as your education, job history, professional achievements, community involvement, and other technical skills. This is a good option if you have a somewhat all-over-the-place work history and want to tie everything together neatly.

Who its good for: Career changers whose work experiences may not appear to be relevant and people with an abundance of temporary jobs or gaps in their work histories.

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Its All About The Keywords

Your resume needs to offer exactly what recruiters are looking for. So I suggest you should start by doing some research into what that actually is.

Collect about 15 relevant job adverts and make a list of the key responsibilities they have in common. These are the keywords you need to be thinking about when youre compiling your resume. Including them in your application, related to your own experience, shows that you understand the recruiters problems and youre the right person to solve them.

Copying and pasting as many keywords as possible from job adverts into your resume also helps you to get past Applicant Tracking Systems . These scan applications for relevant keywords to find out whether or not you will be a good fit for the job before your resume even gets seen by a human.

If youre unsure whether or not to include a particular skill, include the keyword anyway but change the font colour to blue. This means it will stand out when you go back and edit your resume, so you can make a decision then about whether to keep it in or not. Theres no point investing time constructing a perfect sentence around a word you might not even use!

Best Free Resume Builders You Can Use Online

and plug in your experience and information for a custom, well-crafted resume.

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Keep Information About Your Education As Short As Possible

Include only relevant education information: the name of your college, your degree, and the year you graduated.

Susan Adams writes in Forbes that experienced workers should include their education at the end of their resumes. If you’re a new graduate, you should consider including a list of course work that’s relevant to the position you’re applying for.

And don’t even think about listing your high school education and activities unless you’re under 20 and “have no education or training beyond high school,” according to Tracy Burns-Martin’s book “Before and After Resumes.”

List Your Personal Interests

• This section shows you’re a well-rounded person who people would want to know and work with.
• Employers often use this section at the start of an interview to break the ice.
• Casual interests are better not to list . This is really about highlighting hobbies that have helped you grow as a person.
• This résumé step is considered optional. If you’re having trouble coming up with interests, or feel your résumé is already too long, feel free to leave it off.

Examples:

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Include Your Name And Contact Information

Your resume should begin with your name and contact information including your email address and phone number. You have a choice about whether or not to include your mailing address. Your name should be highly visible at the top of your resume with a bolded or larger font than the rest of the document, but no more than a 14 point size. You might also include a link to your online portfolio if you are applying to creative positions, for example.

You Can Use Incomplete Sentences

Most recruiters can manually scan resumes in less than 20 seconds and then reading them. One of the tricks is not really a trick at all, but a simple use of words and not to complicate things. Mention the details as per the requirements of employers. Some people might have a problem with this, because from grade school through college, we are taught to write complete sentences. But it is perfectly acceptable to construct your resume with incomplete sentences. In fact, it’ is the preferred method, which makes it relatively easy to avoid words I and my.

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Eliminate Typos And Unnecessary Words

If your resume has the smallest typo an extra space after a period, for example its not perfect. Heres how to ensure your resume is error-free:

• When you write your resume, use a word processor with the free Grammarly plugin enabled to underline issues as you write
• Next, paste your resume into the Hemingway App to check for unnecessary words and hard-to-read sentences
• When youre finished writing your resume, proofread it
• If possible, proofread it again after a good nights sleep
• Then, ask a friend to proofread with a fresh, unbiased set of eyes
• Finally, proofread again to ensure your friends edits are error-free

Overview For Writing A Resume

Whew, that was a lot of information. Let’s quickly summarize what we’ve learned.

1) Always use an online resume builder, instead of Microsoft Word

• Itâs always better to use an online tool instead of Microsoft Word.
• Creating a resume template on Easy Resume will allow you to access your resume at any time. And access to unlimited resumes and a great selection of professional design templates.

2) There are 3 types of resume formats

• Reverse Chronological -This is the most common. Use it if you have a lot of work experience and want to show your career progression over the years.â
• Functional – If you lack work experience, use this format to emphasize your skill set. Itâs great for students or recent graduates entering the workforce for the first time.â
• Combination – If you have a lot of experience and a diverse skill set that is relevant to your job, use this advanced technique. For example, a web developer who has worked at a few technology startups. And has programming skills in languages like Python, PHP, and Javascript.

3) Follow our resume design guidelines

Read Also: Resume Reference Section

Build Free Resume: What Are The Best Resume Writing Tips From The Experts

Our motto is to help you build resumes for free and provide you guidance on each step to write the best resume. Choose from hundreds of resume customization options and you can make a resume free without paying any fees. Over the years we have worked with a team of resume experts, recruiters, data scientist, engineers and designers to come with a resume generator which any person can use with zero or no technical knowledge. We’ll know share the best tips which our resume expert team has come up and this will help you land interviews! You can also import your current resume to Google docs or Microsoft word and make changes to your standard resume. One-page resume is a comprehensive resume for your prospective employers.

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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Include An Education Section

An education section will be especially valuable if you have limited work experience or if you are transferring to a new industry. You can include information such as:

• Relevant coursework

• Grade point average

• Participation in clubs or organizations

• Leadership positions held

• Awards, achievements or certifications

When writing your education section, you should include the name of the institution, dates of attendance and your degree or area of study. If you are applying to mid or higher-level positions, you might remove all but the name of your school and dates of attendance to make room for more relevant professional experience on your resume.

If you have certifications or licenses that are relevant to the job description, you can include them in this section as well. To save space, you can leave off any credentials that are not directly related to the requirements of this job.

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How To Create The Perfect Resume

The perfect resume should be concise and neatly formatted so that employers or hiring managers can read it easily. We have provided a step-by-step guide to improving your resume so that your applications are not cast aside because of their appearance.

• Completely free trial, no card required.
• Reach over 250 million candidates.

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How Does Buildfreeresumecom Work

Select Basic template to build a resume and you can download résumé 100% no payment.The best resume app will always guide you to success. Above all, you should remember that you should create one résumé for one job only!

Highlight Your Relevant Job Skills

Hiring managers are on the lookout for candidates who have relevant, job-specific skills. While listing a heap of skills on your resume doesnt actually prove youre skilled, incorporating your various skills into different sections will catch the eye of whoever is vetting your application.

For instance, you can showcase your hard and soft skills in your introduction and work experience section. And of course, you should also list your most valuable abilities in your resumes skills section.

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Write A Winning Resume Introduction

Placed at the top of your resume, a well-written resume introduction briefly introduces your key qualifications and skills, and convinces employers to continue reading your application.

There are many different types of resume introductions used by job seekers today, including the:

However, the two most commonly used introduction styles are the resume objective and the resume summary.