How To Write An Resume

October 8, 2022

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Showcase Your Work History

Resume Writing: 4 Tips on How to Write a Standout Resume | Indeed Career Tips

The length of this section will depend on how long youâve been in the workforce. A general resume writing rule of thumb is to add a page to your document for every 10 years of experience â this section should take up most of that allotted space. Remember, your entire resume should be written in the third person â no first-person pronouns. Use four to six bullet points to break up the copy.

Elaborate: Do more than recount your past duties and responsibilities. Shed light on your accomplishments and achievements by using data to quantify those achievements. For example, if you introduced a new supply-ordering system that saved the company money by reducing duplicate orders, explain it with percentages and financial savings. âConsolidated weekly orders into monthly orders, thereby reducing duplicate orders and cutting spending by 7%.â

Be active: Use action verbs to describe your duties. Recruiters and hiring managers read several resumes on any given day â use dynamic words to stand out in your experience section. For example, suppose one of your responsibilities was to order office supplies. In that case, itâs more interesting to read that you âexecuted and maintained a new system for ordering suppliesâ than it is that you were âresponsible for placing orders.â

This concise work history example demonstrates how to write a resume using three strategies to demonstrate this jobseekerâs active qualifications:

Work History

Hawthorne, WI

06/2018 Current

Look For Keywords In The Job Posting

The best place to start when preparing to write a resume is to carefully read the job postings that interest you. As you apply for different jobs, you should study each job description for keywords that show what the employer is looking for in an ideal candidate. Include those keywords in your resume where relevant.

For example, if youre applying for a job as a medical billing coder, an employer might list keywords like coding, claims submission, compliance or AR management in the job description. Pay particular attention to anything listed in the sections labeled Requirements or Qualifications. If you have the skills that employers are looking for, you can add these same terms to your resume in the experience or skills sections.

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 80+ resume examples for different fields.

Also Check: How Many Skills Should You Put On A Resume

Step : List Your Contact Information And Write An Introduction

Apply a unique heading with your name and contact information. Usually, this includes your name, phone number, email, and any relevant online links.

Next, you will write an introduction. This may be called a resume objective, summary statement, or qualifications summary depending on the resume format you choose. Remember, the best intros are ones that grab the attention of a potential employer.

Top tip: Forbes magazine estimates that it is vital to demonstrate your worth in the first 15 20 seconds of its reading to get results. This means that the top third of your resume must be the most intriguing.

Catch the readers eye by demonstrating why YOU are the perfect fit for the role and the company in 4-6 sentences. If the reader likes what they read, theyll continue on to the rest of your document.

You wont need to write an introduction from scratch. ResumeCoachs resume builder and resume templates are valuable writing tools and could serve as a basis for your unique resume.

List Your Relevant Skills

Mentioning all your relevant skills can further showcase your suitability for the role. Including a mix of hard and soft skills can help highlight your ability to referee games at the desired level. It’s usually adequate to list the skills, as you can discuss them in more detail in your cover letter and during the interview.

Recommended Reading: How Is A Resume Supposed To Look

Examples Of Work Achievements To Include On Your Resume

To stand out from everyone else, be sure to focus on results and outcomes that have benefited your employers. Including quantifiable results and values such as reached quotas, increase in sales, improved efficiencies, etc., can go a long way in solidifying your value and landing on the recruiters shortlist.

If you only list your basic duties and responsibilities, youll have a slim chance of standing out from other applicants with similar work experience.

Do this:

Notable Accomplishments:

Successfully handled QA campaigns that decreased rework by more than 30%, saving the company $200,000 in annual production costs
Won the top sales rep of the year award for the western region with over 2.1 million in goods sold
Constantly exceed monthly KPIs by 15% or more
Implemented Lean Management directives, which cut overall operating expenses by 30%

Instead of this:

Managed quality assurance programs to reduce production expenses
Implemented systems and processes that decreased operating costs

When listing your accomplishments, keep your wording unique and make sure you dont just simply repeat phrases from your work history or any other section of your resume.

Consider hiring an independent resume writer to help you improve the wording of your achievements and work history. These resume writing professionals have often worked with hundreds of job-seekers and reviewed thousands more resumes. They will be able to provide helpful tips and meaningful advice to improve your resume.

Document Your Educational Background

Include a section to outline your educational background. Plumbers typically earn a vocational qualification as part of their apprenticeship. Show that you have this credential by listing it on your resume. Also, provide the name of the institution through which you earned your certificate. If you completed the program within the last three years, you may also include your date of certification. You may consider listing other relevant credentials you have, like a university degree.

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Second Evaluate The Position

After taking an assessment of your own experience levels, you will next need to evaluate the position youre applying for. For example, if its similar to a position you currently hold or a step up from what youre currently doing, a chronological resume that emphasizes your relevant work experience is appropriate. In this situation, a combination resume could also work well. If you are changing your career, a combination format is ideal, as it emphasizes your transferrable skills and the accomplishments you achieved in prior roles.

Other Important Resume Sections

How to Write a Resume in 7 Steps

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:

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.

Certifications & Awards

Publications

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Include An Education Section

An 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.

The Indeed Editorial Team comprises a diverse and talented team of writers, researchers and subject matter experts equipped with Indeed’s data and insights to deliver useful tips to help guide your career journey.

Carers provide vital personal support to members of the community suffering from disabilities and illnesses. They typically help their patients with day-to-day tasks, such as dressing, eating and taking medication. Understanding how to write an effective carer resume is important if you wish to apply for a role in this field. In this article, we explain what a carer is and how to write a resume for the position and provide an example and template to help you craft your own resume.

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Keep Your Resume Current

In the short term, you should tweak your resume based on each job you apply to. For example, if one position youre applying to seems to weigh a certain responsibility or focus over another, you should be sure your resume conveys your expertise in this area.

At the same time, you should be updating your resume with your experience as it develops, adding any new skills youve learned, courses youve taken or awards you won.

It is much easier to update your resume periodically than all at once, so even when youre employed, set a reminder to refresh your resume every three months, while the information is still fresh in your head. This will make your next job search much easier, should you decide to switch companies or careers in the future.

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. You can use them to craft your initial thoughts if you feel comfortable with them, but MS Word, Excel and similar programs have a host of potential problems that may hinder you.

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.

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How To Write A Resume For A Job With No Experience

ZipJob Team

11 min read

Writing your first resume when you have little experience is a common challenge that nearly everyone faces. When youâre starting your career, you need a resume to apply for your first jobâbut you donât have any jobs to include on your resume! Everyone starting out has the same question: how do you write a resume when you have no work experience?

Donât worry. Weâve got you covered with a few expert tips!

Remember that almost everyone you know was in your shoes at one point.

There are several sections you can add to your first job resume besides professional work experiences such as skills, education, and a professional summary. Bonus: you may have work experience relevant to the position that you havenât considered yet!

Finally Evaluate Your Work History

This is an important step because if you are someone who has gaps in their employment history, functional or combination resumes are the best choices. Choosing a resume format is an important decision, as certain formats may allow you to better highlight your skills and most relevant experiences. Its especially important for people who are new to the workforce, going through career changes or who have gaps in their employment history.

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Choose Your Resume’s Format

The first step when writing an effective resume is selecting the format. A resume helps to showcase your professional expertise to the hiring manager reading it, so it’s important to pick a format that’s suitable for your level of experience and skills. There are typically three different formats to choose from, including functional and chronological resumes and a combination of the two.

Functional resumes focus on skills over experience and are often beneficial for entry-level finance officers. Chronological resumes focus on experience over skills and are an effective choice for a finance officer with several years of experience in the industry. A combination resume showcases both skills and knowledge and helps to provide hiring managers with a balanced overview of your capabilities.

Third Capture Job Posting Keywords

Write an Incredible Resume: 5 Golden Rules!

Adjust your resume summary for each job you apply to by scanning and capturing the job posting keywords. Carefully read the job description and select the key words from the requirements or education sections of the posting. This will demonstrate you prepared for, and are excited about, a particular position and you clearly meet the requirements the hiring manager is looking for in a candidate.

Example:

For a job posting that says the employer is looking for someone with at least 5 years of experience:

Compassionate registered nurse with 5+ years of professional experience and certifications in neonatal resuscitation.

For a job posting that says the employer is looking for someone with experience working with major brands:

Social media communications and advertising expert with experience in creating and managing social media strategies for global companies.

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Write A Resume Headline

A resume headline is a short statement at the top of your resume just below your name in the header section. Getting this section right is crucial if you want to catch your readers attention right off the bat. This one-sentence phrase summarizes your skills and should be powerful enough to grab the hiring managers curiosity to compel them to give a more detailed look at your entire resume.

Tip : How To Create A Leadership And Activities Section That Stands Out

For many people, especially students and recent graduates, a Leadership & Activities section can be a fantastic differentiator for your resume. If you have not been in the workforce for long, or if you have only worked summers and part-time, then you may not have much relevant content to add to your Experience section. A strong Leadership & Activities section can help you fill that gap while also telling an employer something about you as a person.

When creating the section, you should first consider what student organizations and activities you would want to include. Then, you should consider what you would want to write about each one. In general, this section is much like the Experience section, except that it is about what you have done in a personal, rather than professional, setting.

Of course, because student organizations and activities are personal, you should be careful about which ones you choose to list they should be appropriate to a professional setting. For example, you should probably not choose to share that you were chosen Top Drinker of your colleges Beer Keg of the Day club. On the other hand, if you volunteered at a food bank, wrote for a school publication, or had a membership in an honor society, those accomplishments would be worth sharing.

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List Your Work Experience

If you have an internship or any professional work from your field, be sure to list it!

If you donât have formal experience, here are some other ideas of what :

Work experience resume example:

In Tomâs case, he has an internship that is relevant to any new business administrative position he might seek. He should include the fact that this position was an internship in his job title, and use bullet points to describe his value for the content. This is another great place to use keywords from the job description.

Here is an example of how Tom can write his experience section:

Relevant experience:

IDT Marketing Analyst Internship 11/2019 â 5/2020

Researched and analyzed marketing trends in telecom.
Analyzed and tracked a marketing budget of $500,000.
Assisted marketing team of 15 with deploying new marketing campaigns.
Utilized Excel to migrate and organize data from various sources.
Contributed to the IDT internship program guide for 2021.

If your work experience is not as relevant, work on highlighting your transferable skills on your resume. With a bit of strategic thinking, you can make your experience useful to an employer. Focus on soft skills, accomplishments, and added value whenever possible.

Possible skills:

Organizing data and customer leads in Excel.
Tracking and implementing marketing campaigns.
Scheduling and coordinating meetings and events.

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