How To Put Together A Good Resume

What Should I Leave Out

When it comes to your CV, there are certain words and phrases you should try to avoid and they mostly consist of overused clichés.

Not only could using them risk mildly irritating the person in charge of hiring, you could also end up blending into a sea of similar candidates.

Although all recruiters will have their own pet peeves, here are just a few of the worst CV words:

• Excellent communication skills
• Detail oriented
• Self-motivated

Obviously, exceptions can be made if any of the above were included in the job description as an essential skill but using examples to back them up is still crucial.

Write A Resume Summary Statement

You may have heard of a resume summary statement. Theyre not super common, but they can be useful to include near the top of your resume if youre looking to add clarity or context to your resume. If youre a career changer, you might find a summary statement helpful in explaining your leap and tying your experience to your new path. Or if youre a more experienced professional, you can use a summary statement to highlight a theme that brings your career trajectory together.

Overall, you probably wont need a summary statement if your career is pretty linear and your bullet points do a great job of emphasizing what you have to offer in terms of skills and experience. But if you think it makes sense to include one, Take the time to think about what the person reading your summary wants to know before you write it, says McGovern. Good summaries explain why you do what you do and how it can help. For instance: Merging a background in ABC, I help companies improve XYZ through 123. Summaries shouldnt be any more complicated than that.

So, taking McGoverns example, you might say:

Merging a background in social media marketing and PR with seven years in the consumer tech space, I help companies improve their internal and external communication and brand awareness through data-driven, quality content and strategies that align with the modern trends of the space.

Read More:3 Resume Summary Examples Thatll Make Writing Your Own Easier

Start By Choosing The Right Resume Format

A format is the style and order in which you display information on your resume. There are three commonly-used resume formats you can choose from depending on which is right for you: Chronological , functional or a combination.

A chronological resume format places the professional history section first and is a good option if you have a rich professional work history with no gaps in employment.

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Experience To Include On A Resume For Your First Job

Once youve been working as a professional for a few years, your Work Experience section will fill the majority of your resume. Until then, its important you share how youre building skills relevant to the job youre applying for and emphasize experiences that demonstrate your work ethic.

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Here are a few examples of experiences you may want to include on your first resume:

• Jobs like babysitting or mowing lawns

• Extracurricular activities, such as clubs and sports

• Internships or apprenticeships

• Volunteer work

Be sure to highlight the skills youve developed in each role, especially those included in the job posting. This is also where you should list any achievements youre proud of, such as improvements you made over time or specific goals youve reached.

For example, if you were applying for a customer service position with a retail store, you might compose your experience like this:

Neighborhood lawn services

• Mow, edge and trim lawns from early spring through mid-fall

• Maintain an average of five lawns per week throughout the season

• Use customer service skills to build relationships and earn referrals

• Grew client base from two homes to ten homes in six months

• Earned and maintained five-star review average on lawn service Facebook page

Dog-walking and pet-sitting services

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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.

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Work History And Work Or Volunteer Experience

List your most recent jobs or work and volunteer experience first. Your work history needs to include:

• the name of the employer
• the job title/role
• where the job was located
• start date and end date.

Beneath this, list the tasks you performed. Also list any achievements.

If you change jobs in the same organisation, include both job titles/roles.

You don’t need to list all your work history keep your CV short.

Examples of work history

If you choose a skills-focused CV:

• customer service
• increased sales of large coffees by 10%.

If you choose a work-focused CV, describe your skills more:

Responsible for food and drink and customer service in bakery.

• demonstrated excellent customer service skills when taking customer’s orders
• lead sales of large coffees, increasing sales to 10%.

Use action verbs to describe your work history

Use action verbs to describe your work history and skills. These are words like demonstrated, managed, lead, developed, organised.

Gaps in your work history?

If you have gaps where you haven’t been in paid work:

• use a skills-focused CV

Get Help With Your Cv

If you’re a student or recent graduate and you’d like help creating a CV then you can get professional advice from your university careers service.

During COVID-19 many university careers services have moved their programme of activities and events online to support students and graduates during the pandemic.

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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.

Resume Sections: Your Professional Feature List

Theres often a lot of confusion as to what sections to include in your resume.

This isnt surprising, since their importance can vary depending on your profession, industry and nature of your experience. We can divide section types into necessary and optional ones. Lets assume for the time being that youre using the Reverse Chronologicalformat .

Necessary sections often include:

• Include the most important sections that showcase your professional experience and are likely to impress your employer.
• Analyze which sections are important to your profession. Only then – use the free white available for optional categories.

• Include every section possible, expanding your resume to maximum capacity.
• Include your social media profiles if they contain party pictures. Keep it to your basic contact information such as email, phone number and Linkedin profile.
• List every single life milestone or activity, regardless of available space
• Only include cum laudeor GPAon a resume if an employer explicitly asks for it or if you are applying for an entry-level job.

These are not iron-clad rules, however. Sometimes certain sections change their importance depending on the job itself. For example, in our Nurse resume guide, we highlight the fact that belonging to professional organizations is much more important than usual. Some questions to ask yourself when deciding to include or resize sections are:

Your resume may be Chronological, but your decisions should be functional and pragmatic!

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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.

My Cv Is So Long What Am I Doing Wrong

This first thing you might see when researching how to write your CV in the UK is to keep it to 2 pages. This is the golden rule of CV writing, and we recommend sticking to this limit as it helps recruiters get to the heart of your experience faster.

If youre going over this limit, there could be a few reasons why:

• You might be including too much experience – positions held over 10 years ago may not be relevant now, significantly if you have changed careers or jobs many times.

• Youre going into too much detail on all your roles – to combat this, and we recommend giving the most space to your more recent jobs. Use between 6-8 points per jobs title within the last 5 years and 4-6 for those older roles.

• You include too much detail on your education section – your education is only vital if you have little work experience, or if it covers the last 10 years.

• You’re not sticking to a sensible number of relevant skills – we recommend 8-10 skills maximum.

• You’re using a massive font or large size. We recommend 11-12 points for standard CV text.

• You’re double spacing your work. Don’t – use single line spacing.

• You’re wasting space on a massive title.

For example, someone who is an account manager now might have started as a hairdressers assistant over 15 years ago. This experience is no longer relevant to this person’s current role or any applications for positions as an account manager, so its best to leave it off and let your relevant and recent experience shine!

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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!

Careers In Industry: Resume

Your resume is the first thing an employer will use to consider whether to bring you in for an interview or not. This document is critical and could be your only chance to convince the recruiter you are worthy of the position you applied for.

Employers often spend only 30 seconds scanning a resume, so building one that is a compelling depiction of your skills and experiences can help grab their attention. Follow these quick tips to build the perfect resume.

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List Your Experiences Or Skills

For Chronological/Combination Résumés, List Your Experiences

Starting with your most recent or current job, list your previous work experiences.

• This section shows where you have worked and when. It also states specific accomplishments for each position or job.
• This is where content can make your résumé run over a page, so be selective about what you include.
• Pick experiences that seem most relevant to the position you seek. For inspiration, think of your full-time or part-time work, summer jobs, occasional jobs, internships, fieldwork and special projects.
• Don’t worry whether your experiences are “good enough.” Employers admire people who have worked hard in a variety of positions.
• Always start each achievement with an accomplishment verb, like accelerated, achieved, expanded, influenced, solved, maintained, generated, effected, advised, controlled, trained or utilized.
• Don’t worry if there are gaps in the timeline, but keep everything in chronological order, with most recent jobs at the top.

Examples:

Southwestern Writing Center, Peer Writing Tutor, Yuma, AZ

Camp Granite Falls, Area Director, Mountainville, TNJune 2013September 2017- Directed staff of four while supervising 20 campers.- Taught crafts, sports and cooking.

For Functional/Combination Résumés, List Your Skills

Examples:

Self-Motivated: Proactively organized volunteers to assist with distribution at the community food bank.

How To Include Education On A Resume With No Experience

When youre creating your first resume, its important to highlight your education. This will show employers youre able to overcome challenges, stick to your commitments and learn new things. You can also take this opportunity to share coursework youve completed that are relevant to the job.

For example, if youre applying to a retail associate position, heres how you might highlight your high school experience:

And here is how you might highlight your college experience if youre applying for a role as a receptionist at a spa:

New York UniversityMajor: Pre-Med with a Concentration in Holistic HealthExpected Graduation Date: May 20XXGPA: 3.7Relevant coursework: Customer Discovery & Development, Introduction to Interpersonal CommunicationAwards and Honors: Deans List Fall 20XX through Spring 20XXClubs: Women in Business, Center for Holistic Healing

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Tailor Your Resume For Each Position

Its important to revise your resume to tailor it to each position you apply for. For each job, adjust the keywords in the skills section so that its a great fit for what the employer needs. You should also change what you emphasize in the professional history and educational experiences sections depending on whats listed in the job description.

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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Should You Put Notary Public In Resume

Creating a good resume requires an additional level of creativity. You need to add something that will split you from the masses and make you interesting for the hiring managers. That is the reason why we want to teach you how to put notary on resume. Doing that will certainly boost your chances of getting an interview invitation!

Unfortunately, most applicants do not even know how to add notary to resume properly, so lets find out together some useful tips!

Polish Up Your Grammar And Formatting

Resume writing is a unique style. It can be tricky to remember which tense to use or when to omit pronouns. How can you use language to tell a more compelling story? Which fonts and formats are ATS-friendly? Lets take a look.

Resume Fonts

Its important to use a font that is easy to read on screen, ATS-compatible, and commonly available. A few traditional resume fonts to consider include Helvetica, Garamond, or Georgia. Avoid using script fonts or custom fonts unless you are a designer. Dont use a font size below 10.

Tense and Pronouns

Use past tense when talking about jobs in the past, and present tense when describing the work you are currently doing. Traditional resume writing leaves out personal pronouns and gets right to the action. Ex. Spearheaded a new email marketing initiative that increased revenue by 10 percent.

Resume Action Words

Action verbs help liven up your writing, making your resume more readable for recruiters and hiring managers. Consider beginning each bullet point on your resume with an action verb and replacing generic verbs like managed or led with more engaging words like mentored or accelerated.

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Plan The Framework Of Your Resume

Next, consider the basic framework of your resume. More isnt necessarily better, so aim for conciseness over length. Employers are looking for a synopsis of your credentials not everything you have done in your career. In many cases, a one-page resume is sufficient. If you have extensive experience, longer may be necessary.

In general, shorter is better, with a few bullet points for each job, brief sentences, descriptions that are action and accomplishment oriented, and plenty of white space on the page.

Your goal is to wow the hiring manager and present a document that promotes you as an ideal candidate for the position. Review these tips for building a resume that will help you get job interviews.

What To Include In Your Cv

Knowing how to write a good CV is tricky, but in short, your CV needs to show that your career background and experience matches the job youre applying for. If this is your first job and you have no previous work experience, this video will give you some great advice on how to write a CV with no experience:

Here are some key points to consider when deciding what to include in your CV:

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