It’s not easy to write a mind-blowing resume. The single sheet of paper can make or break your life. So, you need to be absolutely certain as to what you’ll fill that holy grail with. It’s like salt, you know? A tad bit less and your delicious food tastes like sand. But a teeny bit more and pow! It’s absolutely revolting. Your resume is your staircase to success and although you can get some professional resume writing service to get you a proper write-up, why would you tell some random person who barely knows you to write about you? You know yourself best and you’re the best person to showcase yourself, don’t you think? Planning to google your way out of it?
There is going to be a heap load of writing advice but it’s going to take you a really long time to get to the most important information you need. It’s totally going to be like a DBZ episode where one attack takes a week’s time to get a counter! Here are the golden rules to jazzing up your resume and landing your dream job:
Your resume is a marketing tool. You need to land interviews first, not a job straight off the bat! (though that would be awesome!) Recruiters need your experience, not a whole work history catalogue. Be relevant. Just because yu clean your cat’s litter box every day, you can’t really write, “Cat litter cleaner” in your resume now, can you? (Unless you’re planning to work at a cat shelter, of course!) You want to speak to the reader directly. When applying for a particular job, include relevant experience from the past decade, if applicable. Trying to climb the corporate ladder? Load it with experience that showcases your progress in the industry, with 2-3 key jobs that will be of interest. If it’s a completely new line of work, there’s no need to panic. Just pick past job roles that can be applied to the new one.
Once the past experience has been selected for your new resume, get a unique way to put in the important roles in the position, effectively. Put yourself in the recruiter’s shoes to understand what they would like to see. Keep the basic day-to-day tasks out of the resume. Those are the things everyone in that job role needs to do. The recruiter wants to now what made you good at the job. Prioritise each bullet point according to the most challenging responsibilities you held previously. You also need to incorporate the achievements you’ve received, to support the idea that you’re good at what you do.
Give hard numbers of your achievements. If you’ve met and beat sales targets, put down the number of times you did. Give the exact figures of every goal you met while leading a team, and be rest assured that the recruiter will be impressed. Everyone wants someone who will excel at what they do, not just get the job done.
Just stating the role isn’t enough to get the reader’s attention. Missing content in the resume is a common mistake job seekers make. Let the recruiter get a proper understanding of the importance and the scale of your job role. Give them a story, with a picture of your workplace and the service they rendered. When they get a picture of how your past organization was, they will be able to understand you better.
You need to incorporate the golden rules with your skill of story-telling to successfully attract the right people. Help them understand that you’re not just another sheep from the herd, you’re more like the shepherd. Don’t waver from your goal and you will land the job you’ve always dreamt of.