You want that dream job. You submit your resume and practice hard for the interview. However, the interview call doesn’t materialize. So, what went wrong. It is your resume, stupid! A poorly drafted resume generally gets rejected out of hand by recruiters. The obvious refrain is if a candidate cannot draft a good resume, what good will he or she do for the company.
Your resume certainly plays a key role in getting that interview call and landing that dream job. This is because a resume is your first impression on the recruiter and, as they say, the first impression is the last impression! Not only should your resume include all the relevant information, but it should also clearly state what the resume objective is.
If you want to get a fair idea of what a resume should contain, browse profiles on LinkedIn and choose the LinkedIn profile that best matches yours. However, if you follow the given resume tips, you will get a fair idea about drafting a resume. Let’s see what these tips are:
#1 Keep resume current
The general tendency of most is to draft a resume and forget about it and blindly submit it when the opportunity arises. This makes you miss out on many successes and achievements that you may have earned, which may not have been mentioned in your resume. By regularly updating your resume every few months, you will manage to submit it with little change.
#2 Keep it concise and crisp
An extensive resume running into several pages may discourage the recruiter from even picking it up. It is best to limit the length of the resume to a page, if possible. So, be crisp and concise without omitting relevant information about your skills and experience.
#3 Make resume appealing by keeping it simple and straightforward
Going through a pile of resumes written in different formats is a tedious process and recruiters are always hard pressed for time. What they are basically looking for is whether you have the skills and experience to handle the tasks and responsibilities for the position you have applied for. So, include only those which are applicable to the job.
#4 Give importance to your work experience and not education
This is because a recruiter is looking for work experience, related technical skills and the results you have obtained working, rather than where you got educated. So, mention your education at the end of your resume.
#5 Include all relevant technical and software skills
At the outset, you may be at a loss to know what to mention, since you have had no exposure to IT. But, here the idea is to show how computer-savvy you are. So, make a separate list of all the software programs you have used as part of your day-to-day operations, even commons ones, such as Excel, Google AdWords, Salesforce, etc.
#6 Keep a focus on the job applied for
The usual tendency is to highlight what you did in the past. But, the recruiter is interested only in whether you are tailored for the job and have relevant skills. So, mention skills that the position applied for requires, along with your skills, experience, and achievements.
#7 Keep the focus on results achieved and not responsibilities
You may mention the whole list of duties you handled in your previous job, but your recruiter wants to know how you have discharged them. So, focus only on the results you had achieved in fulfilling your previous responsibilities.
#8 Describe your achievements in quantitative terms
Recruiters get impressed with the quantifiable information. So, highlight your accomplishments in percentages. For example, if you have increased business, say, by 30 percent in the second quarter, include it in your resume. Keep collecting all quantifiable data about your job to make it a part of your resume.
#9 Bold the key items
Recruiters scanning the resumes may miss key items if they are not highlighted. So, make them bold in the resume. This will instantly catch the eye of the recruiter. For example, your resume can mention ‘Managed a team of 27 engineers to complete a key project of a Fortune 500 IT company’.
#10 Eliminate mistakes by proofreading
Some avoidable errors, such as spelling, grammar or spacing, can put off a recruiter and get your resume consigned to the trash. Although it is a drudgery finding mistakes in your well-written resume, its importance cannot be emphasized enough. Reading through in the normal way may make you skip the said mistakes, but reading from bottom to top will certainly help in catching them. While proofreading on a computer screen, zoom it to 150% to 200%. Also, give a gap of a day or so and read again, it will provide you with a fresh perspective of what you have written and help catch the mistakes.
Conclusion
A well-drafted resume is half the battle won in landing a dream job. However, to make the resume well drafted requires knowledge, patience and an eye for detail. The given tips will prove a big help in this regard.
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