How To Write An Effective Job Description
Select a clear heading for your job description section. Choose one from these commonly used section headings:
Following the correct format is another extremely important point to keep in mind while writing your job description.
Select the reverse-chronological format to list your working experiences.
Start with your most recent experience at the top and then move backward in a chronological fashion.
If you are a seasoned professional, do not go back more than 10 years if it is not extremely relevant.
Always use strong action words to start your bullet points describing your responsibilities and achievements.
Moreover, try to make sentences with simple words using active voice while describing to make your point clear.
The keywords can be hard skills like Microsoft Office or soft skills like Communication Skills.
Identify them and base your bullets on these keywords.
You must mention your job title, the company name, and the dates of employment.
You can use bold, italics, or other formatting styles to emphasize relevant keywords or important information, but remember to be consistent with the formatting.
Use Specific Keywords From The Job Posting
Employers dont always personally review every job application submitted for a position. Instead, they use applicant tracking system software to scan all incoming applications for specific resume keywords. If the software finds the keywords its looking for in your resume, it forwards your application to the hiring manager.
The best way to ensure you pass the ATS is to write an ATS-friendly resume by taking words from the job posting and strategically putting them in your job descriptions and other resume sections.
To find the right resume keywords, examine the job posting. The skills and experience the company lists that they require for the position are what theyll be searching for in your resume.
Take the keywords from these bullet points or paragraphs and ensure you include them in your job descriptions.
Write Your Professional Summary
A professional summary can be an effective way to highlight your skill set, experience, and career objectives. By highlighting your strengths and describing how your experience prepares you for the project analyst role, you can make an excellent first impression that engages the hiring manager’s interest. Ensure that your summary is concise, accurate, and targeted toward the role of a project analyst.
Don’t Miss: How Should A Professional Resume Look
Resume Summary Examples For Retail Jobs
Bad Example:
Enthusiastic cashier with years of relevant experience working in X company. Works well under pressure and is willing to learn new skills to better serve customers.
Good Example:
Customer-focused cashier with 5+ years of experience serving different customers and creating a warm and friendly store environment. Has raised sales by 5% through strong communication and interpersonal skills. Has strong knowledge of managing financial transactions and creating end-of-day cash position reports.
Why this works: This career statement states the years of experience and measurable achievements that give the job candidate a strong edge over competitors. It also states key skills that are critical for cashiers like financial management, analysis, and reporting.
Eight Tips To Keep Your Resume Concise
1. Avoid repeating information: Did you perform the same or similar job tasks for more than one employer? Instead of repeating job duties, focus on your accomplishments in each position.
2. Eliminate old experience: Employers are most interested in what you did recently. If you have a long career history, focus on the last 10 to 15 years. If your early career is important to your current goal, briefly mention the experience without including details. For example: Early Career: ABC Company — City, State — Assistant Store Manager and Clerk, 1980-1985.
3. Don’t include irrelevant information: Avoid listing hobbies and personal information such as date of birth or marital status. Also, eliminate outdated technical or business skills.
4. Cut down on job duties: Many job seekers can trim the fat off their resumes simply by removing long descriptions of job duties or responsibilities. Instead, create a paragraph that briefly highlights the scope of your responsibility and then provide a list of your most impressive accomplishments.
5. Remove the “references available upon request” line: Many job seekers waste the valuable last line of the resume on an obvious statement. Delete it.
6. Use a telegraphic writing style: Eliminate personal pronouns and minimize the use of articles when preparing your resume.
Read Also: Printable Resume Templates Free
Begin By Listing Basic Details About Your Job
Every job description should include the following information:
- dates of employment
The order in which you display this is up to you. If youd like to emphasize your position, then put your job title on top, followed by the company, location, and employment dates below.
However, suppose you worked for a prestigious company that is well known in your industry. In that case, you could first highlight the companys name, followed by your position, location, and employment dates on the following line.
Here are two examples of how to include your job title, employers name, location, and employment dates in your job description. The first example highlights the position title, while the second example highlights the companys name:
No matter how you choose to format your job description, you should be consistent throughout your resume by using the same order for all of your entries. This is because of inconsistent resume formatting:
Resume Example For A Nurse Unit Manager
Reading a resume example for a nurse unit manager might help you understand how to build your own. Here’s an example resume for you to review:
Molly Smith | Registered nurse0491570159 | mollysmith@email.com| Newcastle, NSW
Professional SummaryExperienced and qualified nursing unit manager with a Bachelor of Nursing. Possesses five years of experience in a nursing leadership position with proven success. Seeking employment with your company to adapt my skills and work in a facility that supports my passion for rehabilitation.
ExperienceNurse Unit Manager| March 2017âCurrentStockton Private Hospital | Stockton, NSW
-
Establish high standards within the nurse care unit, increasing patient satisfaction by 70%
-
Delegate task schedules for nursing aids, medical clerks and support staff to ensure adequate care coverage
-
Observe and evaluate nursing staff performance to identify areas for improvement
-
Deliver constructive feedback to nursing staff within the care unit to help them achieve their key performance indicators
-
Review complicated patient cases and determine treatment to assist nursing staff and achieve recovery
Registered Nurse | April 2015âFeb 2017Stockton Private Hospital | Stockton, NSW
-
Administered appropriate medication for effective patient treatment
-
Monitored patients by taking vital signs regularly to examine treatment
-
Assisted with training of new staff to maintain continuity in the high-level care unit
Read Also: How To Make Resume On Google Docs
Office / Administrative Jobs Resume Summary Examples
Office Manager Resume Summary
Office manager with 5+ years of experience in controlling inventory, ordering and tracking new supplies, developing procedures and training material for staff. Strong communication skills, organized, with a track record of success.
Click here for the full office manager resume example.
Executive Assistant Resume Summary
Accomplished executive assistant with experience in providing support to a high-level CEO and other executives for 4 years. Helped with everything from customer support, to data entry and preparing well-researched documents. Skilled at time-management, proficient in MS Office and Adobe Photoshop.
Click here for the full executive assistant resume example.
Receptionist Resume Summary
Customer-oriented and self-motivated receptionist with 5+ years of experience in customer support. Proficient in medical record-keeping software and MS Office. Thorough and attention to detail in daily professional matters.
Click here for the full receptionist resume example.
Business And Management Summary Examples
Project Manager Resume Summary
Project manager with a proven track record of working with agile and waterfall project management methodologies. Managed 5+ teams of software projects over the past 3 years. Basic understanding of several programming languages, including Java, React, and NodeJS.
Click here for the full project manager resume example.
Business Analyst Resume Summary
Solutions-driven business analyst with over 5 years of experience in consulting businesses and analyzing their operations. Previous experience in working with Consulting Company X and Consulting Company Y. Strong understanding of digital transformation. Improved a client companys processes by taking them online, which improved manufacturing output by 3%.
Human Resources Resume Summary
HR professional with 5+ years of experience in recruitment. Worked with every part of the recruitment process, including sourcing, vetting, and onboarding of candidates. Passionate about IT recruitment, having worked as a tech recruiter at Company X. MBA from University X.
Recommended Reading: How To Add Resume To Linkedin
Begin With Basic Details
Be specific. The hiring manager should know exactly what you did at your previous or current employers, so they can gain a thorough understanding of your work history.
Begin each resume job description with essential information about the job and company: your official job title, the name and address of the company, and the period in which you worked there.
Emphasize Accomplishments Over Responsibilities
It’s important for employees to know you have the necessary experience to do the work required in the position. Still, many candidates will have this relevant experience.
To stand out, emphasize how you added value. Focus on accomplishments, rather than responsibilities.
As seen above, numbers can be your friend when it comes to highlighting your accomplishments in your resume. As well, numbers provide context. For instance, you might say, “Increased revenue by 5%, after several years of decreasing sales.”
Or, rather than saying, “Answered phone calls and dealt with customer concerns,” you can say, “Resolved customer concerns, answering approximately 10 calls per hour. Became go-to person on the team for dealing with the toughest phone calls and most challenging complaints.”
Employers want to know what you accomplished. Make it easy for them to see what you’ve done by using numbers and percentages.
While it is important to keep descriptions short, adding details and context can help show employers why you’d be a good match for the position.
Read Also: What Makes A Successful Resume
What Are Technical Or Hard Skills On Your Resume
When listing hard skills on your resume, include specific proficiencies and certifications. Front-end web developers, for instance, would report their level of expertise in HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and other technologies the company lists in its job posting. A financial controller, meanwhile, might claim a strong foundation in GAAP or SEC reporting, and an administrative professionals resume skills could advertise a CAP or MOS certification.
Here are some hard resume skills for 15 in-demand fields:
Edit And Proofread To Ensure Accuracy
Once the first draft is ready, make sure you edit and proofread the text to remove grammatical errors and factual inaccuracies. Refrain from making claims that are not verifiable, and be honest in describing your achievements. Check that the duties and accomplishments from all previous roles follow the same structural format and have a professional tone.
Read more:
Here is a template for mentioning your experience on your resume:
-
Primary duty or accomplishment in the role
-
Primary duty or accomplishment in the role
-
Primary duty or accomplishment in the role
-
Primary duty or accomplishment in the role
-
Primary duty or accomplishment in the role
Don’t Miss: What The Perfect Resume Looks Like
Establish A Suitable Format
Establish which type of resume format is likely to be most effective considering your skills and experience. There are three main types of formats that might be suitable for a nurse unit manager. Here’s a brief explanation of each format:
-
Functional resume: This type of resume emphasises a professional’s essential skills. Considering this, it’s often most suitable for someone who has limited experience, but possesses many of the required skills.
-
Chronological resume: This type of resume emphasises a professional’s work history section. This means it’s most suitable for someone with appropriate experience as a nurse unit manager.
-
Combined resume: This type of resume allows a professional to emphasise both experience and skills. You might use this type of resume if you have some nurse unit manager experience but still feel the requirement to emphasise specific skills.
Related: Resume Format Guide
Focus On Your Skills And Achievements
As I said, recruiters dont really care about all the daily duties and responsibilities youve had before, even if your past job is relevant to the one youre applying for.
I guarantee, every other applicant thats held a similar position will have had similar duties. Your job title itself lets the recruiter know what they are.
It doesnt matter what you did, but how you succeeded at it.
So, what you need to do is highlight your accomplishments and skills while you outline your duties. This shows the hiring manager that you can bring value to the company.
You dont need to go into too much detail a simple statement, such as Created a custom client dashboard that reduced support tickets by 50% is enough to show what youve brought to the table.
However, you cant just throw any old achievement in there. You need to curate your content. So
Don’t Miss: How To Upload Resume On Linkedin Profile
You Sell Your Strongest Attributes And Top Achievements
A resume summary section showcases your top accomplishments, key skills, and experience. This helps recruiters quickly size you up and find key attributes they are looking for in your resume. It leverages the 7-second window by showing the recruiter why you are the best person for the job in just a few sentences.
How To Describe What Your Job Responsibilities During An Interview
The STAR method helps you articulate your accomplishments.
Situation You start by explaining a situation that required you to solve a problem, use a skill, or come up with a new idea.
Task Next, explain the action that your job requires in such a situation.
Action Describe the action that you took. If its different than the required task, you should also explain why you chose a different path.
Result What happened in the end? How did the situation play out once you took that particular action? Its best here to explain the successes with numbers if you can. Numbers help reinforce the impact that your action had.
People also search for:
Description for resume for freshers, describe your current job, responsibilities examples, resume job description generator, resume responsibilities and achievements, experience description resume examples, list of job responsibilities
Don’t Miss: How To Prepare Resume For Job
Build Your Arguments Based On Your Tasks And Skills
The first step of writing strong work descriptions is to consider what your tasks were at your job.
Did you:
- Deal with a busy environment?
- Set up window displays?
- Meet sales goals?
These kinds of day-to-day activities will form the basis of your argument, so write down everything you can think of.
Now that you know your tasks, its time to figure out your skills.
Use The Proper Template And Format For The Resume Work History
This study by The Ladders found that recruiters spend, on average, just 7 seconds on each resume they get.
Heres the twist: it applies mostly to resumes that have poor formatting and are difficult to follow.
Legible formatting of your resume work history is key to earning more eye-time.
Heres what you need to do to present the work experience on a resume the way recruiters expect:
You May Like: How To Include Certifications In Resume
How To Tailor Your Resume To A Specific Job Description
If youve read any type of resume advice online theres a good chance you saw many recommendations that you should tailor your resume for each job.
Youre probably wondering- Is it really necessary??
It might be tempting to skip it, because yes- it takes time.
But it really will make a huge difference in the number of companies that call you back and invite you to interview.
Im talking about an exponential increase in callbacks not a slight increase. Ive tried both ways, trust me.
And tailoring your resume is not as hard as it sounds. Ill take you through it step by step. But first, read this next section because its important
Tailor Your Content To The Position
When describing your previous work experiences, its best to select the most relevant roles and describe your accomplishments based on the job description for which youre currently applying. Determining what is relevant and what is not greatly depends on what the potential employers are looking for. Use the job description to find what their needs are and what they are expecting from a future employee in this role. A well-written job description section that is also tailored for the job you are applying for has the potential of setting you apart from other applicants with similar qualifications.
You May Like: How To Upload My Resume On Indeed
How To Get Started Using Job Descriptions For Your Resume
To help you get started, take a look at the sample job descriptions below. For additional example job descriptions, search for listings on your favorite online job boards, and check out the following links from Workable.com.
Search for two types of sample job descriptions:
Job posts that are similar to roles you’ve previously held and
Listings that represent the type of position you’re currently targeting.
In both of these instances, don’t worry about the job’s location. For the purpose of this exercise, instead only focus on the job description and its requirements.
Use the sample job descriptions that match titles in your work history to beef up your professional resume’s Employment History section. Click on the following link to learn how to use these job listings to brag about your experience.
Once you’ve found three to five sample listings that describe your job goals, copy and paste the text of each job description into a Word document and bold any phrases that routinely pop up. Then, highlight each term that describes a qualification you possess. Use this information to edit your resume and cover letter so that your key accomplishments and skills match those desired by your target employer. Your end result should be a professional resume that mirrors the employer’s requirements.
Sample Job Descriptions: