Resume Writing does not have to be the daunting task that keeps job seekers awake at night. In fact, writing your resume should be an exciting time as it means you are about to embark on your new journey. The toughest part about resume writing is actually being able to market yourself properly. There is a fine line between promoting your achievements and sounding boastful. In my experience, I have found that the majority of people “play it safe” when writing their resume. They stick to the old style format and spend the majority of the resume detailing their duties and responsibilities that they do on a day to day basis. This not only leads to a dull and boring resume (trust me I have seen literally tens of thousands of these types of resumes) but also does you no favours when trying to stand out from your competition.
Promote your Value Added Skills and Achievements:
If your resume lists responsibilities and duties it’s time to turn these into “Achievement Statements” You may not realise but many of your daily duties can easily be adapted and turned into an achievement. For example:
“Manage a team of 5 office people” – This sounds like a daily duty and a boring statement that offers no value to the reader besides the fact that you manage 5 people.
By adding a couple of “Power Words” we can easily turn this into an achievement statement:
“Manage, develop and mentor a team of 5 diverse individuals in all aspects of office operations”
The more achievements you can include within your resume the better. Don’t forget to back your achievements up with examples. Quantitative evidence works best to paint a picture in the readers mind.
Remove Unnecessary and Irrelevant Information:
Target your resume towards the job you are applying for and remove information that does not add value to your application. For example, there is no need to include hobbies and interests in your resume if they have nothing to do with the type of job you are applying for. For example, if you are applying for a job as an accountant, it is not necessary to include a hobbies section on your resume that’s says you like “reading, going to movies and playing tennis.” This is irrelevant information that is taking up space on your resume. Hiring managers have limited time to read through every job application. Don’t waste their time with information that won’t help you in getting the job.
Keep it Simple:
Too many times I see job seekers trying to “pimp” their resume. They use fancy fonts, different sized fonts, pictures, tables, boxes etc. etc. Your resume has one job and that is to get you to the interview stage. Hiring managers are only interested in the facts. They want to know that you have the right skills to do their job. Rather than focusing on jazzing up your resume, focus on the reasons why you are the best candidate for the job.
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