Let’s say you have the right set of skills that the recruiters are looking for in an applicant and you are confident that you’ll fit your target job like a glove, how do you communicate that to a recruiter?
How do you convince a recruiter that you’re “the one” for the job?
Through your resume.
This may sound like news to you but a perfectly-composed resume is one that holds the power to make or break your shortlist chances. It is the first point of communication between you and the recruiter, so it needs to be perfect. Only then will you get the chance to duel it out with the recruiter one-to-one.
So here are the 5 tips to help you curate a job-winning resume:
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Information should be presented under relevant sections
When it comes to resume writing, an impeccable presentation of information is crucial because it makes your resume more organized and helps it look appealing.
That your resume has all the information you need is not enough. You need to be extremely particular about what information you put in your resume and how it is presented.
As such, the first tip to writing a job-winning resume is ensuring that information is presented under relevant sections. Following this exercise will go a long way in ensuring that the information you put in your resume is ready for consumption.
So while composing your resume, make sure that your organize information under relevant sections such as:
- Header
- Personal Information
- Profile Title
- Summary
- Key Skills
- Professional Experience
- Education
Additionally, if you have information that cannot be clubbed within these categories, but you think that it will advance your job application, then you can organize them under these sections:
- Certifications
- Additional Information
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Your resume should be extremely readable
A major turn off for most recruiters is a resume that looks extremely cluttered.
Many bright promising candidates lose out on a job that they are perfectly qualified (or sometimes over-qualified) for, just because they have failed to do the bare minimum of putting together a well-structured resume.
When it comes to getting shortlisted, it is extremely important to make sure that your resume gets read in the first place.
As is proposed by an eye-tracking study by Ladders, a recruiter spends roughly 6 seconds on a resume.
If your resume looks extremely cluttered, the scope of your resume getting shortlisted for an interview round goes down the drain because the odds are against it. Forget getting shortlisted, your resume might not even get read!
So the second tip to writing a job-winning resume is focusing on enhancing its readability.
Here’s what you can do to enhance the readability of your resume:
- Do not use bulky paragraphs:
Unless you’re writing a summary, make sure that your resume is devoid of paragraphs. A resume that is full of bulky paragraphs is counter-productive as it simply makes your resume look cluttered, which makes your resume hard to read. As we have discussed before, a resume that is not readable has a low chance of getting shortlisted. So stop the practice of paragraph writing!
- Use one-liner points to talk about your roles & responsibilities:
A great way to score on the readability factor is by using crisp one-liner points to talk about your roles & responsibilities in your resume. Doing this makes your resume easier to read and comprehend, which overall improves the receptiveness of your resume.
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Your resume should be effective
This may come as a rude shock to many of you, but it does not matter how qualified you are for the job if you’re unable to showcase that on paper.
Your skills and proficiency is next to non-existent if you’re unable to champion that in your resume.
So the third tip to writing a job-winning resume is to make your resume as effective as possible. Here are some ways you can accomplish this:
- Use action-oriented statements:
In simple words, action-oriented statements means using a cause-effect relationship to show how your contributions led to certain results.
For example, if you’re a writer, a great way to show this would be:
“Wrote & published 5 articles on a weekly basis leading to an increase website traffic”
- Use achievement figures wherever possible:
Achievement figures are numbers that help you showcase the visible extent of your cntributions. Using numbers helps you show how your efforts led to a momentum growth for your company.
For example, if you’re a business development manager, an achievement figure would look something like this:
“Presented business proposals to potential clients leading to 50% business conversions”
- Use power verbs
When it comes to enhancing the effectiveness of a resume, using professional terms such as action or power verbs can help.
Something as simple as this helps enhance the overall wow factor of your resume.
Example, instead of using words like ‘handled’, using a power verb like ‘managed’ can make your roles & responsibilities appear more authoritative.
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Your resume should be relevant
A recruiter is likely to lose interest in your resume if it seems to be going nowhere.
A major factor why most professionals tend to lose out on a potential job offer is because their resumes seem inconclusive and irrelevant.
For example, if you’re a professional with extensive work experience, talking about the internships you have done some 5 years ago would be counter-productive. Similarly, talking about your volunteering experience would also seem useless unless you’re a student with no work experience.
So the fourth tip to writing a job-winning resume is sticking to relevance.
Here are some things you can do:
- Try to avoid mentioning those work experience details if it is not relevant to the job that you are targeting:
For example, if you were working as a social worker in the past, it is best to leave it out in your resume if your industry has changed to something that is drastically different now.
- Leave out your internship and volunteering details if you have 3 years or more work experience:
Your professional experience and the roles & deliverables you handled as part of your job description is something that holds weight when you’re applying for a job after having extensive work experience. In situations like this, it is best to avoid internship and volunteering details especially if it has zero impact on increasing your chances of getting shortlisted.
- Use keywords:
Keywords are resume buzzwords that an ATS explicitly looks for in a resume. It shows the relevance of your resume for the job that you’re targeting. The job description of your target job will always have a bunch of keywords. Seeing these keywords in your resume will show that you fulfil the job criteria of that particular job you are targeting – be it educational qualification, specific skill sets, or minimum work experience.
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Your resume should have your contact details
A resume without contact details is like a person with no name.
You cannot afford to leave out important contact information in your resume because this would mean that a recruiter won’t be able to get in touch with you.
So as a general rule, make sure that your resume has basic contact details such as:
- Contact Number
- Email Address
- Current Location
Having these details in your resume will help a potential employer get in touch with you, must they be interested in shortlisting you for an interview round.
Moreover, since most preliminary interviews happen over a phone call, you should make it a special point to put your functional mobile number details and email in your resume.
Conclusion
This brings us to the end of our article. Make use of the 5 tips for a job-winning resume and get shortlisted for your dream job.
Here are some of the points to be followed to write a job-winning resume:
- Use relevant sections to organize information.
- Focus on enhancing the readability of your resume.
- Make your resume as effective as possible.
- Try to make your resume as relevant as possible.
- Provide your contact details to enable a recruiter to get in touch with you.
Author’s Bio:
Aditya Sharma
On a quest to help professionals across the world land their dream jobs, Aditya lives and breathes
Hiration — an AI-powered online resume builder and platform to help job-seekers find their way in the
treacherous job market — where he’s a Co-Founder and the unofficial CPO (Chief Problem-solving
Officer). He likes to code away his days and nights when he’s not busy disrupting the career space.
and then