Education

Top 10 Resume Tips To Get You The Interview

Your resume is your first and perhaps only chance to impress a potential employer. Even though resume writing is not all that glamorous, it can be one of the most important steps that can give you an instant blast of employer’s attention and even more interview phone calls. Your resume is an advertisement at its best form and since you are marketing yourself, you have to be brief and effective. Here are 10 powerful tips that can improve your resume writing and help you make a great impression.

1. Plan ahead

Before you start writing your resume, make sure you spend some time reflecting on how you will present your personality in the resume. Also determine your motivation in hunting for a job, as this will help you structure your resume properly. Highlight your most important accomplishments and determine the unique qualities that you are ready to present to a potential employer. Also consider the resume design you will employ, the fonts as well as the resume wording.

2. Follow instructions

As much as this may seem trivial, following the instructions that the employers give in the job advertisement is imperative. For instance if you are required to attach your resume in a word format, do not copy-paste it into the body of an email. No employer will even look at your resume if you don’t follow such simple instructions.

3. Choose a resume format

When writing a resume, format does matter. Thus, you will need to decide on a resume format that will work best for you. You can either choose the chronological format or the functional resume format, but whichever format you opt for, make sure you highlight major achievements, skills and education. You can also provide a profile summary to give the employer a better first impression and persuade them to read even more.

4. Customize your resume

If you want to grab the attention of the targeted employer within a couple of seconds, you need to customize your resume in a manner to reflect the kind of job you are looking for. Your aim here is to advertise your job experience and expertise in a way that a potential employer can quickly relate to. So, include a customized segment having well presented skills, job titles, accomplishments and education in your resume. This will not only bring you more interview calls, but it may also assist you in the offer negotiations.

5. Provide quality content

Once resumes have been shortlisted, recruiters go through the resume content in much detail. The number of possible interview phone calls and hopefully a job interview offer will entirely depend upon your resume content. So, ensure that you are writing quality content that sells and also content that best suits the criteria of your job description.

6. Provide relevant professional experience

Resume writing is a great opportunity to build a good impression to recruiters. Make sure you provide details of your professional experience in terms of job title, location as well as employer name. Also include the dates you were employed in any particular role. This portrays a captivating and engaging image of your work experience and makes a much bigger impact on the employer.

7. Make your resume presentable

Once you have organized your resume well using headings such as education, skills, work experience, etc., you need to make it more presentable to the employer. In this regard, print your resume on high quality paper and make sure you print using a laser printer for even better quality.

8. Make your writing sound active

When writing a resume, it is important that you use active form of verb instead of being passive in your writing. In this case, include many powerful action words in your resume and remember to be concise. You can also use bullet points, rather than extended paragraphs to ensure that the reader’s curiosity is maintained throughout your resume.

9. References

When writing your resume remember to list your references and avoid stating “references available upon request”, as you could be creating more work for the reader. Also make certain to contact your referees beforehand and confirm if they are pleased to serve as your referee. In case you are picked for the interview, be sure to inform them that they may receive a phone call.

10. Get someone else to look at it

Finally, before making your resume available to a potential employer, it is important that you get a second opinion from someone you trust. They will cross check your resume for better processing of unnoticed mistakes and even point out a number of strengths you may have omitted or underemphasized.
Whether you are seeking your first job or second, these 10 great resume writing tips will hopefully help you compose that amazing resume that will put you ahead of the fierce competition. All the best as you pursue your career ambitions.