What Are The Most Popular Resume Formats
The three most common resume formats are chronological, functional and combination. When deciding which resume format you should use, consider your professional history and the role youre applying for. For example, if you have limited work experience, you might instead focus on academic work, volunteer positions or apprenticeships with a functional resume instead of a chronological resume, which prioritizes job history.In the next sections, well explore each resume format type in detail, including which is best based on common job search situations.
So What Should A Resume Look Like In 2021
Promoting your brand is really important and a well-written career summary is now more important than having an objective section. This is a high-level overview of your candidacy and should highlight achievements and attributes that make you most valuable to an employer. This is to demonstrate what YOU can do for an employer rather than focusing on what they can do for you.
Below the career summary should be a key skills section. This ties in with the career summary and reaffirms the value and expertise that you can bring to the role. We suggest you slightly tailor this section to suit each job posting you apply for, as applicant tracking systems scan resumes looking for keywords to move the candidate forward. Hence words and phrases from the job posting need to be closely reflected in your resume.
The employment history section should also match the language of the rest of your resume and have a storytelling component. If you can, weave a story into a few lines explaining why you changed industries or why you were promoted. This section should only list your most relevant work history, so dont include experience that dates back further than 10 years unless it is really going to add value to a future employer.
If you are unsure whether your resume, cover letter or LinkedIn profile is considered best practice, then contact Leah Lambart at to organise a free review.
Resume Format : Combination Resumes
A combination resume is a blend of the chronological and functional resume types. This resume format allows you to emphasize both your work experience and relevant skills. Because your skills and employment history will consume most of your resume space, you may need to eliminate optional sections such as a summary statement, volunteer work or special interests.
A combination resume format usually includes the following information in this order:
- Contact information
- Summary of most relevant skills
- Work experience
-
Education
The combination resume is a more flexible format, so you should list either your skills or your work experience first depending on which you consider more important for the role. For example, if you have many unique skills that are especially valuable to the industry in which youre applying to work, you might consider listing them above your work experience. It can also be helpful to look for clues in the job posting to understand what is most important for the employer in an ideal candidate.
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How Many Jobs Should Be On A Resume
How Many Jobs Should You List on a Resume? You should list as many jobs on your resume as you can assuming they are all relevant and youre not going beyond the 10-15 year limit. The number of jobs typically varies between 7 and 3. As long as each job or position is relevant, you shouldnt worry about the exact number.
What Is A Social Work Resume & Why Do You Need It
You can think of your social work resume as your advocate in the job market. It does the selling for you and your skills.
It is an endorsement of your skills & capabilities in a one page document which summarizes your roles & responsibilities and professional achievements.
Your social work resume is the first point of contact between you and your recruiter.
If your resume is impressive enough, you get shortlisted for your target job. If it isnt impressive enough, you do not get shortlisted for your target job.
Its that simple.
What this means: To get shortlisted for the social work job of your dreams, you need an impressive enough social work resume that will awe the recruiter into short-listing you.
One minor problem though:
The Applicant Tracking System .
You may or may not have heard of the ATS before. Thats not an issue.
But its high time you know about the ATS system as you cannot get the shortlist that you want without ranking high in the ATS system that recruiters use to shortlist candidates.
The resumes that are ranked high by the ATS system have a higher chance of getting shortlisted. Your social work resume will only reach the recruiter once its performs well enough to rank high in the ATS.
Your job here is to write an ATS-targeted social work resume that will rank you high in the ATS system.
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Job Titles In Your Professional Summary
The first line of your Professional Summary is the most effective area for communicating your expectations, so here you will list 3 to 5 job titles of jobs you would actually accept as your next job. Its important to note that these are the titles of the job you want next, not of the jobs you have had in the past, or the job you currently have. This is the Next Level section of your High Score Resume. Its where you inform recruiters and hiring managers of the job you desire and believe youre a good fit for.
Now its important to note that it does not matter that you have never actually had this job title in the past, but it ought to be a plausible Next Level in your professional career. Rather, youre advertising your ambition to the screener, the recruiter, or hiring manager looking to hire someone for that particular role and title.
Because there are no hard and fast rules that make it easy, youll use your business judgment to determine what qualifies as a suitable title for which you ought to be considered.
Examples of the first line of your professional summary are:
- VP, Marketing Director, Marketing Brand Marketing Leader CMOor
- Sales Representative | Business Development Executive | Account Executiveor
- Logistics Manager * Logistics Senior Manager * Operations Manager * Plant Supervisoror
- Financial Director Director, FP& A Credit Analyst Director, Planning
Creating An Effective Resume
The short amount of time recruiters, hiring managers, and prospective employers take to review your resume is also the time your future career path gets decided. Employers take it to the next level when searching for the right candidates to fill a job position. This is why they use top applicant tracking software and other tools to get the right candidates hired. Also, this is why its essential to already have your best foot forward at the very first stage of job hunting, which is sending out several resumes.
Keeping your resume simple, using the appropriate templates, and making sure you meet all qualifications for the position are some of the most important factors in building an effective resume. In todays highly technological era, you must also consider various ATS platforms that most companies use to automatically screen your resume. There are also several freelance platforms where organizations can search a database of candidates filtered by criteria, such as skills, experience, and more.
These resume trends can help keep your ground in the globally competitive market. Indeed, building and updating your resume can cost you a lot of time and resources. However, youll soon find that it is well worth the extra effort as it means getting you next to a paycheck and achieving your career goals, despite the challenges to the job market that the pandemic brings.
References:
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Use Color Effectively In Your Cv
Image by Sarah Dorweiler via Unsplash.
We know that color speaks to the viewer, and the same goes for resumes.
Pops of color allows you to stand out from the crowd and show off your personality, says Rebecca McFarland, career coach and founder of Pop Your Career. I always found that well-designed resumes with a touch of color get a second lookas much as recruiters and panel members try to be unbiased, we cant help what our eyes are drawn to.
Integrating color is a great way to make your resume more engaging and eye-catching but remember: When it comes to color on your CV, less is often more. Unless youre applying for a highly creative role , you probably want to avoid going overboard on coloras this can just distract recruiters from the true depth of your application. Little touches of color can be a great way to set your resume apart without being overwhelming.
Shy Away From Buzzwords And Humor
Stay clear of terminology that might be understood within a firm where you worked previously but has no meaning to an outsider who reads your resume. These include jargon and acronyms. And if the skills you used in a former position arent transferrable to the one youre applying for, dont give them space on your resume.
Oh, and humor? Its best not to take any chances of coming across as unprofessional or immature. Hyperbole and colloquialisms may not translate in a resume. A summary at the top like this I need a job, pleeeeease may get an E for effort, but nothing else.
If you’re wondering what hiring managers consider red flags in resumes, read Things That Make You Go Hmmm.
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Why Is Resume Format So Important
As any good Interview Guys student will tell you, a resume is a document used by job seekers to quickly and easily let a hiring manager know what skills they have, what their work history is, and any accomplishments they might have.
Seems simple, right?
Well, it is, but only if you know what youre doing. The tricky part of writing your own resume is its a deceptive document.
No, not deceptive as in you use it to lie to an employer about what you can do , but deceptive in that it seems like it should be really easy to write.
Trust me, its much easier to write a bad resume than a good oneand there are a LOT of bad ones out there, which, believe it or not, is a good thing.
Wait. Its good that there are bad resumes out there? That doesnt make any sense!
Yes, and the reason is, when a recruiter or hiring manager has to slog through a mountain of bad resumes, seeing a good resume is like a breath of fresh air. It stands out!
And if you follow our guide, that breath of fresh air resume is going to be yours!
But first, we need to figure out what type of resume format you need.
How Many Jobs Should I List On My Resume
How Many Jobs Should You List on a Resume? You should list as many jobs on your resume as you can assuming they are all relevant and youre not going beyond the 10-15 year limit. The number of jobs typically varies between 7 and 3. As long as each job or position is relevant, you shouldnt worry about the exact number.
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Social Work Resume Objective
Mentioned below are the rules for writing a social worker resume objective:
- Write a social worker resume objective only if you have zero or less than 3 years of work experience
- As you have zero or very minimal work experience, your goal here is to sell your skills as convincingly as you can to the recruiter
- Emphasize any past internships and volunteer activities that you may have done. This will tell the recruiter that despite the lack of active work experience, you have the drive and the willingness that any good candidate should have
- Try to demonstrate through past experiences that you have the right skills that the recruiter is looking for in the applicant
Read Hiration’s 2021 Guide on Resume Objectives to learn the art of composing impeccable resume objectives for your social worker resume.
What Not To Include On Your Resume
There are a few things that should not be part of your resume regardless of your situation:
- While it’s common in some parts of the world to add your photo to your resume, in the US, this is likely to land you straight in the rejection pile because of the potential to create bias in hiring.
- Resume objectives: The objective of your resume is always to get a job. Use a resume summary instead.
- References: Employers will ask for references when they want them. And no need to include “References available upon request” either.
- White text of the job description or anything else intended to game the system: You may have seen advice on how to “cheat” an ATS using tricks like pasting in all the keywords or even the entire job description in white. Don’t do it! You will get caught and your resume will likely end up in the rejection pile.
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Focus On Your Achievements
While its important to describe your job history, you should present it from the perspective of your achievements rather than what your job required you to do. For example, explain how you used your creativity to find a unique solution to a problem. Think of such specific, quantifiable results you achieved, and include them in this section.
Use the same approach to describe your skills. Instead of a simple list of skills, employers are more interested in knowing how you have successfully applied those skills in a practical situation. There is no need to have a separate section of skills unless you are applying for a position that requires certain hard skills . Instead, consider including the skills within the descriptions of your work experience.
Name And Contact Information
Regardless of resume format or order, your name and contact information should be at the top of the page. You could have the best resume in the world, but it won’t matter if recruiters don’t know who you are or how to contact you. So always include your name, your phone number, and a professional-sounding email address. If you have a LinkedIn profile , include the URL as well. If you’re in a field where examples of your work are importantlike writing, design, or software development you might also include a link to your personal website or portfolio.
You may see resume examples and advice that indicate that you should include your street address as well, but your city and state are plenty, and even including that is optional. For instance, if you already live, or are moving, close to the job, you might list your location or “Relocating to: City, State.”
What does this look like all together? Here’s one example:
Cleo Thomas 444-3333 | cleo.thomas@email.com | Chicago, ILlinkedin.com/in/thomascleo | cleothomas.com
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Social Work Sample Resume
Before we begin, take a look at our social work resume sample to know what an ideal social work resume should look like:
- Handled the intake and psycho-social assessments for 50+ patients on a weekly basis
- Administered referral assistance and individual counseling sessions to formerly homeless adults
- Provided vocational training to 200+ homelessadults to make them independent & employment-ready
- Facilitated weekly therapy sessions to promote coping skills, emotional processing, and non-verbal expression
- Developed workable solutions and conducted seminars for 20+ bully victims with PTSD
- Educated families on community resources to address problems faced by their children in school
- Devised realistic treatment plans to improve care and well-being of 1000+ students in the school facility
- Organized mental health assessments in schools and home settings for children
- Maintained case history records and curated 100+ reports to track progress on a weekly basis
- Top 5 percentile of the class
- Top 10 percentile of the class
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