How To Make A Good Resume For A Job

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.

Whats A Resume Objective & When To Use It

A resume objective is, in a nutshell, the goal of your resume. It communicates your motivation for getting into a new field. As with a resume summary, a resume objective should be around 2-3 sentences.

As weve mentioned before, a resume objective is the go-to for anyone that either has no work experience or is going through a career change.

Formula to Create Your Resume Objective:

Looking to apply my at

to help .

Examples of Resume Objectives

1) So, heres how that would look like if youre a student:

• Hard-working recent graduate with a B.A. in Graphic Design from New York State University seeking new opportunities. 3+ years of practical experience working with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, creating illustrations & designing UX / UI. Looking to grow as a designer, as well as perfect my art, at the XYZ Design Studio.

2) Or, on the other hand, if youre going through a career change:

• IT project manager with 5+ years of experience in software development. Managed a team of developers to create products for several industries, such as FinTech and HR tech. Looking to leverage my experience in managing outsourced products as a Product Owner at XYZ.

How Long Should My Resume Be

Your resume should be approximately two pages long. If it is substantially longer, eliminate information that isnt relevant to the role or industry. For instance, look back at the key skills and attributes required for the job in question and then review your resume are you using valuable space to describe skills, attributes and responsibilities from roles that dont match up to the job in question? If so, remove this content or, at the least, simplify your language. On your resume, you must get to the point, so dont use ten words to say something you could say in five.

On the other hand, one page may suffice in certain circumstances. The main thing to keep in mind when youre writing your resume is that you must be able to demonstrate and articulate your skills, experience, and future potential to the reader. If you can do that well in one page, thats great. However, the average length of a resume is usually around two pages.

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Writing A Resume With No Experience

Writing your first resume is a major step in any new professionals career. This is your opportunity to showcase why youre an excellent candidate and how youve prepared yourself to succeed in your first job.

When youre entering the job market for the first time and creating a resume with no work experience, youll want to focus on other experiences that helped you develop a professional skill set, share your greatest strengths and highlight your education. In this article, we offer some tips and examples to help you develop a powerful and compelling resume with no work experience.

How To List Skills In Your Resume

When mentioning skills in your resume, there are 3 essential steps to follow:

Step #1 – List Hard Skills with Experience Levels. For each hard skill you list, you want to mention your proficiency level:

As a rule of thumb, you can divide them by:

Beginner – You have some experience with the skill, whether its from some entry-level practice or classroom education.

Intermediate – Youve used the skill in a work environment with a good level of understanding.

Advanced – Youre the go-to person for the skill in your office. You can coach other employees, and understand the skill on a high level.

Expert – Youve applied this skill in more than a handful of different projects & organizations. Youre the go-to person for advice about the skill, not just in your office, but even amongst some of the best professionals in your field.

Make sure to NEVER lie about your skill levels. Otherwise, its going to be pretty awkward both for you and your employer.

Imagine your first task at work as an Illustrator – to create a graphic vector to go nicely with an article. If you end up delivering a hastily drawn stick figure colored with a paint bucket tool in Microsoft Paint, youll be out of the job before your probation period ends.

Step #2 – Tailor Your Skills to the Job. You might have some super rare, awesome skills, but theyre not always going to be useful. For example, its awesome that you know accounting, but would you really need it at your new job as a line cook? Exactly!

Systems:

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Key Skills Youve Learned In School And Other Experiences

After your professional summary, list your skills that are relevant to the position you are applying for. To get a good idea of the skills required for a job, simply browse job descriptions for that specific job title. Typically, within the requirements or qualifications section, there will be many skills listed that you can copy.

Dont be afraid to list skills that you havent used in a professional setting. If you have learned about them in school or if you have practiced these skills during an extracurricular activity, list them! Just make sure you are honest during an interview about your level of competency.

Example of how to list less than 10 key skills in a resume:

• Time Management

Example of how to list more than 10 key skills in a resume:

• Leadership: Team Management, Resource Planning, Budgeting
• Math: Data Entry, Data Analytics, Statistics
• Professionalism: Active Listening, Office Etiquette, Professional Communication, Time Management
• Languages: English , Spanish

Customize For The Job You Want

Respond directly to the job description and explain exactly why you are the candidate for the role. You can do this by relating your accomplishments to the elements of the job role.

Employers want candidates to understand the role they are applying for, and the more you can demonstrate this, the more your CV will stand out.

It might take longer for you to write your CV, especially when applying for a large number of roles, but it if it helps you to find your perfect position then it is time well spent!

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Details You Shouldnt Include In Your Cover Letter

The following information makes your cover letter unprofessional, and may even invite discrimination from your potential employer. Delete any of the following from any of your application documents:

• Personal information, such as family, religion, sexual orientation, or gender
• Salary information, such as former salary, or salary expectations
• Questions and inquiries, such as ones about company benefits or job expectations. If you need to know, ask in an email outside of your application, or during the interview process.
• Information copy-pasted from your resume, such as bullet point sentences or skills lists. Instead, reference information from your resume in your cover letter naturally, and expand on it.
• , like a professional headshot. If youre a US-based job seeker, headshots are not necessary for the vast majority of jobs.

Create A Clear Education Section

Having a clear education section is essential for your resume, especially if youre a recent college graduate or have minimal work experience.

If you lack professional experience but have a good track record in school , your education section should be highly detailed to highlight all of your education-related accomplishments.

On the other hand, if you possess more than a few years of professional experience, then its appropriate to keep your education section short and sweet.

Additionally, if youre a student or recent graduate, list your education section above the experience section of your resume. This way, you emphasize your most marketable qualifications at the top of the page.

Here are the main points to include in a standard education section:

• The names of your university, community college, or technical school
• Location of the schools
• Date of graduation
• Degree
• GPA

Additionally, include relevant coursework on your resume if youre a recent graduate and dont have much work experience yet.

Here are two examples demonstrating how to format your education section:

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Make It Known You’re In The Market For A Remote Job

Although some job listings are obviously for remote roles, that won’t always be the case. Sometimes companies will list their headquarters as the location and note that remote work is allowed. In other instances, companies might not mention remote work at all but will consider it as an option if you’re qualified for the role.

Whatever the case, it’s your job to make it clear in your application, cover letter, and resume that you’re seeking a remote opportunity.

For example, resumes traditionally include at least the city and state of your address. It ups your legitimacy, and it sets employers’ expectations will they need to fly you in for an interview or offer a relocation stipend if you land the job? However, if you’re applying for a remote position that doesn’t have any specific location requirements, your physical address isn’t as important. Therefore, you have a few options: You can still list your physical address, you can leave it off, or you can simply state remote or location independent in the space instead.

Another area where you can highlight your desire to work remotely includes your professional summary. This is where you set your intent as a job applicant and it’s the perfect spot to mention your desire and ability to work remotely. Also, if you’ve previously held remote positions, call those out in your work experience section by listing remote in place of the company’s location.

Emphasize Relevant School Experience

You can also use your resume education section to highlight transferable skills you picked up as a student.

If you completed relevant coursework that makes a strong case for you to get a job in your new industry, add it to your work experience section. You can use bullet points to highlight skills you learned in that class, like this:

You can also list a relevant class plus your GPA on your resume, and even other school honors you received. These relevant details show employers youre more interested in their field than your work experience might first suggest.

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+ Effective Resume Examples

Knowing how to write a resume is one thing, actually creating a resume that stands out is something else entirely. Without inspiration, even top career experts might stumble on a roadblock or two.

Check out the following effective resume examples to get a better sense of what a good resume looks like…

Want to see more examples? Check out our compilation of 20+ resume examples for different fields.

Importance Of A Good Cv

Think of your CV as your own living, breathing personal pitch a pitch that succinctly answers all the questions a recruiter or hiring manager has about you. The degree to which you present the reader with the information they require to make an informed decision can determine whether you are invited to interview.

This includes why you are applying for this job, with this organisation and in this industry, what value you can bring to the organisation and whether you have what is required to be successful in the role.

To leave the reader with no doubt about your suitability, you must present a strong CV that clearly conveys this information.

To do this, below youll find our tips on how to write a resume. Alternatively, you can download our resume template.

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Present A Compelling Narrative

Your resume should tell a clear story as to why your experience and skills qualify you for the position you are applying for, Augustine said.

Therefore, TopResume recommends a hybrid-resume format that is not fully chronological. Instead, the top third of the resume should give employers a quick glance at why it makes sense to talk to you, she explained. It should include your contact information, professional title, professional summary and areas of expertise.

Then, dive into your work experience.

Graphic Designer Resume Objective

Innovative and creative graphic designer seeking a position in an agency setting to apply unique ideas when creating and developing visually appealing productions that align with client goals and resonate with viewers and potential customers.

Creative and knowledgeable graphic designer looking for a position in a positive and team-based work atmosphere to develop and refine graphics, documents and digital renderings that meet client expectations while achieving goals related to customer interaction.

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Cv Versus Resume Whats The Difference

Today, a lot of employers and job candidates use the terms CV and resume interchangeably. Indeed, you may see just as many references to resume templates as you do CV templates.

Traditionally, a CV referred to a comprehensive account of your entire professional life, while a resume was a summary of your education, skills and work experience. However, in more modern times, the need for a lengthy overview of your career history has become redundant, with a hiring company instead expecting a two-page summary. At the same time, people began to use the two terms reciprocally. Now, whether you call your career overview a CV or resume, it has no bearing on your chance of reaching an interview shortlist.

Action Verbs And Power Words

Speaking of unique, the primary goal of your resume is to make you stand out from the rest of the people applying for the same job and another way to make that happen is to use action verbs and power words .

Action verbs and power words are exactly thattheyre words that help catch a hiring managers eye and give you an edge. After reading hundreds of resumes, many using the same words and phrases, its nice to have one that stands out and one of the best ways to do that is by incorporating action verbs and power words!

Youre not exaggerating and youre certainly not lying, youre just swapping out old and tired words for ones that are a bit moredynamic and exciting!

When listing skills, accomplishments, or job described, try using the most impressive words you can think of .

Were you a leader of a project? Instead of saying Led, use one of these words:

Chaired, controlled, coordinated, executed, headed, operated, orchestrated, organized, oversaw, planned, produced, programmed.

Did you pull a project from conception all the way to completion? Instead of saying developed, created, or introduced, try:

Administered, built, chartered, designed, devised, founded, engineered, constructed, established, formalized, formed, formulated, implemented, spearheaded, incorporated, initiated, instituted, introduced, launched, pioneered.

Are you an organizing wizard? Are you increasing productivity? Sales? Efficiency? Use these words to really hit home how dynamic you are:

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What Are Employers Looking For In A Resume

Hiring managers look for three things on your resume, What did you do? Why did you do it? And what was the result? says Muse career coach , owner of Career Therapy. If you can answer all three of these questions in…your resume bullet points, youre going to be on the right track.

Clear, easy-to-understand language is key. The truth is that most resumes make no sense. They are stuffed with jargon, they are too technical, and they are filled with redundancies. Try to read a resume that isnt yours and you will quickly realize that it feels like an alien wrote it, McGovern adds. Put yourself in the shoes of a recruiter who has no idea how your role workshow can you make your resume accessible to them?

The hiring manager also cares about more than just you and you alonethey care about you in relation to them. Hiring managers want to see if a candidate matches the requirements of the role theyre hiring for, Yurovsky explains. Your resume should paint this picture so the hiring manager not only knows what day-to-day responsibilities you can handle, but why you, above other, bring value to their organization.

Making It All About You

This is a trap that many job seekers fall into, as they cant resist to use the objective to list off all of the things that they want to get out of the position.

EXAMPLE: Hi, Im Joe Jobseeker and I really want a job in a company where I make a ton of money doing as little as possible. Oh, and a corner office. A company car would be nice too. While were at it, lets talk benefits, retirementand the company vacation policy.

Yes, were being over the top with this one, but we need you to look at this and laughbecause even a slightly toned down one where you list only what YOU want is going to come off just as ridiculous to the hiring manager as the one weve blown out of proportion.

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How To Make A Resume 101

If you are reading this article, I think it is safe to say that we can call you a job seeker, correct?

But what kind of job seeker are you?

Are you looking for a change of pace from your everyday job?

Are you just starting out in the workforce?

Maybe youre a seasoned veteran trying to make the leap up the chain of command?

Or perhaps youre just fed up with the way things are going with your career and its time for a change?

Well, no matter what stage you are in your career, youre going to need to know how to write a good resume for a job interview and we are going to show you how! So start by downloading our Free Perfect Resume Checklist that will help you overhaul your resume and will get you more interviews.