Make A Professional Resume: Resume Secrets Revealed
Before the hiring manager meets you in person, the only way to make a strong impression is through a professional-looking resume. On the screening stage, you’re only as good as your resume is. And if you are serious about getting that job, you’d better get busy creating a high-impact resume.
You’ve probably read volumes of resume advice on the internet before. However, not all resume tips are equally effective. Today, we’ve gathered the most powerful resume advice used by the professional resume writers cost.
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12 Resume writing secrets from CV resume maker
Nobody is reading your resume from top to bottom.
Remember this harsh truth throughout your writing process. After the resume robot picked the most relevant resumes, hiring managers take less than one minute to look through each one. Upon seeing one of the common resume problems (such as email address which looks like ‘hardcandy96@icloud.com’) they’ll put your application away. And at this stage hiring authorities look through your resume, not read them carefully. Don’t forget it and avoid hiding the important accomplishments at the bottom of the page two where they have little chance of getting discovered by a curious recruiter.
Job titles matter.
When the hiring manager skims through your resume, job titles get a considerably long attention span. That’s why those titles can – and should – be modified depending on the kind and title of the job you’re aiming for. Let’s say that your target job is titled as ‘Customer support representative’. In this case, be sure to use the exact title at the top of your resume. If your previous job titles sound like ‘Support member’ or ‘Client support staff’, it will do you a lot of good if you put ‘Customer support rep’ instead – it will give your resume the necessary relevance.
Ditch the objective statement.
Hiring managers don’t read the objective statements. Typically, they are full of meaningless buzzwords, look the same in every resume and show that you’re stuck in the last century. So, they skip them and read further to find something meaningful in your application.
Creating a career summary instead is a better tactic; but make sure that it is truly focused on your professional value and the employer’s needs you can meet. Also, cross out the following words out of it:
- Professional
- Initiative
- Hard-working
- Dedicated
- Team player
- …and more of that kind.
Use the bullet points rather than paragraphs.
Nobody is going to read your resume from top to bottom – so, make it easy to skim through. Bullet points are your huge helpers in this case. They turn the heavy blocks of text into short statements which are easy to quickly browse through. Or, you can use what they call Harvard resume format – describe your responsibilities in form of a paragraph (but do keep it short), and then use bullet points for the most notable accomplishments. For more hints on formatting your resume like a pro, see here: https://resumeperk.com/blog/significant-tips-how-to-format-your-resume.
Update the education section regularly.
Your education matters a lot – but this section on your resume loses its relevance as you progress in your career. If you’re still a student, put your education section above the experience, list all academic accomplishments and relevant coursework (also, check out a word of advice for PhD student writers). Do you have 3+ years of relevant professional experience? Then, put it above and limit the academic history to GPA and most significant achievements. Have you graduated over 5 years ago? A university name and your degree are the only things important.
Quantify everything you’ve done or accomplished.
Employers love figures. They draw the attention of the reader and add value to your otherwise vague statements. Just compare which of the statements sounds more professional and credible:
- Answered phones and resolved client problems via email or
- Answered 40+ phone calls a day and handled 50+ e-mail inquiries with 96% resolution rate?
Numbers provide proofs of your professionalism and give evidence of your experience. Think about how to quantify everything you’ve done at work or ask your supervisor to share this data.
List your core competencies.
How to make your relevant skills pop up at a glance? Create a Skills section right after the career summary. Firstly, it’s super helpful for your efforts to beat the ATS – you can list the keywords as skills right up front. Secondly, it works for skill-based jobs – a hiring manager sees at a glance that you’ve got all the skills they’re looking for. Be strategic about what to include, and don’t waste the space by mentioning obvious skills (such as Internet or Microsoft Word).
Make your interests an ice-breaker.
Many resume professionals recommend that you not include the interest section at all. But that happens because most job-seekers simply waste this section writing vague things like “sci-fi books, music, cooking and yoga”. Meanwhile, your interests can be used as a powerful tool for showing off your personality and maybe even building a personal connection with the hiring person. Be specific and don’t be afraid to look extravagant. Here are a few good examples for your “Interests and hobbies” section:
- Marathon running
- 60s rock vinyl collection
- Guy Ritchie films
- Western Europe urban travelling
Tip: Try researching the hiring manager’s interests in advance and matching your interests accordingly to evoke an emotional connection.
Master the resume keywording.
The vast majority of mid-sized and big companies use ATS to ease their recruitment processes these days. So, your ability to work with resume keywords directly influences your chances for getting an interview call. Basically, the keywords are the names of the skills, core competencies, qualifications and personality traits that a job posting requires from a successful candidate. Your task is to use those keywords from the job listing in the same form – and to put them at the top of the resume. We have previously explained the importance and the rules of adding keywords to a resume here: https://resumeperk.com/blog/significant-tips-how-to-format-your-resume.
Connect yourself with big brands and influencers.
One of the proven ways to genuinely interest the hiring manager is to mention the worldwide brands or an influential person in your field. However, if you weren’t lucky enough to have worked for Coca-Cola or Amazon, there’s another way to get associated with an influential brand.
Revise your career history, list the important projects and note the influential people you’ve worked with. Think of whether your previous clients, vendors or supervisor were connected with the key players in your field. Maybe, you’ve negotiated terms of delivery with the country’s top logistics company or assisted a trending startup with their marketing campaign. In this case, mention the well-known people and company names. Chances are that you’ll get an interview just for this connection.
Make your resume narrowly targeted.
The best resumes are always targeted and read like a holistic career story thanks to their consistency. This is where the job-seekers always stumble upon: they don’t know which parts of their resume to rewrite, which to remove at all and which to leave unchanged to make the document send a clear message. However, you can follow what they call ‘a rule of seven’. All you need to do is to browse the company website, find the buzzwords and repeat them seven times in your resume. If you specialize in customer support, the examples of these words might be ‘product knowledge’, ‘customer service’, ‘communication’ and ‘diligence’.
By the way, getting your resume professionally targeted for a particular role is even easier. Just send us your old resume along with the link to a job posting.
Keep it short, CV maker resume recommends.
If you had had a long career history, your resume might exceed 3 or even 4 pages. But that’s not what the employers are looking for. In reality, they only read the top half of the first page and then just look the rest of the document through. So, whatever important details your resume conveys, make sure they are mentioned at the top of the first page. Otherwise, they may never get noticed.
The rule of thumb for resume length is: use the second page only if you have 10+ years of relevant experience or have worked for more than 3 employers. Cut off on the irrelevant jobs and outdated skills. A long resume won’t increase your chances for an interview!
Make your own resume: key takeaways
Following the above advice, you’ll manage to create a resume that better than the majority of applications that recruiters receive. To sum up the above listed, key principles to making your resume truly professional are:
- Nobody is reading your resume through – so make your key selling points pop up. Concentrate your major skills and accomplishments closer to the top of the document and highlight them with the help of design and formatting tricks.
- Increase the relevance. Making your resume super relevant is the key to both passing the ATS screening and catching the hiring manager’s attention. Use words from the job posting, corporate website, and modify your previous experience to match the future role.
- Ensure it’s 100% error-free. When first looking at your resume, hiring managers actually look for a reason not to hire you. Errors and typos often become this reason. Proofread until the document is completely flawless.
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Benefits of hiring a quick resume maker
Resume specialists of Resumeperk com take advantage of the above writing principles and keep their hands on the pulse of the freshest resume writing trends. As a result, you’ll get a resume which looks incredibly modern. Another huge advantage you’re getting is convenience. After gathering the information from your side, we can deliver a new resume in 1-2 days only. The entire process works online, so you are not getting distracted from your daily activities. Curious about the price? Check out the packages and fees.