How To Write A Resume In 2021
For most job-seekers, a good resume is what stands between a dream job and Choice D. Get your resume right, and youll be getting replies from every other company you apply to.
If your resume game is weak, though, youll end up sitting around for weeks, maybe even months, before you even get a single response.
So youre probably wondering how you can write a resume that leads to HR managers inviting you to interviews daily.
Well, youve come to the right place!
In this guide, were going to teach you everything you need to know about how to make a resume:
How to Write a Resume – Step by step
So, lets dive right in!
References And Recommendation Letters
Employment references should include three to five people who can speak to your education, work, and professional background related to the position. You should tailor the list according to whom you believe knows your unique qualifications for the role the best. Please ask potential references if they are comfortable serving as a reference and give them information about the positions you are applying to before submitting their name and information on your reference list. Your list of references should have the same heading as your resume and cover letter.
A recommendation letter should describe your personal traits, education, work, and professional background concerning the scholarship, graduate school, or position. Recommendation letters are generally provided for scholarship and graduate school applications, but some employers will ask on occasion. Usually, the letters are written by people on your reference list. You want to send the person writing the letter any critical information to include in the letter and your resume or CV. This helps ensure the recommendation letter covers what the reader wants to know about you to help decide your candidacy for the role.
Your list of references and recommendation letters should not be included with application materials unless requested by the employer.
Add A Resume Summary Or Objective
After your contact information, you have the option to include either a resume summary or objective statement. An objective statement quickly explains your career goals and is a good choice for those with limited professional experience, such as recent college or high school graduates. A resume summary is a short statement that uses active language to describe your relevant work experience and skills.
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Clearly List Your Contact Information At The Top
First things first: employers need to know who you are and how to contact you if they want to offer you an interview.
Make it easy to find that information by including the following contact details in the header of your CV, at the top of the page:
- First and last name
- Mailing Address
- Email Address
- LinkedIn Profile
Make sure that your email address and LinkedIn profile are up-to-date and professional before adding them to your CV.
CV contact information example
Heres an example of what a good CV contact information section looks like:
How To Ace Your Next Interview
Youve perfected both your resume & cover letter. Now, its time for the next step – the dreaded job interview.
Whether youre an extrovert or an introvert, you probably hate the interviewing process. After all, sitting there while someones prodding into your past experiences and judging the hell out of you isnt the most fun experience.
Did you know, though, that most interviewers ask the same questions? Yep – all you have to do is learn how to answer some of the most common interview questions, and youll be an interview away from landing your dream job!
Want to learn more? Check out our complete guide to Job Interview Questions and Answers.
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Etymology Spelling And Plural
Curriculum vitae can be loosely translated as course of life. It is a loanword from New Latin, which is why it was traditionally spelled curriculum vitæ using the ligatureæ also in English, but this is now rare.
In English, the plural of curriculum alone is often curriculums instead of the traditional Latin plural curricula, which is why both forms are recorded in English dictionaries. The English plural of curriculum vitae is however almost always curricula vitae as in Latin, and this is the only form recorded in the Merriam-Webster, American Heritage, and Oxford English dictionaries, for example.
Who Is Zety Cv Builder For
The Zety CV creator is a tool that anyone can use. If youre someone who is tired with formatting their application in a word processor or are pressed for time, then Zety helps cut down on how long it will take you to make a CV on your own. Weve heard success stories from job seekers in all industries. Interns, juniors, mid-level staff, all the way to c-suite executives. Even students writing CVs for college applications.
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Weave Your Skills Into Your Professional Experience Section
While many job seekers may list skills in a separate section of their resume, its also important to weave them into descriptions under each of your previous positions. This is where you have an opportunity to strengthen your skills section with additional context and specific examples.
For example, if you include the skills project management and time management, you could illustrate this by providing a real-life example, such as: Successfully managed six projects across three separate teams during the first half of 2018, and delivered all completed items by the deadlines.
Which Resume Builder Template Should I Use
The resume template you choose is largely based on your personal preference and the impression you want to give to hiring managers. We design every template so that its flexible enough to suit any industry, level of experience and education, or skillset. So no matter which template you choose, you can be confident that its optimized to highlight your unique experiences and abilities.
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What Is A Curriculum Vitae
A curriculum vitae , Latin for course of life, is a detailed professional document highlighting a persons education, experience and accomplishments. A CV may also include professional references, as well as coursework, fieldwork, hobbies and interests relevant to your profession. You might also choose to add a personal profile that lists your skills and positive attributes to ensure employers have a well-rounded view of your personality and achievements.
Skills Section On Your Cv
Hard skills are technical skills that can be measured and are directly related to your tasks.
Soft skills, meanwhile, are learned skills such as your personal attributes .
Usually, job qualifications already include what theyre looking for in terms of skills. For example:
As you can see, the skills required for this position include a mix of hard as well as soft skills.
Now, all youd have to do is tailor your CV to the qualifications list.
For the hard skills that are backed up by your work experience, you can measure them or give yourself an honest rating, like so:
To write a good skills section though, you also need to include your soft skills, like so:
Theres one other type of skill section that you can list within your CV, and that is universal skills. This includes skills that are fit in the description or requirements of most career fields – such as MS office, teamwork, analytical thinking, and more.
No matter what job youre applying for, these skills will typically come in handy at some point.
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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.
Why Do You Need A Professional Resume Service
A professionally written resume is your best chance to get the attention of a potential employer during a job interview. Most career experts who are hiring only spend a few seconds looking at a resume. Your resume must stand out and immediately grab the interest of the job search expert, otherwise it could end up in the discard pile if you don’t get it right. This is where it’s highly advisable to find and use professional resume writing services only.
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Choose The Right Format
All three common formatschronological, functional and combinationwork for a CV, but an effective format is combination. This CV type is a hybrid of the chronological and functional formats and allows adequate space for details about both your professional and educational history, as well as your skills and accomplishments. The elements you place first depend on your experience, career goals and what you believe is most relevant to the types of positions youre seeking.
Consider this order:
- Contact information
- Academic history
- Qualifications and skills
- Licenses and certifications
-
Professional associations
Consider including a concise skills and accomplishments section before work experience to showcase the key skills that align to that particular role. Then, use the bullet points in your professional experience section to reinforce these skills and provide examples demonstrating their use. This has two benefits: recruiters looking quickly at a combination CV will see the keywords they are looking for on the first page and the increase in the mention of keywords may rank your CV higher in an applicant tracking system if the recruiter is using one to screen applications before reviewing CVs.
List Your Professional History With Keywords
Write your professional history section in reverse-chronological order. Start with your most recent job and provide a short description including the company name, time period in which you were employed, your job title and a few key achievements during your time at the company. You might also include relevant learnings or growth opportunities you experienced while employed there.
When listing your professional history, you should keep a few best practices in mind:
- Use numbers to measure your impact, when possible. Including specific numerical achievements can help employers understand your direct potential value to their company.
Example: Developed new process for requesting supplies, reducing fulfillment time by 10%.
- Use keywords from the job description. Similar to your skills section, you should also include information from the job description in your job history bullets. For example, if the job description mentions the importance of meeting sales quotas, you could include information about how youve met or exceeded quotas in past roles.
Example: Achieved goal of reaching 250% annual sales quota, winning sales MVP two quarters in a row.
Follow the same process for other work experiences. If you do not have extensive professional history, you should also include internships and volunteer opportunities following the same format.
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Resume Summary Or Objective
Its not a secret for anyone that first impressions matter, whether theyre in your personal life, or your career.
If you leave a bad first impression, chances are, its there to stay. After all, its very hard to change someones opinion of you.
The same applies to your job search – the HR manager spends around 6 seconds scanning each resume. Yep, your carefully-worded, hand-crafted resume only gets 6 seconds of attention. Unless, of course, you manage to leave an amazing first impression.
The way you accomplish this is through either a good resume summary or objective. Both are placed at the top of your resume, right around the contact information section:
So, heres what you need to know about the two:
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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Customize Your Curriculum Vitae
Once you have made a list of the information you want to include, it’s a good idea to create a custom curriculum vitae that specifically highlights the experience you have that is relevant to the job you are applying for. It takes more time to write a custom CV, but it’s worth the effortespecially when you are applying for jobs that are a good match for your skills and experience.
- Use accomplishment-oriented bullets that start with an action verb and include a result.
- Start with a Professional Profile that highlights the best of what you as a candidate are offering.
- Edit content to include those areas of expertise, skills, and knowledge that specifically match the job requirements not all the details of your education and employment history may be relevant.
- Carefully rank and organize the sections of your CV according to what the institution you are applying for is seeking. For example, if you are applying to a university where research is emphasized, you should begin your list of publications on page one, right after your initial professional profile. If, on the other hand, you know that teaching is valued over the publication by the department, youll want to give your professional career history pride of place on the first page.
Hard Vs Soft Skills: Whats The Difference
Heres the difference between hard skills and soft skills:
Hard skills
Hard skills are quantifiable, job-specific abilities learned through education, training, or on-the-job experience. Language skills, computer skills, and being able to operate heavy machinery all count as types of hard skills.
Heres a list of 24 popular hard skills to put on your resume:
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Pick The Ideal Resume Layout
The hard part is over. Youve written your resume, and are feeling confident about getting that interview. Now its time to take a moment and consider your resumes design.
Depending on the industry you work in or the job you want, you may need to adjust your resume layout to fit the expectations of the hiring manager.
What Should I Put On My Resume
There are five main sections that every resume should include: Contact Info, Resume Introduction, Professional Experience, Education, and Skills. However, keep in mind that depending your industry, you may need include additional sections on your resume. For example, nurses should include a section about their professional licenses and certificationswhich you can add easily in our resume builder. To learn more about what to put on your resume, visit our resume writing guide.
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How To Format Your Cv
Alright, lets get down to brass tacks. So, what goes into a CV, exactly?
Now, there is no golden rule and not every CV has the same sections. A lot depends on your experience, and where youre applying to. Though, some parts do stay the same.
The Must-have Sections to Include in a CV:
Were going to cover all of those sections step-by-step. Before we do that, though, lets discuss how to…
How Should A Resume Look In 2021
In 2021, simplicity is key. Your resume should be easy to read, use a neatly arranged resume design, and get to the point.
Avoid the busy details commonplace on resumes of the early 2000s, such as graphics, images, or charts. Additionally, your resume experience section should only go back to the past 10 to 15 years, and remain directly relevant to the position you want to fill.
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S For Creating A Curriculum Vitae
Steps 1. Make a template for your CV: Will a line be used to separate each section? Is each part going to have its box? Will you make a list of everything you know? Experiment with several formats to discover which one appears the most official. Strive for little more than a regular sheet of papers front and back.
Steps to create a professional CV with samples
Steps 2. At the main page, provide your name, address, phone number, and email address: Its crucial to keep your name bigger than the body of the text so that your evaluator knows who he or she is trying to read about. How you organize this data is entirely up to you.
How to write a CV for a job with no experience
Step 3. Create a profile for yourself: This is an elective section of the CV that allows your reviewer to have a better understanding of you as a person. This is where you promote your abilities, expertise, and personal characteristics. It must be unique and well-written. Positive phrases like capable of adapting,assured, and determined should be used.
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How to Write a Curriculum Vitae for a Job Application
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Step 6. Make a section for your accomplishments and talents: This part is where you highlight the accomplishments youve made in past employment as well as the skills youve gainedvia your experiences.
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