If you are a job seeker, your resume is the first opportunity to introduce yourself to the employer. Make sure it’s worth it! It often lays the foundation of the employer’s perception of your capabilities, skills and experience. Thus, you need to be extremely careful about how your Curriculum Vitae (CV) looks like, and what type of the first impression it might leave on the hiring manager.
Here are the few pointers that can help you draft a perfect resume.
Keywords Optimization:
Many people skip this point, but this is where they make the very first mistake! Keywords are often the first criterion for CVs. You need to understand that for a single job position, there are thousands of applications. In such a situation, it becomes difficult for the recruiters to manually go through each and every resume. Thus, what they generally do is, pass the CV through an Application Tracking Software that screens a resume on the basis of keywords entered. So, if your has that keyword, it gets shortlisted, but in case it doesn’t have it, it is rejected in the very first test. And thus, optimizing the keywords in a CV is crucial to get success.
Impeccable formatting:
Between the optimization of keywords and highlighting your accomplishments, everything in a resume is essential. One such thing that matters is the design and formatting parts. Yes, what’s soothing to the eyes is obviously going to attract the recruiter’s attention, and that’s what every job seeker wants, isn’t it? If your resume is successful in grabbing HR’s attention, the half of the job is already done.
So, what kind of formatting should you avoid? Well, the usage of different fonts, no white space and utilizing bold as well as italicized text underlined throughout the resume makes it unpleasing and cluttered. What makes a CV visually appealing are short paragraphs neatly broken into headings, the usage of proper lists or bullet points to highlight pointers, and so on. Utilize bold and italics prints sparingly and avoid underlining some parts.
Leave proper blank spots in your CV. Create at least 1-inch margins on each side and leave some space blank after every section so that each gets the attention it deserves.
Use one or maximum 2 fonts in your resume. Having a variety of them reduces the readability of the text. If you are using two different fonts, make sure they complement each other.
You can use one of the various resume formats available online. These are designed in such a way to highlight the potential value you can add to the employer’s organization. As a result, your potential colleagues start seeing the benefits in you as a future employee in their company.
Highlight your accomplishments and skills:
Use bullet points to emphasize skills and accomplishments. Pointers highlighted with bullets make it easy for the hiring managers to screen your CV. Your awards, skills and capabilities get highlighted by the pointers and quickly grab the readers’ attention.
Always try to support your accomplishments with data and numbers. Quantifying the results on your CV clearly depicts your professionalism and achievements.
For example:
- Increased the sales by 25%
- Help in registering more corporate clients by 46%
- Profit recognition by 13% more than the last FY.
- Awarded as the best employee of the year 2016-17 by the CEO.
Keep it Consistent:
Maintain consistency of fonts and text all through your resume. If you are using the uppercase to write the names of the organizations you have worked for earlier, keep all your previous organizations’ names with uppercase only. If you are using the bold feature for the title, make sure that you bold the heading of every part in your CV. Maintaining consistency all through the document will help the hiring managers find a reading pattern and scan it quickly.
Proofread your resume:
Once you have covered all the details in your resume, make sure to proofread it properly. Be ready to bluntly criticize your writing skills here and make many changes. Don’t get disheartened, it happens with the best of the resume writers too. The first draft is often filled with grammatical and spelling errors, redundant phrases, repeated information and sometimes the inclusion of unnecessary information. Delete everything that is not required or is not directly related to the job you are applying for. If you want to receive a job as an engineer, your experience in sales has nothing to do with it.
Get your resume reviewed:
Although you feel like you have drafted a perfect resume, you need to understand that even the best of the resumes need a review. What is the use of your CV if it is well-written and designed, but the information it shows is outdated? That is why there are professional edusson reviews who make an evaluation of the data presented there. They proofread your resume and make all the necessary edits. They make sure that your CV is not only visually appealing but also contains content that lays a great first impression. After all, why shouldn’t your resume get all the attention it deserves?
All in all, no matter what your field is using a proper tone and words always helps your resume to stand out among the rest. The job market is very competitive, and a good CV can do more than half of the work for you. We understand that making your resume stand out from hundreds of others is not easy but putting in some extra efforts can definitely increase your probability of grabbing that dream job. Boost your chances by making use of the above tips and composing a perfect resume.
