Rule : Write A Captivating Resume Summary
Often, recruiters and hiring managers skim over your resume before quickly deciding whether your job application merits their further attention.
The resume summary is usually the section that helps them make that decision.
It works as your resume profile and answers the classic interview question: Tell me about yourself.
Speaking of which, heres a quick segue that will help you answer this all-important interview question:
Heres a wrong way to write a resume summary:
Passionate, driven self-starter with extensive experience in a variety of industries and over 10 years experience managing multiple projects simultaneously in a high-volume environment. Responsible for driving sales to meet business objectives.
This could be anyone, from Donald Trump to your local bakery assistant. Your resume summary must be aligned to your value proposition and targeted to the role youre applying for.
If youre a marketing professional, applying for a senior marketing role at a funded startup, your resume summary should say:
I specialise in creating B2B marketing strategies which enable venture capital-backed startups to scale from $1m ARR to $5m ARR.
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.
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.
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What Is A Resume Profile And What Should You Include
A resume profile, or professional profile, is a short summary on your resume describing your goals, ambitions, and your most relevant qualifications pertinent to the job you are applying for. You should write the resume profile in the top section of your resume. A resume profile can take the form of a resume summary, resume objective, or summary of qualifications.
Scroll past the examples to learn how to write your own.
Professional Summary Example For Receptionist
Customer-oriented and performance-driven Front Desk Assistant skilled at performing various administrative tasks, improving all office processes and procedures, and providing support to Office Managers. Great communicator with a Business Administration degree from a well-known university and an exceptional ability to remain calm in stressful situations. Possess well-developed communication skills and excellent time management abilities.
Also Check: Resumes For Small Business Owners
Job Seeking Understand The Benefits And Realities Of Certain Methods
Job seekers looking to step into a higher-level role, whether outside or within their current company, should keep in mind that job boards and human resources departments are not necessarily going to be their best bet for landing a dream position. HR is mainly interested in finding a person who has already held and succeeded in an identical role to the open position, so anyone without the exact experience they are looking for wont usually be the top choice.
Instead, think about the people you know and the companies you would be most excited to work for. I highly recommend making a list of everyone in your network as well as a target company list that you can use to start reaching out to people and companies directly. Talk to your friends, your family, and your colleagues about your job target and ask if they know of anyone at a company you are interested in that they would be willing to introduce you to.
The success rates for landing a job through a job board like Indeed, LinkedIn, or Monster is much lower than most people think, accounting for only about 5%-15% of hiring. Networking is still the best way to land your next job, especially when navigating career advancement.
How Many Pages Should A Resume Be
The short answer is that one page is the ideal resume length for most candidates. However, if you have a lot of relevant work experience, it can be two or even three pages.
Just note that unless youre applying for an upper-management position or an academic post, one page will be enough for hiring managers. Even Elon Musks resume could be tightened into one page.
If youre applying for an academic position, youll need to send a CV instead of a resume. Keep in mind that CV templates are often several pages long, and contain more information to show the progression of your academic career.
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The Art Of Proofreading A Resume
Once you have sent your resume in to a potential employer, there is no edit button. Multiple people will read it over the course of the interview process, and they will assume what you write reflects the best of what is on offer.
When you are considering how to write a resume, it is vital to check for careless mistakes and lazy language choices, which tend to slip in all too easily in your excitement to send the application.
Proofreading a section of text requires a slow-motion thought process that is forensic in its approach. Every word counts and you have to consider how they will be received by the reader rather than how they sound in your head.
We have written a comprehensive expert guideto proofreading your resume. Doing it right could make all the difference. Here are three of the tips that far from every candidate will consider:
Read your resume out loud. Although it is impossible to achieve a conversational flow due to the fractured structure of a resume, it is nonetheless important to read each sentence and bullet point out loud to sense check that it sounds like you.
Sleep on it. Creativity is often enhanced after we have walked away from a task for a while. It is tempting to send off that application immediately, but it is often worth taking a break and considering it with a fresh mindset. Potential improvements will leap off the page.
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.
Read Also: How To Make Resume In Photoshop
Whats The Best Resume Format
There is no such thing as the best resume format. The type of resume you choose should be based on your work history, work experience, skills, and qualifications. Here are examples of the formats you can use, and who should use them:
What Is A Resume
You should also familiarize yourself with the difference between a resume and a cover letter:
- A resume is typically sent with a cover letter, which is a document that provides additional information on your skills and experience in letter form.
- A resume is a concise, often bulleted summary, while a cover letter highlights and expands on certain traits or accomplishments that would be unique or ideal assets for the particular job.
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Keep Your Formatting Consistent
Professional resumes need to have consistent formatting. For instance, if you use bullet points to describe your responsibilities and achievements at one position, be sure to use bullet points in all other positions as well.
Also, make certain that the bullet points are formatted the same way throughout. For example, don’t use circle bullet points in one section, and diamond bullet points in another section. Be consistent with font, font size, and style .
Focus It On The Future
While your résumé is meant to be a lookback at your experience and where youve been, the cover letter should focus on the future and what you want to do, says Glickman. It can be helpful to think of it as the bridge between the past and the future that explains what you hope to do next and why. Because of the pandemic there is less of an expectation that youll be applying for a job that youve done before. There are millions of people who are making career changes voluntarily or involuntarily and need to pivot and rethink how their skillset relates to a different role or industry, says Glickman. You can use your cover letter to explain the shift youre making, perhaps from hospitality to marketing, for example. Think of it as an opportunity to sell your transferrable skills.
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Resume Summary Example For Teens
Fast-learning waiter with proven customer service skills. Looking to provide excellence in service at Mardibinis on the Sea. At The Lobster Pound, received 5 management commendations for providing high-level service. Maintained 95% positive customer comment review scores.
Source: Resume Examples for TeensGuide + Sample and 25 Writing Tips
Expert Hint:How important are cover letters? Theyre quite important. We conducted a study which revealed that 83% of recruiters take cover letter into consideration when deciding who to hire.
Double your impact with a matching resume and cover letter combo. Use our cover letter builder and make your application documents pop out.
Want to try a different look? Theres 18 more. A single click will give your document a total makeover. Pick a cover letter template here.
Resumes For Internal Promotions
If you are specifically targeting an internal promotion, you already have a major leg up on the external competition. Make sure to leverage your advantage! As an internal candidate, you can ask supervisors, clients, employees, and/or peers for a letter of recommendation talk to people in the know about the qualifications the new job will require and spend some time thinking about how you can help with the obstacles your company is currently facing. A format for a resume for promotion within the same company is also easier to come up with because you know your company culture.
When it comes to crafting your resume for internal professional advancement opportunities, be sure to avoid exaggerating your achievements or taking more credit than you can honestly claim for team accomplishments. In general, this is the best practice, but it is particularly key when the people reading your resume are familiar with your work in your current position. No one benefits from coming across as arrogant. It is much better to cushion your language to indicate collaboration.
Helpful phrasing for team achievements for use in internal resumes:
Played a key role inContributed xyz to project involvingCollaboratively managedPartnered with executive leadership team to capture
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Dont Forget Your Education
If youre still in school or just graduated, your education can go at the top of your resume, but for pretty much everyone else, this goes near the bottom. Most people include their school, graduation year , major, and degree. Brand-new grads might also write in their GPA, honors and awards, study abroad, thesis, or other notable achievements. But keep this section super simple, as you dont want it to take up too much space over your work experience.
Its possible you have unique education experience, such as taking an online course or certification. If you did this specifically as a way to boost yourself within your industry, definitely include it. Again, list everything more or less reverse chronologicallyso a grad school degree would go above an undergrad degree, and a more recent relevant online course would go above that.
Learn more about the ins and outs of listing your education on your resume:
Use These Resume Tips To Dodge Common Blunders That Can Sabotage Your Job Search
Common resume mistakes are deceptively easy to make.
Youve been applying to jobs like crazy, but it seems as though all of your applications have disappeared into the black hole of the Internet. Wondering why your resume isnt getting you any interviews? Were willing to bet its not because youre unqualified or just not good enough . Its likely because resume mistakes are causing one or more fatal errors.
Job seekers, beware! All it takes is just one to strike your job search dead in its tracks. Definitely something entry-level workers need to be on the lookout for when writing your first resume.
Think your resume is perfect and bulletproof? Even the most experienced professionals still find themselves guilty of making resume mistakes. Plural.
With only a mere six seconds to wow a recruiter, having any kind of mistake on your resume is not a risk even the most daring of job seekers should take. After all, your resume is the first point of contact you make with a potential employer, so you want that first impression to be a strong, clear demonstration of just how awesome you are at what you do. Thats how you get an interviewand then once you rock that, a job.
As you write your resumeor give your resume its six-month updatemake sure it doesnt include any of these common resume mistakes listed below.
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And Lets Wrap It All Up
If youve followed all of our advice until now, congrats! Youre probably an expert on how to make a resume.
To wrap it all up, lets brush up on some of the most important lessons weve learned so far…
- Use the rightresume builder. You dont want to mess around with formatting for hours before even starting to work on your resume!
- Focus on achievements. Mention your achievements instead of responsibilities, so that you stand out from all the other applicants.
- Include the must-have sections. That is, resume summary, work experience, education, and skills.
- Tailor for the job. Everything listed on your resume should be relevant for the job youre applying for.
- Perfect your cover letter. Its as important as your resume, so make sure you pay as much attention to it!
At Novorésumé, were committed to helping you get the job you deserve, every step of the way! Follow our career blog to stay up to date with industry-leading advice. Or, check out some of our top guides:
Andrei Kurtuy
What Is The Best Resume Layout
The first thing a job recruiter notices about any resume is the layout.
Does it look organized or cluttered? Is it too short or too long? Is it boring and easy to ignore, or does it scream out Read me!?
Here are some of the best practices when it comes to your resume layout:
Resume Layout Must-Haves
1. One page in length. You should only go for 2 pages if you really, really believe that itll add significant value. HR managers in big firms get around 1,000+ resumes per month. Theyre not going to spend their valuable time reading your life story!
2. Clear section headings. Pick a heading and use it for all the section headers.
3. Ample white-space, especially around the margins.
4. Easy-to-read font. Wed recommend sticking to what stands out, but not too much. Do: Ubuntu, Roboto, Overpass, etc. Dont : Comic Sans
5. Pick the right font size. As a rule of thumb, go for 11 – 12 pt for normal text, and 14 – 16 pt for section titles.
6. As a rule of thumb, save your resume as PDF. Word is a popular alternative, but it has a good chance of messing up your resume formatting.
One more thing you need to consider in terms of resume layout is whether youre going for a traditional-looking free resume template or something a bit more modern:
If youre pursuing a career in a more traditional industry – legal, banking, finance, etc. – you might want to stick to the first.
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