Write An Impactful Summary
If youre anything like me, the About page on websites and blogs is one of your favorites. Its great to learn a little bit more about a particular person in their own words. Think of the summary at the top of your resume in the same way: Its your opportunity to step away from short, bulleted fragments and share a little bit about yourself.
Some resume writers disagree, but the standard objective statement is a thing of the past. Instead, begin your resume with a powerful professional summary. This short paragraph introduces you as a candidate and expands on your resumes details in order to show why youre a perfect fit for the open position.
It goes without saying that you should use this section as your opportunity to shine. Instead of simply rewording and reiterating everything already listed on your resume, use this space to expand on all of those skills that make you a fit for the position. The summary is one of the first things a hiring manager will read, so make sure its top-notch and targeted! Injecting a little personality never hurts.
How Do I Write A Cover Letter
A cover letter is essential for any serious job application and a great opportunity for candidates to expand on their experience and achievements.
No job application will be considered complete and professional without an effective, well-written cover letter. Therefore, it is vital you spend additional time and effort to compose a cover letter that will compliment your finished resume.
Roughly 10 percent of recruiters consider missing cover letters a deal-breaking mistake. Dont ruin your chances of an interview by not creating a personalized cover letter.
A cover letter must be well written with simple, conversational language. No spelling or grammatical errors! The best cover letters are informative and offer a glimpse into your experience listed on your resume.
Its also a good idea to talk about why you want to work for that company specifically and how you think you can help them achieve greater success. Offer evidence and quantifiable examples of how your knowledge, experience, qualifications, and skill set are beneficial to the company.
TOP TIP: Think of the cover letter as an extension to the resume simply by explaining in your own words while always using formal language what has led you to believe that this role would be right for you.
Similarly to a purposeful and concise resume, a cover letter should not exceed one A4 page and should include only details that are relevant to the position on offer. Do not go off-topic!
Should You Include Resume References
While every resume should include summary, work experience, education and skills sections, whether you should include references from previous employers is far less clear cut. Lets explore in more detail.
If the job description requests references on a resume, then follow it to the letter, but if references are not requested it doesnt mean that they may not contribute to your application when you write it.
As you should seek to use your resume space to create the optimal impact, here are a few tips about when including references might be appropriate:
- If you are new to the field or your references are not relevant.
- If you havent managed to ask permission from your referees.
- If you have already listed your references in an online form.
- If you are more comfortable writing references on request.
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List Your Relevant Coursework
Note that we suggest including only relevant coursework. You can tell itâs relevant because the job description will mention it. You can find out from the job description exactly what kind of person the company is looking to hire. The most important qualifications are the keywords you want to incorporate in your resume that are relevant to the job youâre applying for.
Include A Cover Letter
When you apply for a job, include a cover letter with your resume. This is an optional step, but it may help you land the job you want. In fact, some hiring managers automatically reject resumes that arent accompanied by cover letters.
A cover letter gives you a chance to showcase your personality and explain things listed in your resume. You can highlight achievements, mention how you learned about a position and discuss why you feel youre a qualified candidate. This is a good time to name drop by saying sales manager Jackson Baker told you about the open position or Professor Johnson, a long-time friend of the companys owner, referred you.
A resume is an essential part of your job hunt. Increase your chances of scoring an interview by crafting an impressive resume that reflects your skills and personality traits.
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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 Is A Graduate School Resume
Similar to submitting resumes for job applications, you typically submit a resume as part of your graduate school application. A good resume highlights your academic experience and skills and makes an overall argument as to why you’re a good candidate for a graduate program. Not all graduate programs request a resume as part of their application process, but many do, while others may ask for a CV. A CV is essentially a longer academic version of a resume that summarizes your educational history, research interests, relevant work experience, and honours or achievements.
Along with your grades, GRE score, and thesis proposal, your resume or CV is typically one of the key components determining whether you’re accepted into your graduate school program of choice. Graduate school admissions boards use resumes and CVs to assess a candidate’s background in their particular field and how much academic potential they display. A graduate school program typically specifies if they want you to submit a resume or CV with your application, so it’s important to read the application guidelines carefully. If a program doesn’t say which one to submit, it’s usually up to you.
Related:What Is a CV?
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Whats The Difference Between A Resume And A Cv
Although they serve similar purposes, a resume and a CV are used in different contexts. First of all, a CV is an abbreviation for curriculum vitae, which means course of life in Latin. CVs are much more detailed documents that chronicle all your academic, professional and some personal achievements. Instead of being tailored for the job like a resume, the CV is more about you. CVs are commonly used to apply to professional positions such as fellowships, research positions, PhDs, and government jobs. They are around 10 pages long depending on the amount of work youve done. CVs are also more popular in job markets outside of the U.S., especially in Europe.
Include Your Honours And Awards
Here, you can highlight your personal and professional achievements. Since such achievements can be deciding factors for admissions committees, include any accomplishments that may be relevant. Include academic accomplishments, such as publications, presentations at conferences, if you were ever the chair of a club or an on-campus organization, and any academic awards, such as inclusion on the dean’s list.
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Best Practices When Choosing Which Skills To Feature
- Make sure to tailor your skills list specifically to the job position. Even if you are proficient at a certain skill, exclude it if it isnât relevant to the job. Be sure only to list relevant abilities that will boost your qualifications for the position.
- Itâs always a good idea to supplement your hard skills with proficiency and experience levels. For every hard skill you add, classify them based on expertise . Always be honest about your skill levelsâmisleading your potential employers never works in the long run. Some hard skills can also be considered universal , so youâll want to include those as well.
- Donât forget to include universal soft skills. These are skills that you can apply to almost every job. Having these skills are often considered convenient for a team or independent work environment, and chances are they can complement the primary skill requirements of the job youâre applying for.
- View Upworkâs list of the top 100 skills to consider for your resume.
List Your Interests And Activities
This section should include all extracurricular activities and interests that relate to the position you seek. This section is also very useful when you do not have much experience to work with.
However, since interests and activities tend to be less relevant, this section should only be included if youâve used the other tips on this page and filled up as much room as you can. Weâll talk about unnecessary information in the next tip.
Interests and activities on a resume example:
So letâs say Tom was part of his universityâs entrepreneur program and volunteered to organize food delivery to the cityâs homeless population. and blogged about new business startups in the local area while in school.
Tom can list this section as:
Interests and Activities
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Member of Queens College entrepreneur program
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Organized and managed routes for the Meals-on-Wheels, a non-profit which delivers food for the homeless and other vulnerable populations.
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Blogged on various new startups in the New York City area.
Not everyone has relevant activities and interests and thatâs just fine. If you need some more help coming up with some relevant activities or interests, we have a related guide about how to include hobbies and interests on a resume. Otherwise, you can definitely skip this section without fear of losing out on opportunities.
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Resume Contact Information Tips:
- Include a personal phone number, never a work number.
- You dont need to include your full address but do add your city, state, and zip code. Recruiters often search for local candidates first.
- Use a professional sounding email address. Consider creating a free Gmail account for your job search if you currently use a more outdated email service like Hotmail or AOL.
- Create a strong LinkedIn profile and be sure to include the URL on your resume.
Can A Resume Be More Than One Page
Yes! Although the standard length of a resume is one page your resume can extend beyond that if needed. If youre a candidate with more than 10 years of experience, your resume will be much longer. Between two to three pages is understandable if your information and the role youre applying to merits it, for example, being an applicant with 30 years of experience applying for a senior management position. If this isnt your case, your best bet is to stick with one-page resumes.
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Final Tips And Tricks
We’ve already mentioned almost everything you need to write an effective professional summary. These are some of the final tips that didn’t fit anywhere else in this guide.
Why Are Those Extra Sections So Important
First of all, recruiters pay attention to them. Secondly, as a Zetys study of 133,000 US resumes revealed, 66% of candidates do include them. Amongst the most popular, there are:
- Languages: 31% of resumes
- Courses: 11%
Some job seekers tend to bury their certifications or foreign languages within a skills section. Thats a practice acceptable to 37% or recruiters 44% prefer to see languages spoken or certificates under separate subheadings.
No matter your experience level theres one more quick and simple thing you can do to improve your chances of getting hired dramatically:
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Should You Include Every Job Youve Ever Worked
In general, its best not to go back more than 10 or 15 years into your past work history. There are exceptions to this rule, though. For example, if you worked for a company in the past or held a position thats highly relevant to the role for which youre applying, it could be worth including. You may also want to include contract work youve doneeven if only for a few monthsif it is relevant to the position.
What’s The Purpose Of A Resume
Anyone can express interest in a job opening, but that doesnt mean they have the right skills or training. A resume lets an employer know that youre qualified for a position, either through your educational history, work experience or a combination of the two. You can also share volunteer work, internships and externships on a resume if they help show why youre a great fit for the position you want.
Think of a resume as your social media profile for hiring managers. When a stranger sends you a friend request or comments on a group post, you may skim their profile to learn more about them. If they seem like an okay person, you may decide to give them a chance. However, inappropriate content or posts that dont mesh with your beliefs may cause you to press the ignore or decline button.
A resume lets an employer know that you’re qualified for a position, either through your educational history, work experience or a combination of the two.
This is basically how things work in the business world, too. When you apply for a position, the hiring manager glances at your resume quickly before deciding whether youre worthy of an interview. Red flags, such as typos or profanity, may keep you from landing an interview even if youre well qualified for the position.
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Choose The Right Resume Format
The most common resume format is the chronological resume, and its the best option for a general resume.
Thats because chronological resumes list your jobs from most recent to least recent, giving you a clear overview of your work experience. Regardless of what position youre targeting, a chronological resume will do the trick.
Using The Same Objective For Every Job Application
EXAMPLE: To obtain a job within my chosen field that will challenge me and allow me to use my education, skills and past experiences in a way that is mutually beneficial to both myself and my employer and allow for future growth and advancement.
Your goal is to be the ideal candidate and that means making sure youre exactly what the hiring manager is looking forand unless youre applying to a cookie cutter factory in a cookie cutter job town where every job every employer is listing is exactly the same then I guarantee you 100% that your statement will NOT be a one size fits all statement.
Next!
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Should My Resume Have An Objective
Are you relatively new to the job search market or lack work experience? Are you changing industries? Are you targeting a specific job or position? If the answer is yes then its a good idea to have a resume objective. If the answer is no to these questions, then you may want to use a resume summary statement instead.
Professional Summary Example For Nursing Resume
Motivational and resourceful Orthopedic Nurse with 10 years of experience with in-depth knowledge in trauma recovery, aggressive pain management techniques, and post-surgical recovery. Especially proficient in providing external fixation care and continuous motion therapy along with neuromuscular status monitoring. Committed to work as an orthopedic nurse for people who are struggling with mobility issues due to accidental injuries and degenerative disease affecting bones and muscles.
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The Vital Starting Point: Where To Write Your Resume
Well go straight to the golden rule, no beating around the bush.
Do not use basic text editors to write the final version of your resume. MS Word, Excel and similar programs have a host of potential problems that may hinder you before you even start.
These may include:
- A difficult and time-consuming formatting process
- Header/footer information not readable by other systems
- Poor and bland visual designs that get lost among other resumes
- Formatting that looks different in other programs
- Lost or corrupted files and so on.
So, whats the solution?
The accepted standard for submitting most resumes is the PDF file format. The benefits are clear in most cases: universal formatting that doesnt change regardless of where you view it and readability by most software systems.
Use professionally designed layouts and tools that have been tested with hiring managers and applicant systems.
Use old-school text editors that take hours of work and are often incompatible with the employer’s software.
The ideal tools to produce clean, concise and beautiful resumes in PDF format are online builders.These web and/or software solutions are specifically made to be the perfect instrument for visually striking, technically functional and content-optimized resumes. By using a service/platform that is designed specifically for resumes, you save lots of time and avoid hidden problems.