Having graduated from college, I didn’t have the faintest idea what I was going to do next. Nor had I understanding of how to write a good resume. Luckily, I overcame all challenges of newly grads a long time ago. With the benefit of hindsight, I can say that very often people underestimate the importance of a CV. With such an attitude, your resume will end up in a recycling bin of the potential employer. Here, I will share my resume writing tips with you. Follow them and you will not become another victim of unemployment.
Simple Resume Writing Tips
- First impressions are most lasting
Would you come to a job interview in a sloppy T-shirt and mismatched socks? No, you wouldn’t, because you want to create a good first impression. This rule also applies to your CV. Make sure it is properly formatted, free of mistakes and typos, and is written with readable fonts and spacing. Not only will this show that you know how to use a computer, but it will also demonstrate your attitude towards your potential employer. - Remove unnecessary discussions
The principle rule I always follow when tailoring my resume is that the experience I mention has to be either relevant or transferable. By this, I mean that your internship as a social media specialist should not be mentioned while applying for the position of a legal secretary. Simply filling up space will do no good. - Mind the tense
Pay careful attention to details. Very often, applicants ignore tenses, confusing those who review their CVs. Avoid using present tenses when discussing your previous positions. - Don’t write too much, but include all the necessary info
It is true that employers expect a brief description of your experience and skills. Yet, it also has to be detailed. Bullet points are useful, but your resume must contain full sentences. However, make sure they are no more than one line long. - Use numbers
You might think that a reader’s attention is most attracted by text in bold, but it’s not true – these are numbers that work magic. To add value to your experience, try to quantify it. So, instead of saying you managed a company’s account on Facebook, name how many posts you made or how many people liked the page. Numbers allow you to say a lot without occupying much space. - Would you want to read the resume you’ve created?
Imagine you get hundreds of CVs every day. Would you like to read your own? Would it stand out? Ask your friends to read your resume and give you some feedback. Make sure the resume is both pleasant to look at and makes sense.
You may be interested: The Ideal Structure of Your Resume
10 tips on how to write a resume that grabs the attention and wins the loyalty of the most demanding employer!
- Try to find and use the well-structured and easy-to-read template for your resume. The reader prefers to see the information in a structured way. The potential employer will not spend his time looking for important information regarding your education or career. So, it is your task to use the easy-to-read structure with appropriate heading (Personal information, employment history, education, etc).
- Start your resume with the contact information. Provide as much contact details as you can. It is good to include your home address, your e-mail address, your home, and mobile phone numbers. Depending on the nature of the job and applied position, it may be useful to provide a link to your Facebook or LinkedIn profile so that the potential employer may contact you by any convenient for him media and learn about your personality.
- List your previous jobs (or include the current position, if you work now) in a timeline. Put the most recent experience on the top. The employer is interested to know the most recent facts about you because this information gives a hint on what are you now, what is your recent experience, interests and accomplishments.
- If you have work experience, provide the references. Do not write the phrase "References upon the request". It will take time for the potential employer to get back to you and receive the contacts of the referees. So, it is better to provide the phone numbers or e-mail addresses of your former colleagues or supervisors that will be ready to evaluate your strong sides at work. Try to include only those people, whom you trust and who can give the positive feedback.
- Emphasize your accomplishments. Every employee performs certain responsibilities, and masters some tasks. However, it is not enough to simply state your responsibilities. You need to share your personal achievements and accomplishments with the hiring manager. For instance, if you have passed some tests (certification) in a particular area, you need to mention that your score is 96 out of 100. Thus, the manager will know that you scored the top percentile. Another example is with the job accomplishments. If you worked as a sales manager, you have to emphasize that you were the best sales representative in the region for 3 months in a row and were awarded the honorable certificate. Particular things grab the attention to your personality and help to persuade the employer that you are the right employee for the open position.
- Avoid ambiguity, and be honest. Include only the true information about your education, experience, and work. Otherwise, you jeopardize your reputation. If you forfeit something, your colleagues may find out the truth later, and you will lose your credit.
- Do not write too much. The potential employer is not interested in reading your whole life story. The employer wants to make sure that you are the best fit for his opening. So, list the relevant experience. Make it sound clear, concise, and compelling. Do not write more than 2 pages in length.
- Do your best to proofread the paper. Try to write it without any grammatical or spell errors. Of course, it is not a big deal when you misspelled one letter. However, some employers may think of you as of an inattentive or illiterate person. Reading your resume gives the first impression of your personality, so do your best to make this impression cloudless.
- Use your creativity to write the most creative resume. This will grab attention. Even if your experience is not as vast as the experience of your competitors, sometimes creativity may help. One small creative feature of your resume (the color of the background, the phrase that describes your personality) may grab the attention of the hiring manager, and he will invite you to an interview. Then, it is your turn to persuade him in your superiority!
- Avoid personal unnecessary facts. Your hobbies, interests, photos, etc are not relevant. Try to be formal in your creativity!
How to Write a Resume: Select a Correct Resume Style
There are a couple of basic resume types you can be asked to write. Before you start working on your resume, you should clearly understand what resume type to choose because this style will greatly influence the way you will develop your ideas. Have a look at what types of resume you may be asked to write:
No matter what resume format you will need to follow, you will need to do your best to please the hiring manager.
How to Write a Resume: Choose the Best Resume Type
A resume type you will need to write greatly depends on the career goals you are trying to accomplish. Regardless of the resume type you work with, you need to try to convince the hiring manager that you are a good fit for the position chosen. According to recent studies, the recruiter spends only six seconds reading your resume. Thus, you need to do your best to make it engaging, appealing, and detailed.
How Long Should Your Resume Be?
Writing a one-page resume is a perfect solution. Pay attention that you should not include all facts from your biography but only the most relevant and accurate ones. Yes, sometimes a resume may take more than one page. However, before you start working on such a document, you need to make sure it is appropriate. Pay attention that no matter how long your resume is, it should comply with the common standards and criteria established in resume writing.
Examples of Perfect Resumes
Writing a resume or CV is quite a challenging endeavor if one really wants to have a good chance to receive an interview call. There are many companies offering resume writing services that promise to help desperate job seekers land more interviews and eventually get a job. It can be very helpful at times, especially when you don’t know to develop a good resume and you really need the job. However, one can also learn from a resume template. There are many templates that can give you a good idea of how to structure your professional experience so that it would have a good look. But a resume temple is never enough to deliver a well-written CV. Another thing job seekers could do in order to get a better understanding of what a perfect resume is all about is to check a resume example that would be written by a professional. In this article, we will provide not just one resume example but four of them that were developed by people who know how to create effective resumes. Obviously, all the names and facts on these resumes are not real – they are just to give you a good example to follow. Please note that each resume was designed to match specific job requirements which means you can’t put your names in and say you now have a perfect resume.
Download this Example of Resume
Download this Example of Resume
Please note that each resume was designed to match specific job requirements which means you can’t put your names in and say you now have a perfect resume.
Funny Resume Mistakes
A resume is one of the most important documents you will have to write. However, typos and some bad jokes that are found in funny resumes are not as rare as you may think. For most people, these writing resume mistakes are common due to lack of attention while others experience stress and anxiety that comes when searching for a job or switching to a new career. You might also be very disturbed about getting that new job that you overlook some common errors you would not miss normally.
Some of the funny resume mistakes that are fairly common include repetition, misspelling words, and using synonyms. Ensure you proofread your resume accordingly before submitting it. The environment should be one that is conducive for you when you are writing your resume. Some examples of common mistakes include:
- Saying you are experienced in faucets of journalism instead of facets
- You are instrumental in ruining an entire operation instead of running
- You are a quick typist and you can type without looking at the keyboard instead of at the keyboard
- Describing your experience on how you are able to demonstrate multi-tasking while you should have said multi-tasking
- You may also forget to close check spellings and say that you speak English and Spinach fluently instead of Spanish.
Most candidates are also fond of using acronyms, for example, LOL (Laugh Out Loud) among other humorous mistakes. According to a survey done on hiring managers about some of the writing resume mistakes, it was concluded that the worst resumes are those that are filled with humor and jokes. Examples of these mistakes include:
- Candidates calling themselves geniuses and requesting the Human Resource Manager to interview them in their apartments
- Candidates including phishing as their main hobby in the hobbies part of the CV
- Aspiring candidates also make funny resume mistakes of stating that they eat computers as their main dish to mean they are computer literate
- Some candidates also speak their minds in a hilarious way thus coming up with funny resumes. For instance, in the objectives part, one can be tempted to say that he or she needs the job because there are bills to pay and that they want a life, to go out and party, make their girlfriends or wives happy, and have a menu that consists more than just soup
- As a candidate, avoid mentioning some social positions like highlighting that you were the Homecoming Prom Prince or Princess in your year.
Not everybody proofreads their resumes as many times as possible to confirm that it is free of any errors. Thus, even the best will always make some mindless and strange slips. Some of them are downright hysterical. Recruiting managers have a hard time determining the best candidate and at the same time laugh at some of the silly mistakes that aspiring candidates make in their funny resumes.
A compiled list of hilarious mistakes made by candidates after a survey done on hiring managers:
- A candidate including clipart of two cartoons that were shaking hands on the resume
- On the sex part of the resume, there are candidates who don’t understand the meaning and describe their sexuality, for instance, active among others
- In the skills part, a candidate stated that she was bi-lingual and spoke three languages
- Several candidates had also included 911 in the Emergency Contact Number section
- One candidate stated that he had a lifetime worth of technical expertise. He had gone ahead to state that he was not born and his mother had the option of ejecting a child from her system.
As funny as these mistakes may sound, they are very common among many candidates who still expect to receive a call from the hiring managers that their resumes have been accepted. For you to be on the safe side and to stand a chance to get that job you desperately want, ensure that you have read your resume over 100 times to see if there is anything that needs to be corrected. After you think you have done it all, think again. Give it a rest and get back to it later. You will definitely find something you can change. The next step is sending your resume to some of your friends or family members to check it for you. Every eye will find something different to catch. You can also consider getting an experienced resume writer to close check it for you and to add some more ideas.
These were my pieces of advice on how to create a resume. They helped me get the positions I wanted, and I really hope they will help you, too. Good luck!
7 Reasons to Throw a Resume in the Trash
No matter where you are in your life it is likely that one day you are going to develop a resume to get you a job. Whether you are a recent graduate or an experienced manager there will be a day when you will have to apply for a job. And no job application can be successful without a well-written resume. Unfortunately, not all the applicants understand this simple truth ignoring some of the obvious resume writing rules. They don’t realize that they might be missing great career opportunities just because they didn’t care enough to create a resume that will get them an interview. Hiring managers throw hundreds and thousands of resumes in the trash simply because candidates never thought of a resume as an important marketing tool…
Why so many resumes are thrown in the trash?
It is not that hiring managers love to deny people a job; they just can’t allow themselves to waste their time on people who didn’t wish to spend more than half an hour on developing their main marketing document. You would be surprised to know what kind of things job seekers put on their resumes, CVs, cover letters, etc. Sometimes it is just so ridiculous that before a resume is discarded HR manager spends about 5 seconds. In fact, most hiring managers spend about 10 seconds in average on reviewing one resume which makes it really hard for job seekers to prepare an effective document. But the question remains – why so many resumes are discarded by employers today?
Reason #1. Your resume is way too long. If you are an experienced manager and have over 15 years of industry-specific experience it doesn’t mean you have to describe every good thing you have been through during this period. Although it is sometimes tempting to go into details and list all of the details, hiring managers often don’t have time to read lengthy biographies of candidates.
Reason #2. Sometimes you can just tell that a resume was created using online templates. Sometimes free templates can help with structuring your resumes, but in most cases, they are too generic to help land a specific job.
Reason #3. Your resume doesn’t have enough relevant information. When employers need a specialist in engineering, it doesn’t really matter to him how well you did in your previous sales job. The information provided in a resume must be relevant to requirements of the position applied for. Otherwise, it is likely that it will end up in a discard pile very soon.
Reason #4. The safest ground when developing a resume is to go with a classic black and white style. Creativity is good but not all employers like to receive resumes with colorful layouts with many graphic elements. Besides, you may think you have great taste in design but a hiring manager might have the opposite view. Keep in mind that it is not about what you like, but rather what an employer thinks is good.
Reason #5. Your resume doesn’t have a clear structure. A poorly structured resume will always give trouble to HR managers because it is difficult to find the information the one is looking for. Sometimes those in charge of hiring decisions will just save their time and discard such resumes right away.
Reason #6. A bad resume is also is one that doesn’t have enough of white space. If everything is crammed into one page but doesn’t have enough of white space gaps to separate the blocks of information, it is likely that it will be thrown into trash.
Reason #7. Hiring managers are not just interested in what you used to do at your previous jobs. They are more interested in what you achieved. Because any company is oriented on achieving specific targets rather than on just operating. Therefore, HRs usually believe that a bad resume will contain job descriptions without actual results or achievements.
Resume Writing Assistance
If you now realize that what you have is a bad resume, you might want to change it. However, most people don’t know how to turn things around. They need some kind of a resume guide that will help them address all of the aforementioned issues. Fortunately for job seekers, there are many resume writing services available online that can be your resume guide assisting with whatever challenges you have to overcome. WeWriteOnline.com also offers a wide range of services to help job hunters develop an effective resume, cover letter, thank you note, etc. Having vast experience in resume writing, our experts will provide you with a brilliant piece that will meet and exceed your expectations. Ordering expert resume writing help at WeWriteOnline.com, you will receive a piece tailored to your guidelines and requirements. So, if you do not know how to write a resume, just get in touch with our team and we won’t let you down!<
