Due to covid, job hunting has become more competitive than ever, and putting together an effective resume has become just as important. You, along with many others, might’ve been endlessly creating and revising your resumes in order to have a better chance at landing that perfect job but not having any luck.
This is when you need to figure out which parts of your resume are weak and costing you that potential job and learn some tips for writing an effective resume. After a certain point, it is not a matter of experience and qualifications, but rather how you present them to your potential employers.
The goal is to effectively market your professional qualifications to make the best impression on your potential employers. To do so, below are some tips for writing a resume best suited to land the job you’ve been eyeing.
Rules for Writing Up an Effective Resume
Relevance
Usually, the best thing to do before creating a resume is to figure out which work experiences and qualifications are the most relevant to the job position you are applying to. At times, listing an extra experience with zero relevance can convey to the hiring manager that you might not be an attentive individual, however, listing an experience that seemingly doesn’t have any relevance but can work as a complementary element to the job, might help you rank higher than other applicants.
Note! Surveys say that about 85 percent of employers agree that a resume needs to be tailored to a specific job position.
Short but sweet
A mistake people tend to make when creating a resume is that they list every single work experience they’ve ever had. This ends up overloading the resume and then you have a 2- or 3-page resume in your hands. Long resumes tend to not get taken into account as the hiring managers get many applications every day, so it’s always better to make sure your resume is only 1 page long with the necessary work experience and qualifications listed.
Design
Gone are the days when a resume was a simple white sheet of paper with black letters typed across it. Now, many aim to catch the eye of potential employers by presenting them with an aesthetically pleasing resume. Although this is a recommended tactic, you have to make sure you don’t go overboard. It should be aesthetically pleasing as well as professional, if it crosses the line, then it loses that professionalism and becomes something that might not be taken seriously.
Resume Templates
Using templates is a great way to build an effective resume since you don’t have to design your own resume and just have to simply choose a suitable one. This relieves you of the stress from possibly having to design it yourself. A simple Microsoft Word template for a resume can come across as outdated and amateurish and might cost you that job.
A smart thing to do is to consider a professional resume builder site. This resume builder gives you access to 4000+ free, modern, ready-to-go templates that are sure to catch the attention of your potential employer. It also makes building your resume 10 times easier by having you list your work experience and skills to guide you to the best list of suggestions to try out.
Not to mention, you can edit your resume as you like and as much as you like, to the point of changing the colour scheme, the layout, your listed work experiences that you might want to update after a certain point. In addition, you consistently receive professional tips about where you could improve your resume as you build it. And you are also able to create as many multiple resumes as you want to tailor each one according to whatever job position you are applying for.
Accomplishments
Aside from your work experience and qualifications simply being listed, many hiring managers want to see a part of your personality so they can get a better feel for your character and how you would fit in their company. This is where you describe the nitty gritty of your previous jobs where you accomplished, for example, crossing the set goal of sales targets in a month or a few months in a row. By describing how much your work benefited your previous employers, the hiring managers will be more interested in you than if you had just stated how you worked there for so-and-so years.
Qualifications
Although this is a given, it is important enough to be reiterated. Any necessary certificates and/or skills should be mentioned on your resume without a second thought. For instance, job postings looking to hire writers look for experience in SEO-optimization, while other job positions, such as, software engineer, require you to be knowledgeable about Java, Python etc. Qualifications, no matter the field, are necessary to mention so that you may rank higher than other applicants.
Language
The best way to come across in your resume is to use an active voice rather than passive. You should make yourself sound confident and assertive as that may come across as being reliable and might stand out more to the hiring managers, whereas an unsure voice can make it seem as if you might not be a good fit for the job.
Social Media Profiles/Online Portfolios
Listing your professional social media profiles or linking an online portfolio is a very good way of standing out and catching the attention of potential employers as they can get a feel for your work and personality. An online portfolio, in particular, can really boost your chances of landing a job.
For instance, if a graphic designer or photographer links an online portfolio of theirs, their chances of getting the job are much higher than if they had simply listed experiences and qualifications without any show of what their work looks like. By listing your professional social media or portfolio you come across as a higher quality candidate and also show the hiring manager the potential you may have in granting their brand high visibility by marketing it according to Marquis Matson, an SEO analyst, and copywriter,
Revise and revise again
It is never a bad idea to revise your resume as errors are often a good way of getting that resume tossed straight in the bin. Proofreading 2-3 times is a good way of ensuring quality and will also help you edit out/in unnecessary/necessary pieces of information. After that, all that’s left is to do your best in applying for jobs.
Following all these tips and rules in creating an effective resume should help you out in making that perfect resume to land that perfect job you’ve had your eye on for a while now.
The last tip to offer
Make sure you pay attention to what the hiring manager is looking for in particular because that way you can tailor your resume even more before applying, thus increasing your chances of landing that job!
