How to Write a Resume

With so many resumes floating around and new job seekers looking to enter the workforce every day, how do you convey your past work history as well as your skills and qualifications to potential employers?

How do you tell your story?

Many job seekers nowadays do not have a standard resume showing how they have moved up the ladder at different companies. That straight path employees used to see in their careers where they work hard in one job and gradually progress to the next level is fading, giving way to a more unique job seeker who is not afraid to take on more challenges.

Some job seekers might have taken time off for personal reasons, care for a new baby, or have worked several part time jobs in order to make ends meet while going back to school.

Situations like these are becoming more common and when job seekers are ready to start their search for a new position, determining the best way to include this information on their resume may be confusing.

Here are 5 important tips to help get your resume formatted and catch the eye of the hiring manager.

First Thing’s First

Think of your resume as the best version of you on a piece of paper. You want to make a great impression and catch the eye of the reader without making it difficult for them to look through your resume.

An easy way to address this is to remember to keep your font big enough without going too far out. The smallest font size you should use on a resume is 10 with 12 being the largest. This will help give you enough room on your paper to get your information across without creating a bulky resume. Avoid using any capital letters and use a standard font such as Times New Roman or Arial.

Be sure to also keep your resume between one to two pages maximum with one page being preferred. The shorter you can make your resume, they easier it will be to read. Keep in mind that your resume is supposed to help you get the interview and the interview is where you can further elaborate on whom you are and what you have to offer.

Show Who You Are

If you find yourself in a position where it is difficult to illustrate advancement with your career, try using a summary at the top of your resume. This will help show the reader whom you are from a professional stand point. Using the summary creates a cornerstone based on your background and where you plan to take your career.

Remember, you are writing your resume for human eyes to review; you want to make sure that the true version of you comes out on paper so that when you land an interview you come across as genuine.

Use Keywords

It is not uncommon for companies nowadays to use digital databases in order to search for candidates. HR departments will many times run search queries that are based on keywords. If your resume does not contain the right keywords, then it will probably not show up in the search results.

Take a good look at the job description of the job you are applying for, and use this as a guide to what the employer is looking for in a candidate. Be sure to tailor each resume you send. This will help increase your chances of getting an interview.

Title and Bullet Points

You want to make sure titles of past positions you have held are as descriptive as possible. If you managed an entire medical billing office, then you will want to the job title of “Medical Billing Manager” instead of just “Manager”. Doing this will help the reader understand your strengths in jobs you have held.

Reviewing resumes is neither an easy task, nor is it something a lot of hiring managers will want to spend a lot of time doing. Therefore, you will want to make sure you are using bullet points for description of past work achievements and educational background.

Review and Submit

Once you are finished gathering your information and have it all compiled into the final version of your resume, give it to a few people to proofread. This will help you get an idea of how your resume comes across to others. From there, make any necessary changes and be sure to spell check it.

It is a good idea to also create a text version of your resume that you can send via email. When submitting a resume to a potential employer via email, you want to make sure you include the text version in the body of the email instead of attaching a word document. Many times, emails with attachments will end up in the spam folder. Plus having the resume in the body of the email makes it a lot easier to read on a mobile device.

Conclusion

Putting these tips to use when you go to format your next resume will help you better communicate whom you are as an employee. At first it may seem like a long process to completely revamp a resume, but once you have it down, tailoring it to meet the specific needs of each job you apply to won’t take long at all.

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