Have you been sending out resumes but getting no replies? Are you beginning to feel that your job hunting efforts are hopeless? Does submitting your resume online feel like burying it in a deep black hole? If your answer to these questions is yes, then you should consider re-doing your resume. Finding a job is rarely easy but a poorly written resume makes it even more difficult.
The good news however, is that it is possible to make your resume stand out as an applicant. It is all about how you present the information. Below are ways in which you can improve your resume.
Use Strategic Keywords
Using meaningless or commonly used business buzzwords to describe yourself does nothing to make your resume stand out. Instead it blends it in with the thousands of applicants using the same words as you. Instead you should go for words that will capture the attention of the person screening your resume. Look through the job description post and the ‘About us’ and mission corporate statement pages on the company’s website.
There you will be able to find words which you can adopt to make your resume more noticeable. Make sure that your resume has strategic keywords that describe you as the ideal candidate for every job position you apply to.
Revise The Objectives Section
A few employers will tell you that a well written objectives section which shows how your skills and experiences can help meet the employer’s needs is critical in gaining an interview. The majority of employees however think that the section should be wiped out as submitting the resume pretty much states your objective which is getting the job.
Therefore it is up to you as the job applicant to decide whether or not to put in the objectives section into your resume. Just make sure that the section clearly maps out your skills and experience to the needs of the employer should you choose to put it in.
Tweak The Order
In a typical resume, work experience usually comes before academic qualifications. This is because the better the experience the higher the chances of getting hired. However, if you are a recent graduate without much work experience, feel free to tweak the order of the resume and put your academic qualifications at the top. When writing a resume, make it a habit of always weighing your work experience against your academics and then decide where to place the education section.
This simple change in the order of your resume may just be what you need to get an interview.
Get Rid Of Excess Baggage
There are several elements that can clutter a resume and as such should be eliminated. They include things like unnecessary stories and dates, too much use of articles (a, an, the), and the line “reference available upon request”. The best way to make a resume stand out is to ensure that it is short, concise, and only contains relevant information.
Finally, how you package you resume matters a lot. Therefore ensure that it is neat, well formatted and free from errors. A beautifully formatted resume will catch the eye of a hiring manager. Andre Munroe writes a lot of articles that help job seekers and employees keep an edge against their competition. Andre suggests you click here to get useful job related advice and help.