Ask a bench of recruiters and hiring teams and you will get to know the scale at which people come face to face with resumes that look nothing like they are supposed to, and how they simply show them the way to the trash box. With the growing sizes of every industry and arena in the service sector, managers are receiving more resumes than ever.
Amidst the crowd of resumes that rain on the desks of these managers, how do you make your resume stand out and catch the attention of a person who would find it worthy of hiring you for a position at their organisation? At online assignment writing and Paperdoers, we often meet people who come complaining to us about not being hired, in spite of a resume that could beat anyone around them. It is important to realise that sometimes, we do not get hired mainly because of the way our resume is presented.
Here are the top five resume writing skills which will help you draft a brilliant resume and bag the right positions for yourself.
The top five resume writing tips
Resume writing is an art, one that can get noticed or go unnoticed, should it lack the necessary traits to catch the attention of the right eye. Even so, it is quite simple to speak about resume writing and the process that one ought to go through in order to write a good one but it is always on the trickier side of everyone’s ability to come up with a distinguished and perfect resume. Read below to find out which skills your resume needs to make it to the attention of your hiring brigade.
Format your resume
Perhaps, you need to spend more time formatting your resume than you would ordinarily devote to making it in the first place. Even the most well written resumes get trashed out at times, only because they fail to impress the hiring managers in the first, and perhaps only, twenty seconds that they give it a look at. Even if your resume is very well written and impressive, it won’t be read out thoroughly by anyone in the first go. What usually happens is that a resume gets scanned by a hiring manager or a recruiter, who gives a casual glance at the resume, probably seeking a point of interest that might impress him. It is at this stage that you have to actually work hard to impress the recruiter. If your resume is hard to scan, it is certain to be thrown away.
“In order to make your resume quick and easy to scan, make sure that it is logically organised in a hierarchy of information, so that your recruiter knows exactly which part of the resume to scan for his purpose and manage to find the specific information at that spot. Your resume should have ample margin space and should be written in a clear format” – Says Karla who works as an content editor at TFTH.
Make use of headings and distinguish them with the use of bold and italics feature which will set them apart. Using bullet points is another way to draw attention to specific facts.
Skip job descriptions and focus on achievements
In practical fields such as engineering, the hiring team is always interested in hiring candidates who can present actual problem solving cases and solutions. The fact that you can solve a problem is quite evident by the presence of your resume at the manager’s desk. What he is more likely to be interested in, is to know if you are the right candidate who can present a solution to the problem or tackle problems in a reasonable manner. Hence, mentioning experience matters and this is one area of your resume which should be stellar and impeccable, if you really wish to make it to the top.
Bhavya from Top Assignment Experts opines – “What can help you in this scenario is to focus on accomplishments at a given job role, the benefits that you accrued for your organisation and apt description of jobs which you were entrusted with.”
Quantify your data
As with a resume, it is quite obvious why someone would judge you better based on quantifiable data, rather than on generic terms. Managers are full of technical jargon, and catch words, which you proudly scribble on your resume, believing that it might impress your recruiter. What you fail to grasp is that there are a bunch of other applicants who probably think the same way and that the hiring team is well privy to those terms already.
Generic terms do nothing to catch the attention of the recruiter and nor does any type of jargon which might look artificial. “Given the scope, you must use your resume as a channel that describes your achievements and value in terms, which cannot be replicated. Use terms which impact the conscious of the reader and make him believe in your abilities. And using numbers is one sure way to impress your recruiter.” – says Angela from Paperdoers.
Don’t just fill the pages
As tempting as it might sound to fill sheets and sheets, describing everything about yourself and why you are the right choice of person for a given job role, let’s be practical to understand that no one, literally, no one has the time to go through that thesis! As soon as someone lays eyes on a resume that is longer than the standard two pages, they are going to send it straight to the trash.
This is especially important in the case of people who have too many degrees, diplomas and achievements to boast about in their resume. You cannot fill it all in, even if you want to, because it takes away the attention from the main points and strengths of your profile. “Draft your resume keeping in mind the job roles which you are seeking the employment for. Hence, limit the data which you make a part of the resume and focus on enhancing the achievements within the outline.” – mentions Kiara from OAW.
Being honest
Above everything else, what is most essential of all is to be honest while including data in your resume. When it comes to writing down about yourself, you can obviously write anything to impress your employer but eventually, they are just going to find out that it was a big fat lie, putting you in a difficult position. Hence, it is best to include only relevant and honest information about yourself, even if it is less.
Author Bio
Prakriti is a freelance digital content developer who helps brands with their digital content production. Besides work, she is also actively aiming for early retirement and blogs her journey at 60to45.