Getting Yourself Hired: How to Make an Outstanding Resume

Resumes and CVs are the most important documents in the job application process. They are literally your ticket to the interview. If something is wrong with your files, high chances are that your candidature will not even make it to the HR’s table.

Thus, when you feel ready to start searching for your dream job, the first thing you should do to get yourself hired is to invest your time and effort in crafting a perfect resume.

Luckily, this topic has been on the rise on the Internet, so it is quite easy to find information. If you still are at odds, there is always a resume builder service ready to help.

Yet, it is highly advised to get into the matter of resume writing to understand the logic of recruiters and hiring managers. Your knowledge of the details will save you lots of money and help turn your resume into pure perfection.

So, here is a few tips on how you can get yourself hired by creating an outstanding resume:

When Writing, Respond to Job Posting

Too generalized resumes won’t do you any good. Instead, your recruiter looks for something more customized to the position. How will they know that you are an ideal candidate? Only if they see that you have the skills and achievements they need to do the job.

Thus, study the job posting you are interested in very carefully. Print it, highlight the keywords and use them in your resume. Forget about having a one-size-fits-all resume for every job you find. You’ll need to tailor it to the position of interest whenever you find one.

Review Existing Samples

To craft a perfect resume, do not ignore existing samples online. Of course, plagiarism is highly unrecommended. Thus, whenever you feel tempted to steal someone’s words, you should immediately discourage yourself from doing it.

However, you can still look at the structure, most common keywords, listed skills and competencies to get a better idea of what recruiters and hiring managers expect to see. Also, you’ll see what the unspoken standards for your industry are. For example, for some positions, HRs require as brief and simple resumes as possible.

Use Easy-to-Read Fonts and Font Sizes

Many applicants still make the same mistake of choosing fonts that are too fancy and too small font sizes. The golden standard for resume fonts and their sizes is to make sure they can be read without any problem.

Do not choose something that reminds you of handwriting. Stop at Times New Roman, Arial, or Calibri. Select the appropriate font size that makes the document easy to read while leaving you enough space to tell your story.

Do Not Be Too Descriptive

As a professional, you have lots of stories to tell your reader. Yet, your resume is not the best place to put them all. A resume is your career story told in a very condensed manner. If you become too descriptive, you’ll have pages of information and no one to read them.

Thus, focus on your work experience, main duties, education, achievements, and skills. Make it one page or two if you have several companies to list. Do not list your high school achievements, certificates, and similar stuff unless they are relevant to the role you seek to obtain.

Give Preference to Action Verbs

The times when the word “responsible” was enough to describe an employee’s role are long gone. Today, you should show yourself as an achiever rather than a doer. Thus, you need to use active language and power words such as “initiated,” “streamlined,” “earned,” and “contributed” to build an image of a successful professional.

This tip is critical to your entire resume. Do not neglect it, filling your file with “responsible” and “in charge.” Do not list things that are obvious to your role. Instead, focus on something that makes you a valuable team member.

Add Sections as You Find Fit

Your resume is your story. Tell it in the most comfortable way. If you want to focus on every position you had separately, do it. List your key achievements for each role. If you want to strike your employer with a set of your achievements first, create a respective section ahead of your work history.

You are the creator of your own story. There is no one who can tell it better than you. Thus, imagine yourself in the employer’s shoes. What would it be that you’d want to see first? Based on your thoughts, build a perfect resume structure for your document.

Choose Simple Templates

It was once popular to impress recruiters with unique designs and graphics in resumes. The templates were created with weird objects and geometric figures in them as well as with colors and pictures. Today, things have changed mostly because of the introduction of ATS software.

The simpler your resume is, the better for you. It guarantees that it will be properly scanned with no loss of important information. If you have lots of columns, figures, tables, and other objects in your file, they are likely to be distorted in your resume.

Try to refrain from using a pic unless you apply abroad. In the U.S., having a picture in your resume means quite a lot of problems. They refer to discrimination, ageism, and other things you don’t want to be a part of.

Final Tips

Whenever you make edits to your resume, do bother to proofread it once or twice. Focus on grammar and spelling mistakes since the resume is a test for your writing skills. Format your document so that it has proper spacing, margins, and alignment. Do everything you can to make your resume look neat and inviting to the eye.

Try to imagine yourself in a recruiter’s shoes. There are dozens of resumes being sent every day, and your role is to choose who’s best for the company. Try to ease their job for them to the extent you can.

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