Highlight Awards And Recognitions
- Baseline: candidates rarely have this section in their resumes
- Stand out: adding an Achievements section to your resume sets you apart from the majority of candidates in the hiring pool.
If we were to summarize what sets apart the majority of our customers whose successful resumes weve used throughout this guide, wed say custom sections.
Achievements, Awards, and Most Proud sections are all great examples.
Adding them within our resume builder is a one-step drag-and-drop process, but the most important part is that you can quickly change the whole layout based on your particular needs.
As mentioned before, Maximilian put his most impactful Achievements right next to his Experience section, amplifying the overall impact, which is critical when you work with Amazon partners.
But Julian Prim, who now works with PwC, took a different approach. His high-stakes analyst job required extra attention to detail and next to perfect time-management skills.
After all, thats what PwC had in mind for their operations specialist.
So Julian put his skills first to let recruiters know he checks all these boxes and added his Most Proud section below.
While Maximillianss resume narrative is an ambitious and impactful account manager, Julian Prim is an efficient and timid analyst. The layouts of their resumes work great for both of them.
Pro tip: with simple drag and drop you can quickly change layouts and thus how your resume narrative.
Back Up Your Accomplishments With Evidence
Including your professional accomplishments is a critical component of a successful resume, but its not enough to just list them: you also need to back them up with evidence.
If youve improved the load speed of a clients site, give them the numbers. If youve brought a significant number of new visitors to a site in a month, explain how you did it and provide relevant figures. In general, accomplishments are far more informative than simply listing out job roles and responsibilities.
For example, if youve been working in a security position, your responsibilities may include monitoring and updating servers and files, securing information and protecting external hardware, such as printers and scanners. However, an accomplishment in this role could be that you managed to lower security threats affecting your business by 40 percent during your tenure. Or you could have streamlined the methods your team used to carry out their work or the procedures that took place.
The bottom line: Dont act demure about your achievements. Boast about your professional victoriesand be specific about how you accomplished them! Advertising and substantiating your own triumphs will give your potential employer a good idea of how you can employ your talents to their advantage.
Software Engineer Resume Objective
Experienced and knowledgeable software engineer with extensive practice in technology engineering and computer science looking to obtain a position that allows for the application of design skills, customer service and support abilities and critical thinking to produce software that meets all goals and objectives outlined by the customer.
Related: Tips for Writing an Engineering Resume Objective
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Why Its Important For Your Resume To Stand Out
Writing resumes is a tricky business you want your resume to have the right keywords and phrases so that it can make it through electronic resume readers, but you also want it different enough to catch the hiring managers eye.
Your resume is a document that showcases your qualifications for a job. You will want to include your education, experience, skills and other achievements that you have made.
Having a resume that stands out will make a hiring manager stop and take a second look and will see what sets you apart from other candidates. Having a resume that is not visually appealing, has mistakes, or is too long can be the difference from you being considered for a job or not.
Consider The Hiring Managers Needs
Read the job description closely and explore the company website. Read their mission statement. Get a sense of their company culture and what they value in their employees. Then make sure these elements are included on your resume. For instance, if a companys job ad mentions seeking team players, be sure your resume highlights your history of successful collaboration.
Your resume should show that you meet or exceed the job requirements listed in the job posting.
Also Check: How To Set Up A Resume
Customize Your Resume For Your Industry
People are often encouraged to include personality in their resume, but unless they are applying for a job in a creative industry, they may want to rethink that strategy. A lot of pictures and fonts and colors and a whole lot of personality just doesnt align with the jobs we have here, says Schweikert, whose team recruits for positions in sales, product and marketing. If I was in an organization that, for example, was in web design, then I would want to see those design elements in a resume.
Kim agrees that resume layout is wholly dependent on the position you are applying for. If you are applying for a designer role, I want to see something creative there. If youre applying for a finance role, I want to see numbers, she says.
How Long Should A Resume Summary Be
As you read the resume summaries above, you probably noticed there are some short single-paragraph resume summary examples and much longer career summaries that are two to three paragraphs plus bullet points.
So how long should YOUR professional summary be?
If you have relevant work experience, keep your summary to one or two paragraphs. The piece you really want the hiring manager reading is your most recent work experience .
The resume summary is just a bridge to get the hiring manager into your experience.
If I were writing my own career summary right now, Id likely use one single paragraph packed with skills, accomplishments, and exactly why Im ready to step into the job Ive applied for and be successful!
Even for a manager resume summary, I recommend a very short length.
However, if youre changing careers, or youre looking for jobs without any work experience, the summary section needs to stand on its own, and should be longer. Thats why some examples above are a bit longer.
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Writing Your Executive Assistant Resume Like A Pro
Even though the idea ofwriting a resume for an executive assistant position might seem insurmountable, you can avoid a lot of stress by doing some simple research about what to include on a resume.
You’ve come to the perfect place to learn more about resume sections. In this section, we’ll cover:
- Objective or summary
- Proofreading your resume
What If I Dont Have A Job How Can I List Accomplishments Without Experience
Its hard to make yourself stand out when you dont have any experience yet. There are millions of first-time workers trying to get into entry-level positions every year.
If you find yourself in this position, start by listing some academic awards you may have received or volunteer activities that indicate leadership, time management skills, and teamwork abilities. You could also highlight an important project you completed in school, even if its not within the exact same field as to where youre applying.
Remember to be clear and concise when writing these and try and find ways to relate them to why they make you the perfect candidate.
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Study Specific Cases Of Resumes That Stood Out From Competition
Writing a resume that stands out with no work experience
- Put Education and Projects section on the top left and top right
- Hide GPA if its below 3
- Add a link to personal industry-related projects or Github if youre in development
- Include a short objective to frame the recruiters expectations
- Use custom sections to stand out from hundreds of applicants
- DONT mention passion in your objective.
Successful example:
Tips for making your resume stand out for senior employees
- Use custom section to stand out from your competition and add personality to your top-management experience
- Frame your experience with a well-researched custom headline on top
- Add links to a business-related profile
- Frame Skills sections in a unique way
Successful example: senior manager resume at Verizon
How to create a standout resume with bad work history
- Go for a where skills and workflows are prioritized over the experience section
- Create a proxy item in your experience section, e.g. Freelancer, or Agency and list your temporary experiences within it
- Write an engaging Summary section to address the recruiters questions about your inconsistent work history and turn it to your advantage
- DONT mention passion in your objective. Just dont.
Standout resume for different positions
Over years weve shared and updated a library of 530+ professional resume example guides with best practices and tips for specific job titles.
Complete Your Resume Quickly
You dont need any design or layout experience to use our resume examples. Choose a template that matches your style, and select the resume sample that fits the job you want. From there, use the content in the example to help you complete a resume that matches your skills and work experience. You can create and customize as many resumes as needed for different jobs.
Remember, your resume needs to be both unique and in line with other resumes. This is why its so essential to utilize great resume samples and templates. You want your resume to stand out enough for a hiring manager to give it a second look, and you need to showcase your unique talents and abilities as well as the necessary skills and experiences for your desired job.
If you dont know much about writing a resume, thats all the more reason to utilize a resume example. With a resume example, you can take your resume from basic and bare-bones to exciting and holding the potential for a real job.
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Data Engineer Resume Examples & Samples
While many data engineering resumes highlight similar skills and qualifications, different careers under the data engineering umbrella require slightly different job responsibilities. Further updating your resume to the specific role helps to show you have put thoughtful effort into your application and helps demonstrate your relevant capabilities.
Tailoring your resume is essential, and the examples below demonstrate how you may approach certain sections according to the role you seek.
Always Edit And Get A Second Set Of Eyes
Finally, make sure you edit ruthlessly, and if you can, get a few sets of eyes on your tech resume. Of all the tech resume tips, this may seem the most obvious. Resumes are full of errors and brains have a tendency to scan over errors, so a fresh pair of eyes can help catch grammar gaffes and overlooked mistakes. Tech jobs, especially, need someone who will pay attention to the detailsa missing or extra character in a line of code can bring down a website. And with competition fierce for the best jobs, errors on your resume may lead a prospective employer to pass right over you in favor of another candidate with a cleaner CV.
This post was originally written by Mary Walton from UKWritings in February 2018. It was updated by Melanie Lawder in February 2019.
Since youre hereAre you a future data scientist? Investigate with our free step-by-step guide to getting started in the industry. When youre ready to build a CV that will make hiring managers melt, join our 4-week Data Science Prep Course or our Data Science Bootcampyoull get a job in data science or well refund your tuition.
About Melanie Lawder
Melanie is a Milwaukee-based freelance writer. She has reported for publications like the Milwaukee Business Journal and the Wausau Daily Herald. Follow her on Twitter @mel_lawder.
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Setting Yourself Up For Success
When quantifying bullet points on a resume, the chief rule is always to prepare to speak further to each one in an interview setting. If someone says they raised conversion rates or drove additional revenue, for example, they should be able to speak to the processes behind it.
Choosing bullet points that sound impressive but do not accurately reflect their experience has sunk many candidates chances for a job. Focusing on the quantifiable bullet points they can back up is where success happens.
It Includes Only Relevant Information
If youve been in the workforce a while, youve probably had quite a few jobs. Not all of your work experience will be relevant to the position youre applying for. If youre applying to work as a supervisor on a construction site, you likely dont need to mention your high school job at a fast-food joint. Instead, youll want your construction experience front-and-center.
But, if youre a recent college grad, you might need to round out your resume with earlier jobs and volunteer positions. Make sure to highlight all of your transferable skills from those positions. What not to put on a resume depends on how much experience you have to include.
Every resume, regardless of how long youve worked, should include your contact information, education, and experience .
You can also include relevant links. If youre a writer or a graphic artist, youll want to link to your portfolio website. If youre applying for a social media marketing job, include links to your socials. But only include links that are relevant to your work.
Also Check: Should My Resume Be One Page
Use The Right Language To Stand Out
Trite, lackluster descriptions of your job duties and accomplishments wont do you any favors. Make sure youre using strong action words, such as achieved, designed, improved and established, to describe your roles and projects, said Sade. This will make you sound confident while imparting vital information. But be cautious about depending on action verbs make sure to include details about how you improved a process or achieved a goal.
Words such as professional, results-driven and detail-oriented provide very little helpful information, Sade said. Its better to use actual job titles than these words.
Did you know? You can use a combination of action words to highlight your experience and make your resume easier to read.
Diya Obeid, founder and CEO of ATS company JobDiva, said that you should remove words like go-getter, team player and go-to person from your resume. These come off as fluff and take up precious space on your resume.
Your Rsum Is A Story About Results Not Responsibilities Put The Most Exciting Bullet Points On Top
Why is this important? Recruiters have 20 to 30 seconds to review each résumé, and your chances will be higher if you start with the most significant achievements.
Don’t describe your responsibilities
Bad example: “Key responsibilities: Accurately and quickly processing data from the sales team to Smartplay’s internal management software.”
Do demonstrate your personal impact and start with the most important achievements
Better example: “Investigated 200+ potentially illegal transactions and presented 3 process improvements to senior management, resulting in a 14% accuracy improvement in fraudulent transaction flagging.”
Why is this important? In the first example, recruiters are not interested in processes, so there is a high probability that the résumé will not attract their attention. In the second example, a candidate demonstrates an achievement, initiative, and actions: investigation, presentation, and improvements. Companies prefer hiring great candidates with a leadership mindset, therefore the second candidate has better chances.
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Importance Of A Resume
Your resume is the most important document youll submit in your job search. Its your frontline fighter, so to speak, as its your first opportunity to present yourself to a potential employer. Hiring managers and recruiters look at resumes for an average of only six to seven seconds each, so its important that you make every second count. A strong resume can help you stand out from the crowd, but a weak resume can remove you from the running.
According to Zippia research, professionally written resumes are not only good for landing an interview, but they can also boost your earning potential by 7%.
Resume Ideas For Less Formal Gigs
Over the past few years, the gig economy has started to change the way many people look for work and the type of work they do. Like artistic careers, you will have more room to be creative with your resume if you are looking for a position in a less formal gig. Here are a few tips to help you make a gig resume stand out:
Use a block or grid layout
Resumes for less formal gigs can also have a less formal layout and structure than a standard resume. You can try to use a block or grid layout to give each section of your resume a specific block space. Using a less formal layout will instantly help make your resume stand out from all the other resumes using a standard layout.
Personalize your resume
A great way to make a resume for a less formal gig stand out is to use personal branding with a logo or personalizing your resume to the type of position you are applying for. Once you create a personal brand logo you can also use it on other professional materials such as your cover letter, business cards, social media and your website. You can also personalize your resume to the type of position you are applying for by using the industry to choose a unique resume design.
Start a conversation
Use humor
Related: How To Find Gig Work Fast
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Moving To A New Geographic Area:
Experienced software developer relocating to San Francisco in August and seeking employment with a fast-growing startup. I bring more than eight years experience writing JavaScript and more than ten years experience in the technology industry.
Current kitchen manager with more than ten years experience in the restaurant industry seeking to begin a sous chef position when I relocate to Chicago in September. I am eager to apply my culinary skills and grow my experience as part of an established institution.
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